Nadia Caterina Munno Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe. And I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, coming to you from Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center in the heart of New York City. I'm the founder and editor of Cherry Bombe Magazine.
My guest today is Nadia Caterina Munno who many of you know as The Pasta Queen. Nadia started making her own videos during the pandemic filled with her signature flourishes, family, fashion, and of course great food. And she quickly built a huge audience. She published a fab cookbook in 2022 and is working on her second book which will be out in November. And she just launched a line of pasta sauces that I want to try and so will you after you hear Nadia describe them. Nadia also shares how her entrepreneurial roots were planted years ago back in Rome. Thanks to her enterprising grandmother. I loved talking to Nadia and can't wait for you to learn more about The Pasta Queen. She is the real deal. Stay tuned.
This year's Cherry Bombe Jubilee Conference is right around the corner. It's happening Saturday, April 20th in Manhattan. Cherry Bombe's mission truly comes to life each year at Jubilee when hundreds of women and culinary creatives from around the world get together to learn, connect, and of course, eat and drink. It is a very special day. This year's Jubilee is sold out, but you can join the waiting list on cherrybombe.com. Big thank you to this year's Jubilee sponsors, Kerrygold, San Pellegrino, Wegmans, Johnnie Walker, Veuve Clicquot, and HexClad. If you're joining us at Jubilee, be sure to come say hello. I'll be walking around Center415 all day.
Thank you to Walmart for supporting this episode of Radio Cherry Bombe. Walmart is committed to empowering women all year long and supports female entrepreneurs by carrying an incredible range of female-founded and fueled brands. Brands like Siete Family Foods, a Mexican-American Food brand by Veronica Garza and as the name says, her family. Lume, the whole body deodorant line by Dr. Shannon Klingman. And The Honey Pot, plant-derived feminine care products founded by Beatrice Dixon. Check out these brands and more of our female-fueled favorites over at walmart.com/celebrate her. You can find that link in our show notes.
Now, let's chat with today's guest, Nadia Caterina Munno. Welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Thank you, Kerry, for having me.
Kerry Diamond:
What an honor to have you on the show for the first time. I'm so excited.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Yes, I'm very excited.
Kerry Diamond:
We met you said it was maybe a year and a half ago at a Stanley Tucci event.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Yes. He was launching his pasta with San Pellegrino.
Kerry Diamond:
With our friends at Pellegrino.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, absolutely. Was that the pastina? No, that was a different one.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
He was doing the gnocchetti or cavatelli.
Kerry Diamond:
Yes. And then he did a little pastina.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Yes. He did the pastina which I got which was really good with a chicken broth.
Kerry Diamond:
Pastina is like a religion for some people.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Pastina is the ultimate comfort food of any Italian.
Kerry Diamond:
How do you do yours or is there only one way to do it?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
No, there isn't actually. There is many different ways. I like to do a beef broth versus a chicken broth. There is certain staples that you have to have. You have to have onions, celery, carrots. But I also add other little things and I sear the meat before putting the water.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. This is a very fancy pastina because I just do chicken broth and some grated cheese and the pasta.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Yeah, so my pastina is really good chuck beef stew cuts. I sear it with onions, celery, carrots, a little garlic, extra virgin olive oil and I would put some bay leaf and rosemary just to give it a little bit of flavor. I take that out immediately once the meat is seared and then I add a lot of water and parsley. And then I just let it go for at least two hours.
Once that's done, you filter to a clear broth and then you can boil the pastina in it and reuse it.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you put cheese in it?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
At the end, always Parmigiano. And if you want to be extra fancy, you put a Parmigiano rind and you let it simmer for the two hours while everything is mixing and it's really good.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. I'm hungry already. Well, Nadia, you are here today because you've got a lot of special projects in the works. You've got this great cookbook. I want to make everything in this book.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Oh, good.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm sure a lot of people feel the same way, so congratulations.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Yeah. I mean, it was my first ever cookbook and I never thought that it would do so well. By that time when I worked on this cookbook, I hadn't done many events where I had met my audience.
So, to be honest with you, Kerry, I didn't even know that I had an audience because it was just digital numbers. When I actually went on my book tour, thousands of people turning up that I was talking to this amazing community of people that just loved food.
Kerry Diamond:
People might think that's so crazy hearing that from you, but you were in your home making all these videos. You were never out and about doing events, doing public appearances.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
It started with my iPhone. And so, it just started like that. But very quickly, I kind of realized within three or four months that it was a thing. It almost started a movement and somehow I had created this persona, The Pasta Queen, that really brought these warms to a very tough time at that time.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. It was during the pandemic. Obviously that's what Nadia is talking about. And I love the story about why you started making videos. Your daughter showed you a video of someone making I think it was lasagna but it was not lasagna as far as you're concerned.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
No. I mean, at the time when I joined TikTok, there was no known personalities on it. It was a lot smaller. It was a very young audience that really started dancing to trending sounds or to cool jingles or the Kardashians. And I just saw there was an amazing large Italian American community. And I also saw something that I couldn't unsee which was this blasphemous lasagna that got me addicted to TikTok.
Kerry Diamond:
And I think the person who was committing the blasphemy made it with American cheese?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Yeah, there was an orange-looking suspicious alien cheese.
Kerry Diamond:
Who came up with the name The Pasta Queen?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Me. And actually, it felt so right and so strong that I trademarked it right away. I was like, "I have to trademark this." So I trademarked it in the US and the UK.
The reason being is it made most sense because of my background. And back in the 1800s, my family had this really tiny venture. Let's just say they were very entrepreneurial back then and they were landowners. They started this little family-run pasta factory from their estate. And it got so big. It was just for the family then it became for the village and then the wheat production was so that it was given to the region of Campania, the Consorcio Agricolo.
And to this day, this still happens. But the pasta factory shut down shortly after it was created. And the only thing we know from my great-aunties which were little kids at that time, it was during the depression, there was the First World War and they just went into farming for themselves and providing produce to the whole region.
Kerry Diamond:
You have that in common with Giada De Laurentiis. Her family had a pasta factory back in Italy.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Wow. I had no idea.
Kerry Diamond:
Have you met Giada yet?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
No.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. We have to get all of you together. I feel like there needs to be this Marvel universe of Italian cuisine superheroes. We'll get you, Giada, Stanley, Nigella.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Yes. We need to get all together.
Kerry Diamond:
Nancy Silverton. Who else?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Yeah, the Italian “Avengers.”
Kerry Diamond:
That would be a very expensive TV show to produce, but I think it would be one of the most popular TV shows ever. Who wouldn't watch that?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Yeah, who wouldn't?
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. So your family had this pasta factory because I was going to say, you didn't go to culinary school, you didn't become a chef. I mean, you basically are now. You didn't set out to be that but you came from a family with deep culinary roots and traditions.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Let's say they're the OG foodies by necessity.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell me who cooked in the family because you learned how to cook from your family.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Yes. Everybody cooked. All the women in my family cooked, from my great-grandmother Carmelina, my grandmother Caterina, my great-Auntie Stella, Maria and Sandra, my auntie Pina. So I was surrounded by this legendary home raw way of building flavors and we would make sausages from scratch. There was farm with animals, ingredients. We would make cheeses from scratch with goats and cow's milk. Wine was made.
So I grew up, I mean I remember, I might have been like three going in the lands, the countryside with my grandfather on his Lamborghini tractor doing the rounds on all the lands that he owned all around Campania.
Kerry Diamond:
Lamborghini tractor sounds fancy.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Yeah. The Lamborghini tractor was really cool and he let us tag along. He wanted to teach us that he wanted my father to continue on because that's how it works in Italy. The family continues on the business map. My father became a civil engineer and it almost skipped a generation where I took that concept of farming and I expanded on it in a very digital crazy concept.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, it's interesting how it's circled back in a sense.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Yes. And I remember as a kid always wanted to do that. It just makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell me about these recipes. So, I know you dedicated the book to all the women in your family.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Are these family recipes?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
I would say a good 50% are and the rest are my own signature and some are just classics. You can't say that carbonara is a family recipe or a cacao e pepe.
Kerry Diamond:
Good point.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
But you can't say that a lasagna is a family recipe because every family in Italy makes it their own way.
Kerry Diamond:
How is your family's different because that's your desert island food, lasagna?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Brava, esatto. If I was stranded on a desert island, I would definitely would want a genie in the bottle to give me endless supplies of lasagna. And mine and my family's is different because we are Neapolitan style, very rich in flavor and very more is more.
So, we have boiled eggs in it, salami in it. Our ragu is made with sometimes peas and mushrooms as well and we layer in amazing wines that are very rich and come from very rich soil. And so, I think it's a really intense extra lasagna that would nourish you on a stranded deserted island.
Kerry Diamond:
What is the best starter recipe?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
I would say master the art of making a very simple spaghetti, al pomodoro e basilico because that's just if you go to Italy, we don't even call it pomodoro e basilico, we call it pasta al sugo and it means pasta with sauce.
So, when you ask your mama or your grandma pasta al sugo, it's with tomato and basil. That is the iconic Italian sauce that exemplifies any other sauces.
Kerry Diamond:
So we'll all start there. That's perfect.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
I think so. And also my secret in the pasta al sugo is to really par-cook the spaghetti just for two or three minutes in hot boiling water and then complete for the last four minutes in the sauce because then the spaghetti absorbs the tomato juices and they're basically the essence of sunshine, absolutely.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you put pasta water in?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
A little bit because obviously, you don't want the sauce to be too reduced, so you add the tears of the gods. But really what's happening right there is that the pasta is forced to complete its hydration with the water and the juices of the tomatoes so it absorbs everything that you've put in that sauce. The basil, the olive oil, the garlic, all that flavor that is created, the pasta has to absorb it. And so, it releases starches and it absorbs the juice and increase the most creamy finish dish.
Kerry Diamond:
Cheese, no cheese?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Always cheese. You have two main staples and that's either Parmigiano Reggiano which is everybody's favorite. I mean, every Italian doesn't have a wedge. It's impossible. Or if you go more south from where I'm from, you'd have Pecorino Romano as well. So, you can play with both.
Kerry Diamond:
You also talk about fresh pasta versus dried pasta. I think a lot of us who aren't Italian didn't grow up in that heritage always think fresh pasta is better, but that's not necessarily the case.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
No, it's just a different style and different structure and flavor. Because a fresh pasta can be also eggless but it's mostly an egg pasta and it's made with a different wheat than dry pasta. It's a soft wheat. It's a different flavor.
So, being and coming from a long line of pasta-makers in the dry, hard wheat crops, I by default always love and prefer dry, hard wheat, semolina pasta. I just don't know. It has that crunch.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you make fresh pasta very often?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Only in the weekends. And it's more of a celebratory longer process. You wouldn't be able to go like, "Oh, I'm throwing a quick lunch or a quick dinner midweek and I'm now going to start a fresh pasta from scratch process."
Kerry Diamond:
How about my favorite, gnocchi?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
I love gnocchi and there's many different ways you can make it. You can make it with potato. You can make it potato-less with ricotta instead which is a very delicate finish. Or you can make it like they do it in the south or in Sardinia which is just semolina and water. It has the shape of the gnocchi, a lot smaller but it's very hard to the crunch. It's almost like a cavatelli. There's like little, they have a gnocchi shape but they actually can be cooked al dente because they're made with hard wheat.
Kerry Diamond:
Which is your favorite.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Potato gnocchi. That's just a staple and I have secrets on how to make it extra fluffy. That is a very simple thing that you need to do is to use very old potatoes because it is all about the hydration of the potatoes. If the potato is too hydrated, too fresh, you'll need a lot more flour to compensate and get to the right dough stickiness.
Kerry Diamond:
So if you find that potato in the fridge that you forgot about that's growing little roots out of the eyes, perfect.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. Now I know.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
The older, the better because then you don't need to add too much flour to compensate for the water and it's mostly potato at that point. So when you eat it, it's like plant the potatoes too. You grow your own potatoes.
Kerry Diamond:
It's true. I do live in a Brooklyn apartment. But do you grow your own herbs outside?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Absolutely, yes.
Kerry Diamond:
You've got a nice-
Nadia Caterina Munno:
I got a little farm right now, a mini-farm. I have ducks, chickens and I have all my herbs and basic necessities.
Kerry Diamond:
That's the dream. We'll be right back.
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You've got another venture, your sauces.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Oh my goodness, I'm so proud of it.
Kerry Diamond:
So brand new. Congratulations.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
I have been asked, "What do you think is the secret ingredient that makes your sauces different from any other sauces?" And I think the secret ingredient is that I actually made them as opposed to an industrial product or maybe someone gives a guidance to a factory and then they try to replicate.
Those sauces were made in my kitchen. The chefs that I work with from my partners that I have developed the sauce with me flew to my kitchen. We spend time to really nail down every single ingredients. No processed, no seed oil, no sugar added, it's all about the ingredients and I wanted to encapsulate. And jarring is an ancient tradition in Italy. We jar thing at the height of their ripeness to pull us through periods when there isn't fresh or ripe produce. So, jarring tomatoes, jarring things, pickling all that, it's very ancient, thousands of years old back where you really pull through and you create your pantry, so to speak.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us how many sauces and what each one is.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
We have five sauces. We have a classic marinara, tomato and basil. We have an arrabbiata which is one of my favorite. It's really strong, gorgeous, garlicky, tomato, parsley, and chili peppers. Spicy vodka just because it's fun. I feel like a spicy vodka sometimes. Because spicy vodka was created in the '80s as a disco pasta and I grew up early '90s, my mother was obsessed with it so it was constant in our household. And the vodka just makes everything better. You know what I'm saying?
Kerry Diamond:
I grew up in Staten Island and vodka sauce pizza was the big thing.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Yes. And that's what I say. And then we have the white sauces, the Lemon Temptress. Now, this is a one of its kind because obviously this is a recipe from my family's table having grown in the region of Campania, Amalfi Coast, Sorrento. It's just around the corner from my family's home. We have lemons and I am obsessed with the lemons.
Kerry Diamond:
I was just going to say I'm obsessed with lemon and pasta.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Yes. I've seen a few that use ambiguous cheeses that cannot be traced back to what they are, but I'm proud to say that we developed Lemon Temptress just like my family would have with Parmigiano Reggiano fresh cream as if you are getting it as a by-product of gorgeous milk and lemons. And it's really, really different than anything I've seen on the market because of the quality of the ingredients.
Kerry Diamond:
And one more sauce. Did we cover them all?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
The four-cheese, of course. I'm from Rome, born and raised. Pizza ai quattro formaggi is a staple. If you go to a restaurant, you cannot really find pasta Quattro formaggi, it's mostly pizza ai quattro formaggi.
And I have been obsessed with the four-cheese that I have. And I wanted to create a sauce that can go anywhere. I even cooked chicken, four-cheese chicken, and mixed it with the Lemon Temptress sauce. So I experiment with these sauces.
Kerry Diamond:
Wait, what is a four-cheese chicken?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Basically, it's like a chicken piccata. A piccata is basically cooking with flour and wine. That's what piccata is. And you basically use a couple of spoonful of my Lemon Temptress and you melt it right after the white wine hits it. The garlic is there. You brown the butter and you just melt a couple of spoons of Lemon Temptress sauce, maybe one of four-cheese.
Now, the four-cheese has my four most favorite cheeses. It has gorgonzola, fontina, Parmigiano Reggiano and gruyere. Now, gruyere might not be 100% Italian but did you know that is so popular in Italy. That is also produced in the northern parts of Italy because we're so close to Switzerland.
Kerry Diamond:
The gruyere is a curve ball. I was not expecting it.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Exactly.
Kerry Diamond:
I love gruyere though.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Gruyere, it's one of my most favorite cheeses. And those four together with some fresh cream-
Kerry Diamond:
I have goosebumps thinking of that sauce.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
... and a bit of nutmeg. And the gorgonzola is strong. It's a very powerful little love potion that I've created. So, you definitely have to know your cheeses and be a cheese-lover because it's powerful.
Kerry Diamond:
I love gorgonzola, too. I love blue cheese. I love gorgonzola.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Oh yes, me too, me too.
Kerry Diamond:
What kind of pasta would you serve the four-cheese sauce with?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
You make a gorgeous potato gnocchi or even a ricotta gnocchi and you add the fifth cheese in there. And then you melt the four cheeses with the gorgonzola little tears of the gods from the gnocchi starchy water. And then you just simmer in there.
You can add basil to it at the end. You're going to have parsley to it at the end, even mint. I love four-cheese with mint leaves. It's just so incredible.
Kerry Diamond:
Where can you buy the sauces?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
They are at Walmart nationwide in the United States of America.
Kerry Diamond:
Are you going to go international?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Yes, 100%.
Kerry Diamond:
And how do you see the line expanding?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Well, we've got more sauces. We've got pasta. We've got olive oil.
Kerry Diamond:
Pasta Queen has to do some pastas.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Yeah. I mean, I started with the sauces because it's kind of my specialty. I was blessed with a photographic memory. My father has it, my brother has it. And I almost have a classification in my mind like a file clerk of every single flavor that I've ever tasted and even the quantities and how it tastes in certain degrees.
And when I think of a sauce and I'm making and I'm creating a sauce, I almost know instinctively what should go. And in my mind, I'm mixing flavors before I even create it, actually create them by hand. I'm mixing them with my imagination. And I'm imagining what's going to happen if I add a sprinkle of that, a little of that. And then I mix them and I'm tasting them in my mind.
And so, I almost instinctively know the mint, know the sage and know the thyme. We need a little bit more pepper here or a tiny bit Calabrian paste or a little bit more cream, a little less of cheese. That's how I created these sauces.
Kerry Diamond:
That's so fascinating. It's so interesting to hear how different people's brains work.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Yeah. My mind eats before I eat. It's crazy but I never thought about it because I have a team and we work and we develop a recipe every week and I'm like, "Mmm." They see me like I'm stopping, I'm tasting it with my mind.
Kerry Diamond:
I was just going to say people can't see what you're doing but you're tasting air essentially.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
I'm tasting, imagination. I'm dreaming of these ingredients coming together.
Kerry Diamond:
You've been an entrepreneur for a while.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Correct, I have.
Kerry Diamond:
I read that you followed some jazz band to London because you sold their merch I guess and you wanted to learn English so you jumped on that train.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
So, this is something that I haven't really ever touched on but my family on my mom's side, they started this apothecary in Rome in the late '70s where they sold potion and lotions. And then they got into supplements. And in Italy, they're very old school. By the time 1980s came, it was kind of weird. And my grandmother was at the forefront of importing supplements from the United States, actually from New York. The brand was Nature's Plus. And she was the exclusive distributor and created a franchise all over Rome and then all over Italy called The Witch.
Kerry Diamond:
The Witch.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
In Italian, La Strega. My grandmother came from nothing. She was the definition of a hustler. She was a hustler. She started from scratch, started from her home. Then she opened this little La Potagerie. Then she made it into a franchise. She sold the franchises and from one shop went to five shops and went to 10 shops. And now, they are distributor of products all over Italy and parts of Europe.
So, when I was growing up, she was very straightforward with me. She's like, "Young lady, you're going to have to learn to work and sell." So I was in the shop selling from age 13 and I had to learn to deal with customers. And I studied and just as a side hobby because I needed to understand what the herbs did so I had this book, it was the Nutrition Almanac it was called, and I was studying everything.
And I would ask my grandma like, "What does this do? What does that do?" And then I learned to put together potions and lotions. And I loved it. And I loved interacting with people and I love to see that exchange. I give you something, you give me something, there's an exchange. And I had to be brave because sometimes she'd just throw me in there, "Oh, you're just going to sell. Oh, there's two clients that came in. Just find out what they want and just fake it till you make it."
And so I was from a young age always thinking I was in commerce. I was like a trades person. And then my dad's family were farmers and there was exchange there. And there was, "I bring you a ton of flour and you pay me or you give me something in return." So I understood commerce very rudimentary.
And so I always thought, "I'm good at this." I had early success and then everybody in the shop loved me. "Granddaughter is so cute." And I don't know. I just built confidence in being able to deal with people. My grandmother built the empire for the family and it's still going to this day now. It's almost 50 years in business.
So The Witch, if you go to Rome and you see a shop called La Strega, it belongs to my family. She really set the bar for ... My mother became the CEO of that company. And when my grandmother stepped back and my mother was the CEO and I was in there with her and I was going to tradeshows north in Italy and I got to travel a lot for the tradeshows where you have to sell.
Kerry Diamond:
And when people say, "If you can't see it, you can't be it, you got to see it."
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Yeah. And I was proud of it and I saw it was a women-led business, my grandmother, my aunties, my cousins. And so, I commissioned these series of painting four years ago where I didn't want them to look like us because it was five women running this business, but I commissioned The Witches.
Kerry Diamond:
I saw that painting-
Nadia Caterina Munno:
You saw that?
Kerry Diamond:
... in the Wall Street Journal story about you and I'm like, "Why does she have a painting of these women with witches hat on?"
Nadia Caterina Munno:
These are my family. So I said to the painter, to this artist, I said, "I don't want them to look like us but I want them to have details and characteristics." So you'll see the cigarettes, you'll see the hats, you'll see the blonde, the brunette, but we are all different.
And then there is a magician in there. I wanted to encapsulate the power that the women on both sides of my family, my dad's side and my mom's side, very strong, very ahead of their times and they were leading women.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm understanding so much more about you through the story.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Right, yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Absolutely.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
I've never told that. I've never had the chance to tell that. But yes, if you do see randomly a painting of a witch in my walkway entrance, that's the story behind it.
Kerry Diamond:
You also told me something I didn't know that women in Italy don't take their husbands' last names.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
No.
Kerry Diamond:
So Munno is your-
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Munno is my name and will only be my name. I don't see a reason to change it. I am me. I am an individual. And I don't know the background but in Italy, you just cannot. You are you. You stay you in all your legal documents. So when I came to the US in 2015, it was me. It was just me.
Kerry Diamond:
Being an entrepreneur runs in your blood. You and your husband start a company called Massive Alliance.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
What's the company?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Well, obviously, I haven't worked there for five years since The Pasta Queen took off. And I'm so glad because originally, the idea was to do public relations and marketing services for corporations and C-level execs. And basically, the Massive Alliance specializes in Fortune 500, Fortune 1000, Fortune 5000 C-level executives branding and thought leaderships in their space. So we primarily work with corporations.
And although I love it and I appreciate all walks of life, we happen to work with a lot of banks and financial institutions, it wasn't my field. So, I was kind of always looking to go back to my family's beginning. I feel that I incorporate the farming and the lotion and potion and magic into my dishes. I almost blend where I come from myself as an individual which is obviously incredible produce, the land of the gorgeous food and the Dolce Vita to my grandmother's health healer's side. And I kind of create these magic potions.
Kerry Diamond:
I feel like a lot of the women and the listeners out there who have their own companies or who are C-suite executives could learn a lot from what you learned from owning that company and working as part of it. I would imagine that you look at people's social media now and think that could be so much better. Or you look at their LinkedIn and think, "Oh my gosh, they should really do blank."
Nadia Caterina Munno:
You're totally right. Find your voice and individuality in whatever business you have. So this is the biggest thing I see is that people are generic. I don't like that. Who likes that? It's like, "What is it about you that's different than anybody else?" And really, it's great because it really is you and it's what you love.
Even when you are a CFO, even when you're a CMO or whatever you are, a COO in whatever industry, there's something about you that is uniquely you. Find your voice and don't ever promote your company. Just be you and just be amazing and give value with what your passion is.
Kerry Diamond:
That's tough advice. Don't promote your company.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Don't promote your company ever. Nobody wants to hear how great is your company. Give me something that is uniquely you because then I'm going to be like, "Oh, I want to follow this lady. She's relatable. She's not just trying to sell, she's passionate."
It's not about the money. Money is low motivation. It's about a message. It's about what are you doing for people? It's value. That is really the biggest thing. Bring value, dude. And each one of us has things that they can teach to others. I'm talking about my experience, what touched my life, how can I bring value to you? And you don't have to promote your company. Stop mass promoting these things. It's about passion. It's about being relatable. It's about you. You matter.
Kerry Diamond:
Did the knowledge you learned from Massive Alliance help you with the building of The Pasta Queen?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Yes, I learned. When I was at Massive Alliance, my job was mostly in finances. So, I actually learned to do P&Ls and I learned to do financial forecasting and planning and investments. That's why I think I was able to embed in my Pasta Queen future. Some of the biggest, most successful people I know are either accountants or bankers. And whatever they do, they embed that knowledge. Because if you know how to manage your money, you can make your money work for you and you should never be worried about money.
It doesn't matter how much you have but if you manage them correctly and smartly, they can work for you. So, I learned that.
Kerry Diamond:
That's tough. You have to learn that early. You can't learn that later in life. So if you're younger and you're listening, pay more attention to finance.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
I would say yes. Take up courses, specialized courses that teach you really how to manage money and make money work for you whether you-
Kerry Diamond:
They should teach that in school.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Like in grammar school in high school. But we don't.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Okay. About geometry, I got it.
Kerry Diamond:
Or trigonometry.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
I'm like, "What do I do when I get my first paycheck? How much should I spend of it?"
Kerry Diamond:
I think about all the tiers in chemistry class, geometry, trigonometry and I graduated not knowing what a mortgage was, what a stock-
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Yeah, and you're like okay. So you got a big deal, right? And you get all this money and you're like, "What do you do? Do you go and buy a Lamborghini? Do you go on a one-year sabbatical and spend all your money? What do you do when you get your first paycheck? If it's $1,000, $2,000, $10,000, how do you manage? What are the rules?"
You see, this is very important and I had to learn it by hardship. And it was not taught to me in school. I trained under my CPA and I actually decided, I was like, "Okay, I need to actually spend time." I spent a whole year with a certified public accountant here in the US understanding how to manage money. But it's something that I wasn't taught in school but I was like, "I need to know this." And it helped me a lot. I love her for it.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk about Martha Stewart. She's a big icon of yours. You've looked at her empire and are kind of modeling what you're doing on her.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
I think I joked with the Wall Street Journal last year and I said, "It's like the Italian Martha Stewart." But I think we're very different. What I love about Martha is how fun, she can be fun, professional, little edgy, but really great work ethic. And you can see that in everything she's accomplished. That's what I want to emulate.
I just think she's very grounded. She's very strong. She's gone up and down. She's done so many different things. She's also very well-versed in finances which I think helps. And if I can give advice to young entrepreneur, women, whatever, anybody, just understand that side of the business because it's not about how much money you make because you have star, sports star that make millions and millions of dollars and then they burn it all and then they're broke. And so, how do you manage no matter how much money you have to build your empire?
Kerry Diamond:
Who are your mentors in the industry? Do you have any?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Yes. Susan Magrino is definitely one of my mentors.
Kerry Diamond:
One of the top PR folks in the PR world.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Yes. I mean, she's been with Martha for 40 years. And she's also, I don't know, there's something about her that's very witchy as well.
Kerry Diamond:
She was.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
And she's magical. She's a creature of magic. And when I'm with her, we just vibe, we vibrate. She's definitely one of them. And I have someone at Hello Sunshine who I really love, Maureen Polo. I love Maureen. Maureen, I've known now for two years. And she's really helped me set very basic ground role on how to build pasta. She's powerful entrepreneurial brand builder. That's all I can say.
We are close and I love her. She's a hustler. She's powerful. She's kind. She's considerate. She really has been nothing but pure kindness to me.
Kerry Diamond:
All right, speed round. What beverage do you start the morning with?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Espresso shot always, at least a couple.
Kerry Diamond:
A treasured cookbook or book on food?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Marcella Hazan's “Essential of Cooking.” I love Marcella.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. Tell us why.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
What a visionary.
Kerry Diamond:
A lot of folks don't know about her today which is sad.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Marcella Hazan is like that. I think she's the most iconic Italian ambassador that has been able to actually export our traditions in Italian cooking to the world really because I believe her book was still a bestseller 60 years later. So, I'm thinking, okay, she's special, she's magical. Her books are so enticing. When I read them, they make me happy. Her recipes are spot on. She's authentic, classic, iconic, just like you.
Kerry Diamond:
What's your favorite food film?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
La Grande Sera, “The Big Night.” I don't know what it is about that dinner. I think it's such a cool segment.
Kerry Diamond:
I love that movie.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
And there's so much energy and anxiety and then the Italian passion. And you think the guy is maybe going to kill him, but really he's just so passionate because the food is so good. And Stanley is amazing in it.
Kerry Diamond:
What are you streaming right now?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Ooh, what am I streaming? I'm actually like an obsessed streamer. Right now, I'm streaming “Resident Alien.” I stream so much. I have so many great ones. But I thought it was clever the way this alien comes into a little town and then he becomes a doctor. I mean, it's comedic and I love comedies.
Kerry Diamond:
What's always in your fridge?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Parmigiano Reggiano.
Kerry Diamond:
What was your favorite snack food as a kid?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Prosciutto di Parma.
Kerry Diamond:
What's your most frequently used kitchen implement?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
A ladle.
Kerry Diamond:
A ladle, okay. I think you're the first one to say that on the show.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Ladle and pasta tweezers. I use them for everything.
Kerry Diamond:
What do you use a pasta tweezer for?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
To create the most amazing pasta nests. But also to just move things around in the pan, to toss the pasta about, mix the tears of the gods with it. Grill vegetables, pick up meatballs. Very important.
Kerry Diamond:
What's your favorite smell?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Musk.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, last question. If you had to be trapped on a desert island with any food celebrity, who would it be and why?
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Food celebrity.
Kerry Diamond:
Because we've already thought about having the lasagna airdropped.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
So basically, I'm alone with a food celebrity and we're eating lasagna. This is hard. What do you think?
Kerry Diamond:
For you-
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Give me some names.
Kerry Diamond:
The three most popular are Martha, Anthony Bourdain, and Ina Garten.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
No, no, not on the deserted island. Someone who we can just have a lot of laughter. I want someone who's really, really laughing type. I love laughing. It makes me happy like feel good.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm trying to think who makes me laugh so much. You know who I just love so much? Nigella Lawson.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
I've never met her but I think she's got a little bit of an edge and she's got a great sense of humor.
Kerry Diamond:
One of the smartest people, too.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Right?
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Okay. Maybe Nigella.
Kerry Diamond:
And somebody you could talk to forever, I feel like.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Okay, good.
Kerry Diamond:
Just bring some sunscreen.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
That's it. Sunscreen, Nigella, lasagna, and Brunello.
Kerry Diamond:
Done.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Great.
Kerry Diamond:
All right. Well, Nadia, you really are the bombe. I've absolutely loved getting to know you better and I can't thank you enough for your time.
Nadia Caterina Munno:
Thank you. Thank you for having me. See you very soon.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. I could have talked to Nadia for another hour. I would love for you to subscribe to Radio Cherry Bombe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and leave a rating and a review. If you're a longtime listener and you haven't left us a rating or a review ever, it's time. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Joseph Hazan is the studio engineer for Newsstand Studios. Our producers are Catherine Baker and Elizabeth Vogt. Our associate producer is Jenna Sadhu and our content operations manager is Londyn Crenshaw. Thanks for listening, everybody. You are the Bombe.