Weapons loaded for North Wildwood Beach Writers’ Conference

Lorraine Ranalli does not appear to be a belligerent person, but when the war starts, she’s not afraid to take up arms while she charges, General Patton-like, into the front lines.
Ranalli is the author of Gravy Wars, South Philly Foods, Feuds & Attytudes, and she will be one of the featured speakers at the North Wildwood Beach Writers’ Conference June 2-3. (For information, call 609-522-9406.)
Like so many women who share her heritage, Ranalli is often armed with the Mediterranean weapon of choice when she charges into a kitchen—the multi-utilitarian wooden spoon.
“Gravy Wars is about more than the love and passion that goes into cooking,” she said in a recent telephone interview. “It’s about the culture of South Philly, but it can be about any neighborhood.”
Gravy Wars asks (and answers) many questions, with each of the 11 chapters having a theme and a recipe. There’s also a glossary of Italian-American vernacular.
The chapter titles themselves are enticing, if not threatening. This is, after all, a book about war.
Chapter Two—How Wars Are Started.
Chapter Five—Malocchio…Stay Outta My Kitchen!
Chapter Seven—From Velour to Valor.
There are some standard questions, as anyone who has donned apron and wooden spoon should have already guessed.
• Is it sauce, or is it gravy?
Ed. Note: My own Neapolitan roots mandate that I answer this one up front—sauce is an ingredient; gravy is a finished product. Take a tomato, blanch and peel it, put it in a blender, then strain; eureka, you’ve got sauce! Add meat (ideally beef, pork, and veal), herbs, spices, olive oil, then simmer carefully while watching a ballgame, and in a few hours; voila, you’ve got gravy!
• Who makes the best sauce?
“Any Italian knows the answer to this,” said Ranalli. “It’s ‘I do!’”
Ranalli, whose background is in radio, will address the marketing phase of writing when she speaks at the conference.
“When I finished writing the book,” she said, “I thought, ‘Great, I have a manuscript—now what?’”
Then came the marketing angle.
“I got sponsors,” she said. “Sponsors give you instant distribution. They buy in because they are guaranteed they’ll be in 10,000 books.”
But the book isn’t cheesy, she affirmed. It flows as smooth as a lasagna filling, with such well-known sponsors as Canals Liquors and Cento products.
“Each sponsor has a story within the story,” she said. “They are all a fit for the book.”
This is more than a cookbook; more than a book about America’s diverse cultures.
“Yes, it’s about Italian food,” she said, “but it’s also about Italian families, and family businesses. Cento, for instance—as big as they are, they are still family-run, like a small company.”
Ranalli will dive more thoroughly into her marketing ideas at the Writers’ Conference, sharing them with those who attend. She’ll talk about how she published, and how she developed a marketing project.
“I’m no Hemingway,” she admitted. “I’ll probably be speaking to writers far more talented than I am.”
Gravy Wars nonetheless seems destined to be one of those classical south Jersey beach reads.
“More than anything, the book is entertaining,” she said. “If you want a laugh…
“When you hear my family’s story,” she continued, “you hear everybody’s.”
Ranalli is thinking about a follow-up (or two) to Gravy Wars.
“I want readers to send me their stories,” she said. “I’m thinking about Gravy Wars II, and Jersey Shore Gravy Wars, since so many of us grew up coming to the shore as kids with our parents.”
And that invariably meant the South Philadelphia gravy recipes came into contact with the recipes of the indigenous Italian population of Cape May County. Ocean breezes mingling with simmering stockpots of gravy—It must have made for some sumptuous aromas filling the Sunday summer afternoon air.
We’ll find out more when Ranalli addresses the Writers’ Conference. And be forewarned—she’s got a big wooden spoon, and she’s not afraid to use it, as evidenced by her combative and saucy-titled book.