A Timeless Italian Recipe Passed Down Through Generations

Smells amazing. I hope it's good. Nona. Oh. Happy birthday. Oh, thank you. Look, they're fall flowers, see? That's yours? Yeah. Oh, thank you. This is for me to you. See how it looks like fall? And there's a little pumpkin in there. Oh, thank you so much. Isn't that cool? Oh, wow. There you go. How old are you today? Thank you. Ah! 61? 65? Oh, yeah. Hey, Nona, what are you making today? The minestra the way your Nona used to make, Nona Iola. Oh, Nona Iola. Yeah. I loved her minestra. Yeah. That's why we're doing today, okay? Okay. So, to everybody that doesn't know, Nona Iola is my dad's mother that passed away in 2008. So, we haven't had her minestra in many years. So, Nona's going to recreate it today now. Yeah. Let's do the potatoes and then we show you, okay? How many do you use for the recipe? Well, depends. These are eight potatoes. What are you taking off, Nona? Take off the... I don't know what you call it. Those... The holes? Like the little brown spots? Yeah, the brown spots. Hey, see how nice I clean my potatoes? But not you. Why? Because you gotta clean all this off. Yeah? Yeah. Those look pretty good. Washing the potatoes. I'm cutting the potatoes. I'm just going to put a bit of salt. And I'm going to put the potatoes. And now we're going to wait. How long do you boil it for, Nona? When it gets soft. I'm going to put a bit of oil. And I'm going to put some garlic. How much garlic are you using? I got two. Two small ones. Two cloves? Yeah. I'm going to put spinach in there. Wow. Lots of spinach? That's going to fit. How long do you cook the spinach for? Just for a few minutes. A bit of salt. Black pepper. That's the vegetable seasoning, right? Okay. That's my favorite. See, I said that's all that's left of the spinach. How long did that take, Nona? Oh, just a few minutes. I'm going to wash it. I'm going to take the... I mean, actually, this is good. But if I put that in, it's going to become too mushy. So you rinse it first? Yeah. So I rinse it first, okay? And what kind of beans are you using? Romano. I'm going to put them in here. And how long are you going to cook it all together for? Maybe another 10 minutes or so. Okay, we're going to chop one onion. You come and do it, here. I cry when I chop onions, though. Too bad. I cry, too. And then you go chop it really fine, like this. Yeah, you want it fine? Okay. You got it? Yeah. Okay, here. I've never used a knife that small, personally, but... It's small, but sharp. You want me to chop it? Yeah. I'm going to put some oil. Looks well. You eat enough. Hey. Hello. You eat enough. Hey! I haven't got nothing for you yet. Wait. Wait, I'm going to give you something. Hold on. Don't give him garlic. If you want to kill him, give him garlic. Yeah, you can't give him garlic. Simba. He tastes good. He's like a little lion. You got to add more water to that. Hey, Maxwell. You little tiny lion. Now put some garlic on it, okay? We're going to put this inside there. Potatoes. Okay. Yeah. A bit hot pepper. Just a little bit. A little bit black pepper. That's it. I'm putting the rest of the spinach inside. She added a little warm water to it. So you added the spinach, beans, a little bit of water? Yeah. Now we're going to mix it. This looks like a polenta here. Schlapp. It's the best. It's delicious. I'm going to put some paprika just to make some colors, okay? Add some colors? Yeah. A little bit of olive oil. I didn't put that much. A little bit of that. That's it. Now it's done. It smells amazing. I hope it tastes good. How is it, Ono? It's very, very good. It reminds me exactly like my mom used to do. Really? Yeah. With potatoes? With potatoes and verdure. How do you like it? Oh, it's very good. Very good? Very good. How do you like it, Ono? Good. It's really good. You remember that? I love peppers. Exactly like Nona Yola used to make. I haven't had this in so many years. Brings back memories. Absolutely delicious. I could eat this every day too. So you could put different stuff in it. But this is the way my Nona used to make it. My Nona Yola. It's absolutely amazing. Me and both my sisters, Vanessa and Stephanie, would love this growing up. Loved it. She's the best. She made it all the time. So let us know down in the comments below how you make it, if you've ever made minestra. Because the proper way to make this is... Different ways. But you can use dandelion, rapini, broccoli. You can use anything. So usually it's not made like this. This is the way we make it. Yeah. Because this is the way my Nona Yola used to make it. But you can change it a little bit. Right. Yeah. So this is the way my family makes it. And the way my Nona made it. But the proper way to make it is the way my Nona Nina explained it. Well, today I have a story for you, Julian. When I was little, I don't even know how old I was, maybe four? Four years old? Four or five. I think it was younger than that. I think it was before. I couldn't wait for my dad to come home from work. So I remember, and he would always come home, he'd have his white overalls on and his aluminum lunch pail. And I could hear the car coming up and I would just be ready. So when he would open the door, I would run to him and jump on top of him. And I did that every day. Until one day, my dad yelled at me and said, you can't do that anymore. Because he almost fell back and he was worried I was going to get hurt. But I didn't understand that. And I just was so upset. And I cried all the time because of that. Remember that? Yeah. You were mean. No, I was not mean. She jumped really hard. Yeah. And one time was so hard, almost fell backward. So I had to say, don't do that no more. Yeah, and it broke my heart. Stop doing that. It broke my heart, but I'm okay now. But I didn't know that. Oh, I must have been, what? In your 30s? 32, 33. Yeah, very young. Every single day. And that's when you were a painter? When I was a house painter. And I remember, you smelled like paint. Oh, yeah, sure. You smelled like turpentine. Because I was always, in those days, we didn't have much water paint. It was mostly oil paint. Yeah, oil paint. And I smelled like turpentine every day. Yeah. Those were the days. Happy birthday to you. Oh, my God. Wow! Go get me a card. Ready? Yeah. 1, 2, 3. Happy birthday to you. Thank you. Woo! Bye. Bye-bye. Thanks for watching. And we'll see you next time. Bye-bye. Comment down below if you've ever tried the minestra recipe before. Give Noda a happy birthday wish as well. 82. That's what I said. No, you said 83. No. No, you did. He said 82. You cannot hear. Bye. See ya.