Ossoli Cookbook: A fundraiser for the first public beach in Highland Park, Illinois

Presented by Highland Park Public Library’s Cookbook Club
with Highland Park Historical Society and Us!
 
 
We are encouraging people to prepare a recipe from this antique community cookbook and discuss the results. This cookbook is available online via the University of Illinois. Certainly you are welcome to sit in on the discussion and not have cooked anything!

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Thoughts on the Origins of Pizzerias in America and Chicago

Presented by Peter Regas
PizzaHistoryBook.com

View Presentation on Facebook and Youtube.

In the past, the historical consensus was the first licensed pizzeria in America was opened in 1905 at 53 Spring St. in New York City by a young Italian immigrant named Gennaro Lombardi. However, in 2019 at the U.S. Pizza Museum in Chicago, Peter Regas challenged that consensus with a talk titled “Filippo Milone and the Forgotten Pizza Makers of New York City.” Continue reading

Sweet Greeks: First-Generation Immigrant Confectioners in the Heartland

Presented by Ann Flesor Beck
Author and Candy Maker

View Presentation on Facebook and YouTube

Gus Flesor came to the United States from Greece in 1901. His journey led him to Tuscola, Illinois, where he learned the confectioner’s trade and opened a business that still stands on Main Street. Sweet Greeks sets the story of Gus Flesor’s life as an immigrant in a small town within the larger history of Greek migration to the Midwest. Continue reading