I hope all is well with each and every one of you, your family, and friends. I haven’t written a Publisher’s Note in awhile because it has been a very busy year for me. I know I mentioned a few of these things in my last Publisher’s Note, but since then my oldest daughter made her confirmation, my son made his first Holy Communion, and my youngest is just about to start preschool.
As promised at the end of last year, my goal for this year was to make Ciao Pittsburgh better than last year. Like I said before and will emphasize again, I compete with no one except myself. I wondered how can I outdo myself this year. Last year, we launched Ciao Pittsburgh’s La Famiglia espresso blend. It went over well; everyone who sampled the blend liked it and supported it.
This year, I feel that we grew tremendously. Dan and I added Jeff Fanala, Nicky Cooks, and my brother, Jay, formally onto our team. We are partnering with the Heinz History Center, along with Nicky, and holding a cooking class. We have also worked with these wonderful companies and individuals:
- Birra Moretti
- Salted Pig
- Domenica Merante
- New York New York
- Allegheny Smoke Works
- The Cigar House
- Giada Valenti
- Rana Pasta
- Westmorland Columbus 500
We launched Ciao Pittsburgh’s Aroma and salt free Aroma as well as our newest addition, Ciao Pittsburgh’s Aroma Piccante and salt free Piccante. We have had an overwhelming response with people purchasing our special seasoning blend.
Our Aroma was featured on a promo video of G-Fella, an Italian–American rapper from New York, for his reality TV show G-Thing. We have gained a lot of new readers, fans, supporters and connected with many Italian–Americans and people of other nationalities. We made several new working relationships with people from all over the country.
We feel very fortunate with the way things are going here at Ciao. I know I say this often, but we wouldn’t be where we are, without the support of everyone around us. We work hard to keep things interesting and show people the behind the scenes life of Italian–American living. We strive to keep Ciao unique and a Italian-American online magazine that will keep people coming back to see what’s next.
My life is like the meals that my family and I make—full of variety. I like variety. I can’t just sit down and eat pasta. I need some bread, a type of meat, and a nice hardy salad to accompany it. For starters, I like some vino and a nice meat and cheese tray. I’m a stand up guy and I look out for people who treat me right. My team knows how dedicated and ambitious I am. They also know I appreciate them. Although I’m the founder, one person doesn’t win on a team, a team wins together. We all work together and everyone of us has something special to offer.
As always, if you or anyone that you know has a small business or has a special talent that is Italian-American, please have them contact me. We would love to do a story on them. Until next time, green, white and red all day every day.
Giacomo (Jack) De Leonibus, AKA Jackie Cigars.