Agricultural and Culinary Traditions as Connection to Place: A Conversation with Fabrizia Lanza

Join us for a thoughtful conversation exploring how food, culinary traditions and sharing meals with one another can foster a deeper connection to place and support the building of a food system grounded in resilience and care. This interactive conversation will be moderated by food writer Melissa Pasanen and will encourage audience engagement and reflection on the relationship between food, land and culture.

Fabrizia’s books will be for sale and signing at the conclusion of the program.

Fabrizia Lanza is the director of the Anna Tasca Lanza Cooking School, an immersive food and education center rooted in the heart of rural Sicily. She is a storyteller, researcher, and lifelong observer of the ties between land and table. Over the past 15 years, Fabrizia has expanded her mother’s original cooking school into a vibrant platform for rethinking foodways through programs, films, books, and hands-on experiences. 2026 marks the 10th anniversary of Cook The Farm, Anna Tasca Lanza’s immersive food educational program, launched by Fabrizia in 2016. This course brings together participants from around the world to cook, taste, and think about the broader landscapes behind what we eat. Fabrizia’s work has appeared in publications such as The New York Times, Financial Times, Bon Appétit, and Kinfolk. She is the author of Coming Home to Sicily and The Food of Sicily, and the producer of two documentaries, Amuri and Amaro. Through her writing, teaching, and research, she preserves traditional knowledge while cultivating space for new food stories to emerge. In addition, she is the visionary founder of the emerging Anna Tasca Lanza Foundation, a non-profit organization based in the United States to promote cross-cultural understanding and community resilience by preserving culinary heritage and storytelling traditions. 

Melissa Pasanen has worked as a food and agriculture journalist and cookbook author for more than two decades. She is currently a staff writer and assignment editor for the food and drink section of Vermont’s alt-weekly, Seven Days. In 2022, she won first place for national food writing from the Association of Alternative Newsmedia and in 2024, she took second. Melissa has authored or co-authored three cookbooks, including the New York Times notable cookbook, Cooking with Shelburne Farms: Food and Stories from Vermont, and The Little Local Vermont Cookbook: Recipes for Classic Dishes. Her work has been published in The New York Times, USA Today, Saveur, EatingWell, and on FoodNetwork.com, among many others. She earned a master’s in food systems from the University of Vermont.