In this column we share the cuisine and recipes of Italy and our Italian American communities. Each month we feature recipes curated from our research and those shared by LGI readers.
Food and cooking are important aspects of our cultural identity and sharing recipes is one way for us to connect to our roots and to one another!
We invite you to share your family recipes and the stories behind them with us! Please email your favorite recipes and photos to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. before June 10. For more recipes like this, subscribe  to La Gazzetta Italiana.

Buon appetito!

Lil's Zeppole, Hoboken-Style
dalla cucina di Joanna Lucarino

I was first introduced to the best-selling author, Adriana Trigiani, through my two sisters, who are avid readers of her books. I recently read her latest, titled “The View From Lake Como”. I was lucky enough to be invited to a private party held in her honor on her visit to Cleveland this past July to promote this book. I will be sharing my musings on this delightful woman and this wonderful story in the future. Now, I want to share the one recipe she included in this book, which comes from “Aunt Lil”

Ingredients:

For the batter:
1 cup whole milk
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 large egg, beaten
Splash of cold water
For frying:
1 quart vegetable oil
For drenching:
2 cups granulated sugar, to sprinkle on the hot zeps out of the fryer

Directions: 

Heat the milk in a pot, whisk in the sugar and yeast, and set aside. Sift the flour and salt in a large bowl. Make a well, place the egg and a splash of cold water in the well, and whisk until blended. Add the milk, sugar, and yeast into the bowl until a lumpy dough emerges. Stop whisking. Smooth dough makes for lead zeps. Put a large mopeen over the bowl and set it in a sunny window to rise in the heat. You want the dough to rise high enough to fill the bowl to overflowing (leave it for about an hour as it rises). Heat the oil in a large pot until it’s roiling at 375 degrees F. Have a cookie sheet covered in paper towels close by. Using a two-spoon technique, make a mound of dough about the size of a tennis ball and drop it into the hot oil. Continue until you have six balls of dough in the hot oil. Gently turn the zeps with tongs until they are golden brown. Remove the zeps with a slotted spoon from the oil and place on the cookie sheet. Repeat the same until all the dough has been fried. Douse the warm zeps in granulated sugar.
Note from Lil: “South of Naples, they prefer powdered sugar, but I never liked it. The granulated sugar looks like diamond dust, and you know I love a diamond”.
*I had to look up the word “roiling,” which is an older term for a rolling boil, not a typo!
Happy reading and happy eating!