As Rita Sodi, proprietor of I Sodi, on Christopher Street, explains her restaurant thusly:

I grew up on a little farm North of Florence, Italy, and almost everything my family ate was made from the farm, prosciutto, salame, wine, vegetables…and this food was very important for the family. We were not allowed to miss any meal. My mother, Elena, always told me to drink wine because it “makes good blood” and do not eat Prosciutto without bread. When I finished art school I began to travel for my work in the clothing business and at that point I really started to appreciate the simplicity of my mother's food and the way she cooked. For ten years I traveled from Florence Italy to New York, Los Angeles, Asia and Australia. Year after year, wherever in the world I found a kitchen, I began to cooked my Mother's food. Friends filled my kitchen and sat at my table, my passion was born.

How could one resist such a poetic start to a meal?