Once upon a time

...there was a boy named Dante Palermo who very much wanted a beautiful wife. He announced this to his Nonna Isabella, who lived with his family, when he was just five years old. To have a beautiful wife, he said, was to have the world.

Nonna laughed. "Che cosa è questo?" What is this? "Where did you hear such a thing?"

"Dad says it all the time."

"Sì, è vero." Yes, it's true. "But you have plenty of time, Dantelino. Rallentare"—slow down.

But going slow was not a lesson Dante had learned just yet. And the very next day, he came home from kindergarten with a black eye and a bruised heart (for at five years old, his heart was still too undeveloped to fully break).

When Nonna saw him, she asked what happened. "Che successo?"

"I told Tammy Birch I liked her. She called me gross and punched me in the eye."

Nonna said not to worry. "Non te preoccupa. There are other pretty girls. You come and help me in the kitchen today, and I will teach you about food and life."

They went to the kitchen and made homemade fettuccini and marinara sauce for the family dinner. While Dante kneaded the pasta dough, Nonna said the most important thing to know about cooking was that it, like life, was all about love. "As long as you cook with real love," she said, "people will love your food." And on that day, Dante started a journey that would lead him to success beyond his imagination with cooking.

With his heart, however, he was not as lucky.

For years to come, almost daily, Nonna would ask, "Did you talk to any pretty girls today?"

"No, Nonna."

"Perché no?" Why not?

"Because they don't like me."

"How do you know if you don't talk to them."

"Remember Tammy Birch?"

"That was just one girl."

Dante would just shrug.

But Nonna would always smile and tell one of her Sicilian folk and fairy tales. She told of pig kings, a rooster who wanted to be pope. Dragons, all kinds of fairies and talking animals. Dante must have heard hundreds over the years. So many characters, so many lessons.

And so it went until he was thirteen years old. He was a freshman at East Des Moines High School, and the girl's name was Amy Leonardo. Her brown hair and her big brown eyes seemed to shine unlike anything Dante had seen before. Her dimples melted him every time she smiled. Of course he had never spoken to her. But one day his science teacher asked him to be a last-minute addition to the Science Bowl team for the city tournament. At first, Dante declined the invitation, but when his teacher explained he'd be paired with Amy as the freshman members of the team, Dante's disinclination disappeared.

Throughout the afternoon, as the two of them studied everything from pi out to ten digits to E=mc2, from cloud formations to human cell structures, Amy smiled and laughed with him. She nudged him and put her hand on his arm.

What was this? Such a beautiful girl seemed to like him. No other girls had ever liked him before. But the way she looked at him. No other girl had looked at him like that before. Each smile burned an indelible mark onto his heart, and when he left school that afternoon, he knew his universe had changed forever.

That night, he happily did not sleep. His heart pounded and he felt like a bright golden light was shining out from his chest. He knew now what love was and why everyone in the world sought it so desperately. It was like nothing he could explain, beyond incredible. And now he finally truly understood what his father meant when he said to have a beautiful wife was to have the world.

The next morning, Dante couldn't wait to get to school. He arrived a full half hour early and waited in the hall not far from Amy's locker. When he saw her, his heart swelled to three times its normal size. He took a deep breath and went to say hi to Amy at her locker.

He got there just as her friends, Sue and Carmen, did. They looked at him like he was in the wrong place. Then Carmen said, "Eww, look at the zits on his face." Dante looked to Amy's eyes and thought he saw the smallest hint of succor, but when she laughed, he turned and walked away. He went straight to his science teacher and quit the team (which ended up finishing last in the tournament).

When he got home from school that afternoon, he passed under the kitchen window, and heard Nonna singing, "Ciuri, ciuri, ciuri di tuttu l'annu, l'amuri ca, mi dasti ti lu tornu… Lah lah la-la la, la la, la la, la lah..."

On any other day, he would go help her with whatever she was cooking. But today he kept walking.

Nonna called out the window. "Dante, potete venire e mi aiuta a un minuto?" Can you come and help me a minute?

"Si, Nonna."

He walked into the kitchen, and as soon as Nonna saw him, she shook her head.

"My povero Dantelino," she said. "One day I will be back for you."

But Dante only stared out the window.

Nonna walked over and put her hand on his face. "Forget that girl. She non deserve a boy like you."

Dante hadn't told anyone about his love for Amy. How could Nonna know anything about what happened that morning?

"What girl?" he said.

"The girl who turn off the beautiful light in your eyes."

Dante clenched his jaw and tried to hold in the tears.

Nonna smiled and kissed his cheek. "Tonight I make something for cheer you up. By the time you finish dinner, all will be well again."

That night, Nonna made pasta puttanesca, one of Dante's favorites.

But as much as he loved this dish, that night he sat staring at his plate.

"Mangiate," Nonna said.

"I'm not hungry."

Dante's brother and sister both flinched. Nonna's normal reply to an answer like that was a slap on the back of the head. But she only arched an eyebrow.

"Hey," Dante's older brother, Frank, said. "Aren't you going to slap his head?"

The palm of her hand met the back of Frank's head.

"Ow! What'd I do?"

"Mind your business," Nonna said.

"Ma," Frank said, looking at his mother, who only shrugged. He turned to his dad.

"Don't look at me," his dad said. "I don't want to get slapped."

Nonna placed her hand on Dante's shoulder. "Eat so I don't have to hit your brother again."

Dante's little sister Carolyn, giggled.

Dante sighed and picked up his fork. As soon as he took the first bite of the spicy spaghetti, the warmth went straight from his mouth to his heart. And even though Dante never thought he'd smile again, by the end of the meal he was laughing and couldn't even remember what he really liked about Amy in the first place.

It would not be Dante's last broken heart, but it would be the last his Nonna would see, for she would leave this Earth only five years later.

When she got sick, Dante spent hours and hours with her. They talked food and cooking. And Nonna told her stories. From when she lived in Sicily. Or her folk tales. No matter the subject, she always seemed to have a story to help make her point.

And no matter the pain she was in, Nonna always smiled and never complained. When Dante's eyes showed his worry and fear, she would remind him that everything happens right on time, and when she left her body, she would still be with him in his heart.

One morning she called Dante to her bedside. "Dantelino," she said, holding his hand. "You have such a big beautiful heart, so I want you to always remember this: Fidati del tuo cuore, e la fiducia l'imprevisto." Trust your heart, and trust the unexpected.

That afternoon she died.

And true to her word, she remained strong in Dante's heart. Every time he cooked, he felt her with him. And he tried his best to trust his heart, but it always seemed to lead him astray.

Dante's next heartbreak came when he was twenty-one. He was in culinary school, and working as a line cook at the hottest restaurant in town, French Quarter on Court Avenue. Michelle waited tables. It took Dante all of fifteen minutes and a wink to fall in love with her. They dated for nine months, then late one night after work, sitting in his car, she said she was moving to New York to pursue a modeling career.

"If you wait until I finish school," Dante said. "I'll come with you."

"That's a year."

"But…" He took her hand and said what he'd never said to a woman before. "I love you."

She said she was sorry, she couldn't get another year older before making something happen in her life. A week later, she was gone. And Dante didn't go on a date for over two years.

While his heart may have suffered, his cooking did not. His skill took him to Rome, and after a year there working in his cousin's restaurant, the young chef moved to San Francisco where, after several years, the third, and most recent broken heart was inflicted by a woman named Kate. She was so quiet and shy. The vulnerability in her eyes fell him and for a year, Dante grew more and more attached. This one, he thought, might just be his destiny. But her eyes obscured the truth in her heart.

"His name is Geoff," she said on a foggy Sunday afternoon. "And I've been in love with him for years. We just never could get together. His divorce was final yesterday and he told me he has always loved me."

After Kate, Dante lost twenty pounds in one month, and started to believe that perhaps there was no one in this world for him. That he was destined to be alone. Until one day, while traveling in a city known for its glitter and vice, he found the woman he thought he'd been meant for all his life. Her name was Abby. And Dante gave his heart one last time, hoping his search for a beautiful wife was finally over.