Rossella Rago is the host of the popular web TV series Cooking with Nonna (cookingwithnonna.com). For each episode of the show, Rossella invites an Italian-American nonna to cook with her and share traditional Italian recipes and fond memories of her childhood in Italy. Rossella, a graduate of St. John’s University, has traveled the country and performed cooking demonstrations in numerous cities across the United States with local nonne as her partners.

Rossella spent her childhood in the kitchen with her maternal Nonna Romana, learning the long legacy of recipes from Puglia passed down through the generations. Launching Cooking with Nonna TV has allowed Rossella to expand her culinary expertise to much of the rest of Italy too. Rossella, together with her mother and her Nonna Romana, won the “Italiano Battle” episode of the Food Network’s 24 Hour Restaurant Battle in 2010. She is the author of Cooking with Nonna, Cooking with Nonna: A Year of Italian Holidays, and Cooking with Nonna: Sunday Dinners with La Famiglia. Rossella lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Adriana Trigiani is beloved by millions of readers around the world for her bestselling novels, including her latest, All the Stars in the Heavens, the instant bestseller of The New York Times, Barnes & Noble, Publishers Weekly, USA Today, and Indie Booksellers nationwide. She wrote the blockbuster The Shoemaker’s Wife, the Big Stone Gap series, the Valentine trilogy and Lucia, Lucia.  Trigiani’s themes of love and work, emphasis upon craftsmanship and family life have brought her legions of fans who call themselves Adri-addicts (a term coined by book maven Robin Kall). Their devotion has made Adriana one of “the reigning queens of women’s fiction” (USA Today).

The New York Times calls her “a comedy writer with a heart of gold”, her books “tiramisu for the soul.” Her books have been translated in 36 countries around the world. Adriana has toured many of the countries, including South Africa, with annual visits to the United Kingdom.