The Songs of the Kitchen

Sharing memories of a family's Italian kitchen

By BOBBI SEIDEL • STAFF WRITER • December 20, 2008

12/11/08 Father Alphonse Stephenson and his cousin Antoinette Scillieri prepare dishes featured in a new cookbook that will accompany Father Alphonse's new CD.

(STAFF PHOTO: TOM SPADER)

The Rev. Alphonse J. Stephenson and his cousin Antoinette Scillieri prepare dishes from their new cookbook in the Scillieri's home in Toms River. Proceeds from the book, which comes with a new CD of Italian music, go to a nonprofit group that buys instruments for promising young musicians through high school age.

An abundance of freshly prepared Italian food fills dishes and pots in the spacious
kitchen of Antoinette and Joe Scillieri's Toms River home: roasted peppers, pasta with marinara sauce, salmon in champagne sauce.

Beautifully braided long loaves of bread bake, their aroma tantalizing. Artfully
arranged plates hold struffoli … little honey-coated dough balls … and pastry bows
dusted with powdered sugar.

All this cooking wasn't done to entertain family and friends, a regular event at the
couple's lagoon-front home. These are examples of recipes in a cookbook Scillieri has created with her first cousin, the Rev. Alphonse J. Stephenson of Brick.

"Le Canzoni Della Cucina, Songs of the Kitchen'' offers their families' Neapolitan
and Sicilian recipes and a new CD of Italian music by the Orchestra of St. Peter by the Sea, which Stephenson founded in 1986 and conducts.

But this book is about more than food. It is, say the two, a reflection of their love
of family, tradition, cooking, music and charity.

All proceeds go to the Cecelia Foundation, a nonprofit group founded in 1987 by
Stephenson to provide instruments to promising young musicians, through high school age.

The idea for a book and CD occurred on a Sunday morning in February at his home, says Stephenson, a Catholic priest with the Diocese of Paterson.

"My parents were there, and Antoinette and Joe, around the kitchen counter having coffee and all,'' says Stephenson, 58, whose orchestra has made nine other fundraising CDs. "I said, "The next recording, I want to do all Italian music.'''

"Then he said to me, "Maybe a cookbook would be a good idea. Are you game?'‚'' says Scillieri, 67, a retired nurse and former caterer.

"She's a great cook,'' says Stephenson, known as Father Alphonse, pointing to the food. "She just whips this up!''

"My mother was a very good cook. I always watched her. She encouraged us,'' says Scillieri, who cooked her first meal, a shepherd's pie, when she was in sixth grade. "We had made it in home economics. My father tasted it and said, "This is pretty good.'"

She also learned from family members, including her mother-in-law Grace, "a
wonderful cook and baker,'' she says.

"Father Al is an excellent cook, too,'' she adds. "A number of recipes in the book
are his.''

"Anything that takes more than 20 minutes loses my interest,'' Stephenson responds, laughing. "But I enjoy it a great deal. Cooking is an art.''

Scillieri wasn't sure about the book.

"I went home and called my daughter Grace, and we came up with 40 recipes without even looking at all my recipes,'' says Scillieri, who also has a son, Joseph, and three grandsons.

Later that day, she called Stephenson and agreed to do the book.

"My daughter said, "Finally, I'll have a copy of those recipes!'‚'' says Scillieri, who
lived in Pompton Lakes before moving to Toms River four years ago after summering there for years. The cousins, who grew up in Paterson and whose mothers were sisters, included family photographs.

"We thought it would make the book more personal. We're a very close family, and this is a family cookbook,'' Scillieri says.

They spent hours sorting through photos as Stephenson wrote the captions. They
dedicated the book to their maternal grandparents, Michelina and Alfonso Ferraiola, who came to the United States without speaking English. Their grandmother was only 16 when she came here alone.

"We learned a lot more than cooking from them … their attitudes about what it was to be alive,'' says Stephenson, a compact, fit man with a boisterous laugh who is a colonel and command chaplain for the New Jersey Army and Air National Guard, Fort Dix.

"She always cooked the traditional foods she grew up with,'' Scillieri says.

"It wasn't fancy,'' Stephenson says. "I would go to their house for lunch every day
when I was in elementary school. There would be hard bread and beans and olive oil on top of it.''

All summer, Scillieri cooked, measured ingredients, wrote down family recipes and her own. Some recipes are from friends. Her husband typed them on the computer."It was a work of love,'' she says.

On Oct. 1, the book went to the printer. On Nov. 28, the book was ready.

The CD of traditional Italian songs and opera was recorded in April at Algonquin Arts Theater in Manasquan with the Orchestra of St. Peter by the Sea and additional
professional musicians.

"This is the music we grew up with,'' says Scillieri, who met her husband when they sang in a church choir.

Buying the book and CD gives people a glimpse into their lives, passes on traditional recipes and provides good music, the two say. It also helps young musicians, Stephenson says.

ORCHESTRA OF ST. PETER BY THE SEA

FOUNDED BY: the Rev. Alphonse J. Stephenson, also founder of Festival of the Atlantic

TYPE: for-profit

MEMBERS: about 47 professional musicians

PERFORMS: for a fee for nonprofit schools, groups and agencies that sell tickets to the concerts to raise money

PERFORMS: free on the beach in Point Pleasant Beach for the Festival of the Atlantic each summer

INFORMATION: (732) 920-4444

WINTER CONCERTS: 3 p.m. Jan. 4, Algonquin Arts Theater, Manasquan, (732) 528-9211; 7:30 p.m. Jan. 16, St. Anne Church, Fairlawn, (973) 569-7031

CONCERT WEATHER CANCELLATIONS: (732) 892-7702

"Le Canzoni Della Cucina, Songs of the Kitchen''

INCLUDES: List of recipes and 13-song CD

COST: $30 plus $5 postage

PROCEEDS GO TO: non-profit Cecelia Foundation

TO ORDER: E-mail seasymphonyinc@aol.com or call (732) 920-4444