When Anna Maria Graziano shuts the door on her Italian restaurant and gourmet food shop Tutto Pronto, the apron doesn’t come off. She’ll happily cook for friends and family when she’s not busy catering for a legal firm downtown or looking after customers dining out. “I love cooking,” she says. “I love the planning and the shopping and the preparing. I love the entertaining.”
Growing up, Anna spent a lot of her spare time helping out at her parents’ supermarket and learning about what makes the food business tick. “We didn’t have the means to go to camp or have babysitters, so we spent a lot of our free time around our parents’ store,” she recalls. “What we lacked in that way was more than made up for in the quality food that was on our table every day. I always knew food as a source of getting together and enjoying.”