Feb 4, 2025
One set of Barbara
Gratta's grandparents came to the US from Calabria, the
toe of the boot of Italy. The other grandparents came from across
the Italian peninsula—Bari.
In this episode, meet Barbara.
Today, she owns, operates, and makes wine at Gratta
Wines in the Bayview. But her journey began in
White Plains, NY. All four grandparents came to Brooklyn in the
1920s. They all eventually moved north to raise families away from
the bustle of New York City. Barbara's grandparents were a big part
of her early life, the extended families getting together often for
"big Italian Sunday dinners" (yum!). These involved aunts, uncles,
and cousins as well as the older generation.
Barbara and her immediate family
lived upstairs from her aunt, uncle, and cousins. Because of this
set-up, she says it was more like one big family. And every week
culminated on Sundays, with as many as 30 people coming in and out
of these get-togethers. The sauce was on the stove starting early
in the morning. And if more people came, it simply meant more
pasta. If, like me, you're thinking of the "Fishes" episode
of The Bear, you're not far off.
Saturdays were spent going "up the
street," which meant shopping at places like Sears or Macy's. Maybe
they'd stop at White Plains Diner for lunch. But they always ended
up back at her grandmother's house for cake and coffee.
Her mom's youngest brother went to
school with Barbara's dad's youngest sister. They came from
different towns, but all ran in the same circles. And thanks to
this, as well as a tight-knit Italian-American community in the
area, her parents met. They got married in 1958 and had their first
kid, a son, in 1959. Then Barbara was born in 1960.
The family is Catholic, but that
manifested more in traditions than any religious sense. They went
to church on big holidays, and Barbara shares a story about her
grandmother giving her money for the Easter Sunday collection. But
she and her cousins pocketed the money and spent the service on the
church roof. After she was confirmed, around eighth grade, her
parents gave her the choice whether to keep going or not. Barbara
chose to hang up her career with Catholicism at that
point.
By the time Barbara was in high
school, her immediate family moved to Florida, in the Sarasota
area. She says it was a hard time for her, being torn from all the
people and places she knew. There wasn't a lot of Italian culture
in her new home. Her mom searched for ingredients to make the food
she was accustomed to. She spotted a sausage truck one day and
followed it. Only through this was she able to maintain some
semblance of her cultural past.
Barbara stuck around after high
school down in Florida. She got a degree in physical therapy and
worked for about 10 years on the west coast of the state. Still,
neither she nor her two brothers (one older, one younger) loved it
there. Barbara left Florida around 1989 or 1990 for
California.
Her first visit, before she moved to
San Francisco, was a vacation with a coworker in the mid-Eighties.
They stayed in a hotel on Van Ness near The Bay. They did what
tourists do—Fisherman's Wharf, drive over the Golden Gate Bridge,
that sort of thing—and didn't travel to any SF neighborhoods. The
visit involved a quick drive down to Monterey to see a former
coworker of theirs. The entire trip left her wanting to visit again
someday.
When the time came to move here, her
job set her up with a place to live for a few months. Barbara kept
renewing these contracts every three months. She started in the
southwest corner of The City, within walking distance of Joe's of
Westlake in Daly City.
We end Part 1 with stories of
Barbara's early friends in SF showing her around The
City.
Check back next week for Part 2 and
the conclusion of my episode with Barbara Gratta.
We recorded this podcast
at Gratta Wines in the Bayview in
December 2024.
Photography by Dan Hernandez