Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1187612
102 "As a kid, my grandmother would make 'gravy'—it's what we grew up with," Caturano recalls. "It reminds me of being a kid, waking up to the smell of frying garlic, meatballs, and tomato. It's what we ate on Sundays when we would go to my grandmother's, or what my mom would cook if we stayed home." It's unclear why the tomato-and-meat- based topping for pasta is called "gravy" in some Italian American communities around the country, whereas it is "sugo" or "sauce" in most others, but when Caturano set up shop in Gloucester, he found himself in "sugo" territory—at least according to Gloucester Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken. "Never gravy, not in my Sicilian town," Theken says. She made that clear to Caturano the very first time they met, the chef says. He stopped by her office to introduce himself and, as he recalls it, "The door flies open, she busts in the room, sits down, and says, 'Answer me this: Is it gravy or sauce/sugo?'" An intimidating first encounter, to be sure. Caturano didn't want to make an enemy, but he didn't know the right answer either. "I looked at her and said to myself, 'Choose your words wisely,'" he recalls. "I knew I couldn't lie and she was dead serious.… So I said gravy." It was the wrong answer, but as one passionate Italian American cook to another, the two agreed to disagree and hatched an idea for a cook-off fundraiser on the spot. Nearly four years later, the annual Crush Cancer luncheon and silent auction has become a hot ticket on the North Shore every December—and has raised nearly $80,000 to help area families coping with cancer. It's an impressive figure, especially since 100 percent of the proceeds go directly to the cause. Caturano and the mayor donate all the food, the chef provides the space, and Tonno's servers give their time as well. Caring for families struck with cancer has been an important cause to Mayor Theken for a long time. She worked at Addison Gilbert Hospital for 20 years, volunteers regularly at the Salvation Army, and has witnessed firsthand the ways cancer affects not just the CHEF ANTHONY CATURANO didn't know what he was getting into when he introduced "Gravy Sunday" to his restaurant Tonno Cucina e Cantina in Gloucester. The menu of homey Italian American favorites like chicken parm and house- made tagliatelle with meatballs is intended as a warm invitation to the community, and an homage to his childhood in Revere. Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken and chef Anthony Caturano in the kitchen.