La Dolce Vita Italian Courthouse Bakery

Participated in the May 2009, August 2009, and May 2010 Taste the World events, and participating in the 2010 Taste the World coupon book.

Opened in 2005

Berna Hoban, Dana and Lia Stucchi, owners
9 N. Duke St.
Lancaster, PA 17602
(717) 239-5101
www.ladolcevitalancaster.com
MTuWThSa 7am-5pm, F 7am-6pm

To try on your first visit: Cannoli - a creamy, cheesy, sweet filling in a fried pastry shell.

Bakeries run in the family for Dana Stucchi, who owns La Dolce Vita with sister Lia Stucchi and Berna Hoban. Her great-grandfather and grandfather had bakeries in Naples, and her mother and uncle started a bakery in Naples. But moving to the U.S. meant beginning again for her uncle. "He started off by cleaning for one bakery," Dana says. Within three years of moving, her bought the bakery. Now it's a long-standing favorite in Long Island.

"My sister and I really learned from him," says Dana, who came from Italy to New York then to Lancaster, where her parents had moved. Want to know more about his traditions? Check out the cookies. "We make about 30 different varieties," Dana says. There are cookies buttery and plain, cookies filled with raspberry and others filled with chocolate. Some are filled with apricot. What's most tempting to Dana, though, is not pastry or a cookie, but gelato, an Italian ice cream. "I could eat that any day of the week," she says.

One of Dana's most vivid memories of food has nothing to do with dessert. It's the weeks the family would spend making tomato sauce - yes, weeks. "Our whole family would get together. We would just buy crates and crates of fresh tomatoes," Dana remembers. "My grandmother and some of the kids would boil jars. Everybody had a job."

"It was pretty much a whole month we would do this. We would make enough jars of sauce for the whole family for the whole winter," she says.

To do: Dana grew up in Naples, Italy, and lived in Calabria for several years. Find both on a map of Italy. (Hint: Check near the end of the boot for the region of Calabria.)

written by Marla Pierson Lester; photos by Matthew Lester Photography