By Emily Stonehouse

It started small.

Reaching out to a small business owner, in an effort to understand how the ongoing tariff disputes with the United States are impacting them.

It became so much more.

Pasta and Italian heritage and connections to Haliburton and a whole lot of tomatoes.

The story of OG Cucina was unlike any other.

But let’s start at the beginning.

Rewind to 2019. Enter: Daniela Pagliaro. A familiar face around town, from her work with a wide variety of community organizations and artistic endeavours. Though these days, she’s known as “the Pasta Lady”. We will get to that point soon.

Pagliaro had just been through her second round of breast cancer. She was tired. She was stressed. She was overwhelmed. She was stuck.

“I needed a creative project,” said Pagliaro. “I knew I needed to get my hands into something.”

Pagliaro has a deeply rooted Italian heritage, linking to her parents on both sides of her family. Her maternal grandmother, Ortenzia Giordano, taught her how to make gnocchi from a young age. And while she enjoyed the craft, it wasn’t something she practiced often.

Until she needed to get her hands into something.

And suddenly, the ancient craft of pasta making became a form of meditation for Pagliaro. At this point, she had moved back to Haliburton after calling Toronto home for a number of years. In an effort to find her footing in the small town once again, she began making pasta. For friends. For family members. For neighbours. “People started asking me if they could buy it,” she recalls, as we sat in the sun-soaked kitchen; the glint of the morning reflecting off the brass pasta tools. “It didn’t start as a business idea. I just knew I loved making pasta.”

Pagliaro started OG Cucina (a shoutout to her matriarchal Nonna, Ortenzia Giordano), right on the cusp of the COVID-19 pandemic. But it worked for her. It was exactly what she needed.

Five years in, she now partners with local establishments to sell her products, runs classes alongside local businesses, offers workshops in her warm and cozy kitchen, and provides porch pick-ups for anyone interested in trying her pasta. She is active on Instagram, @OG_Cucina, where you can make orders online. She’s moved beyond the original gnocchi shape her Nonna had taught her (though she continues to offer it) and has experienced with new shapes, colours, textures, and tastes.

“The Italian word for female pasta maker is ‘la Pastaia’ which literally translates to ‘Pasta Lady’, which is what people say to me when they see me on the street now. ‘Hey! Are you the Pasta Lady?’”

Pagliaro recalled feeling a connection to her heritage when she was a youth worker, in Bella Bella, British Columbia. It was here that she was given the opportunity to recognize and partake in a number of Indigenous traditions and practices, with considerable matriarchal ties. “It made me think about my own rich culture, steeped in mythologies” she reflected, “and I started seeing our traditions differently.”

A family affair. That’s how Pagliaro refers to the Italian experience. “We made passata (strained tomato sauce) every year, since I was in my mom’s belly,” she chuckled, noting that they make enough for the entirety of the year. When the early stages of a spark were flickering in her mind, Pagliaro contacted her family members. Her parents, her cousins, her aunts and uncles. Each had a different skillset, a different experience, that they could bring to the table – metaphorically and literally.

“As soon as I started making pasta, I felt completely zen and relaxed,” she said. “And it continues to be a family affair.”

Many Italian cultures carry deeply woven matriarchal values. “Women were literally the ones who kept people alive through the wars,” said Pagliaro. And they did it through everything. Times of peace and times of war, they always made it work.

“I wanted to talk about La Cucina Povera,” said Pagliaro. “It literally means ‘the kitchen of the poor’ because that’s what these Italian women were working with throughout the war,”

Pagliaro noted that despite financial strife, Italian women were able to source, forage, and grow food to keep their country alive and fed. And there’s a certain resilience to that, which has been passed down from generation to generation. “In North America, Italian food has become very elevated. But I always want to make it accessible, in an effort to pay homage to La Cucina Povera.”

Pagliaro doesn’t believe in starting her own restaurant. “That’s a really fast way to go out of business,” she chuckled. But she’s not totally shutting the door on selling her products in the core of the community. She’s made one exception, and for good reason.

Fairly soon, you will be able to purchase her homemade pasta, focaccia, and sandwiches at the newly renamed Redmans Records in downtown Haliburton.

She’s made this decision because she has worked with the owner, Kelsey Redman, a gardener and forager herself, on a number of La Cucina Povera initiatives. They both believe in the magic of good, accessible food.

And on top of that? Pagliaro feels ties to that part of the street. “There is a long, strong Italian history there,” she noted.

In 1988, local author Leopolda Dobrzensky published They Worked and Prayed Together: Italians in Haliburton County, highlighting the significant impact Italian immigrants have had on Haliburton County over the years. In the late 1800s, groups of Italians were brought to the area to work at the old Donald Chemical plant. They were primarily brought in for manual labour, but it was a chance at a new beginning for many.

Conditions were poor, but families chose to plant roots in the community. Now this can (and likely will) be a whole article unto itself at a later date, but in the downtown core, there are photos of Italian families running what was once a small fruit market. Right around the same area Redmans Records stands today.

And those Italian roots run deep. Pagliaro can feel it.

That’s why she’s proud to carry on her heritage, in the same way generations of women before her have done.

“In Italy, the ladies still make pasta out of their homes, much like I do, and people buy it from them, including Michelin Star restaurant owners,” she said. “So proud to be a part of that tradition.”

As for the tariffs, like any business owner, Pagliaro is letting time tell. Since she doesn’t have any large overhead costs, she is primarily concerned about the specific taxes on products from Europe, as well as the increased cost of aluminum, which will impact the tomatoes she uses.

But she sees this as another opportunity to go back to the land, in any way she can. Using local products, partnering with local businesses, and featuring local specialties. While it feels like a long way from Italy, La Cucina Povera can be put into practice anywhere.

And isn’t that the point of a legacy? To carry on the traditions? To modify and alter and adapt so that the stories continue?

The day before we sat down in her cozy and warm kitchen, Pagliaro had just wrapped up a March Break cooking class for local kids. There were Italian words printed out and taped around the kitchen, so that the kids could use them properly. They all left with enough pasta to feed their families. And they had been taught a pasta shape that was 1000 years old; hailing from Trapani province of Sicily, and also found in Calabria, where Pagliaro’s family hails from.

And while she may be an ocean away from those roots, she’s planting them here, and paving her way forward. “My Nonna is in this kitchen,” she says, as she peers around at the morning light. “I can still feel her here. She’s here.”

It started small.

And became so much more.