Man’s journey to Ottawa fueled by ‘big cheese’ and memories

Anthony LoFrisco can clearly remember the day that a big cheese changed his life.

He was 11 or 12, playing stick ball in the streets of Brooklyn, N.Y., with some friends, soon after the end of the Second World War. Another boy came running over to alert everyone of the biggest cheese he’d ever seen. The game immediately ended as the group of children ran over to watch a 1,000-pound provolone be hauled off a crate into a local grocery store.

“That cheese made such an impression on me because I’d never seen anything like it,” LoFrisco tells Yahoo Canada News. “That coupled with the fact that we hadn’t had cheese for the duration of the war. It made a huge impression on me.”

That story was recounted for a cookbook the 82-year-old “mostly retired” lawyer was putting the finishing touches on.

While doing some online research, LoFrisco, who lives in Connecticut, wanted to find something similar to jog his memory. He came across a 750-pound cheese in New Jersey, though it was imported from Wisconsin and not Italy.

When he searched for “1,000-pound cheese,” he came across Nicastro’s Italian Food Emporium of Ottawa. Every year since 1980, around the holiday season, the Italian food retailer receives the exact same 1,000-pound provolone, which is shipped from Italy by boat, as the one seared in LoFrisco’s mind. LoFrisco contacted store owner Joe Nicastro who invited him down to watch the massive cheese be shipped in.

The cookbook was immediately put on hold so he and his son could make the 673 kilometre drive to Ottawa to take in the spectacle.

Although he spent less than 24 hours in Canada’s capital, LoFrisco calls the quick jaunt on Monday “one of the best times ever.”

“We never expected that kind of reception to go look at a cheese,” he says.

Nicastro gifted LoFrisco with four pounds, which he nearly didn’t make across the border, thanks to customs. He shared some of the precious bounty with his son on Tuesday night, describing it as “fantastic.”

“It restored a memory,” he says. “I’d never think I’d ever see it again.”

LoFrisco’s cookbook is called “LoFrisco Family Cookbook” and features family recipes like meatballs, fried spaghetti and quiche. He will soon add several paragraphs to the chapter titled, “The Big Cheese of 13th Avenue.”

As for the big cheese of Ottawa, Nicastro says it’s a popular item, selling for $18 a pound.

“It should be sold out in the New Year, around the first week of January,” he says. “It’s a good cheese. Not too many people have a 1,000-pound cheese.”