Rossella Rago is an award-winning cookbook author and entrepreneur, with a strong online platform (over 1 million followers) that focuses on cooking, lifestyle, and travel.

She is the host of the online cooking show and food webisode series, “Cooking with Nonna” and a member of the Italian-American Power Hour podcast. Rossella was the winner of the Food Network’s 24-Hour Restaurant Battle: Italiano Battle. She runs successful culinary tours to Italy, and also designs cookware and other retail products in her “La Dolce Vita Collection”.

Rossella is a member of the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF), where she sits on the Italian American Youth Committee, and is also a member of the Order of Sons of Italy and the National Organization of Italian American Women (NOIAW).  She has been a member of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists since the age of ten. She has appeared in many films and television series, including the film The Thomas Crown Affair, Confessions of a Shopaholic and 13 Going On 30.  Additionally, Rossella has participated in several Italian-American pageants, winning the titles of Miss Mola USA in 2003 and Miss Idea USA in 2005.

Her first bestselling book, Cooking with Nonna, was published in 2017, followed by Cooking with Nonna: A Year of Italian Holidays in 2018.  For both publications, Rossella performed cooking demonstrations in bookstores throughout the country, with local nonne as her partners.

Her deeply rooted heritage finds its source in Mola di Bari, a small fishing village in Puglia, where her parents were from.  Born and raised in Bensonhurt, Brooklyn, Rossella graduated from St. John’s University with a B.A. in Italian Literature.  She lives with her husband in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.