Artist Spotlight

TABLE HOPPIN’

Newest Calabria owners continue tradition in Millbury

Barbara M. Houle

Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

The Calabria Ristorante in Millbury has a lot of family tradition behind it dating as far back as the ‘90s when it opened as a private club on Shrewsbury Street in Worcester. It became public in 2001 and sold in 2002. The space is now occupied by Funky Murphys Bar & Grill.

Owners Mario and Connie Ritacco with Elio and Connie Romeo (the women are rst cousins) opened the Millbury Calabria Ristorante in 2007, turning the keys over to new owners John Direnzo, Maria Spiro and Gianfranco Ritacco (Spiro’s uncle) last June. Retirement and the desire to spend more time with their families and grandchildren were reasons given for the sale.

Members of the Ritacco and Romeo families have always worked in the business, said Spiro, who has cooked for the business since day one. She’s related to the original owners. Spiro left Calabria, Italy, when she was 21, with Worcester as her next home. She’s the only owner who cooks at the Millbury restaurant, she said. Her uncle and Direnzo are more front of the house, helping out wherever and whenever they can. They like chatting with customers, she said.

Direnzo has owned Direnzo Towing and Recovery Inc. in Millbury since 1999. He’s a friend of the previous owners and ate at the restaurant regularly before buying it. He’s a “single guy who doesn’t cook.”

“I love this place and still eat here,” said Direnzo, who wouldn’t commit to how many days a week he’s at a table. “Let’s say, I’m not here on Sundays,” he joked. FYI: Sundays, the restaurant is closed.

There have been some menu changes since the restaurant changed hands. However, recipes are grounded in family tradition and Southern Italian avors, beautifully balanced. Recipe origins are tried and true, according to owners.

Spiro said she uses the original structure of recipes but sometimes will add “a dash more of this, or a little less of that,” especially when she executes daily specials. Her love of cooking is expressed in rhythm and routine, creating meals is second nature for this cook. She’s lost count of how much sauce she makes in a week, she said, but de nitely looks forward to locally grown tomatoes to use in homemade sauce.

Her favorite dish is Zuppa Di Pesce, shrimp, scallops, calamari, black mussels and haddock sautéed in a red “brothy” sauce. Lobster Ravioli is a new hit with guests. “It’s all my own,” said Spiro. Not surprisingly, the Italian chicken Parmesan at the restaurant is a customer top pick.

The menu o ers variety in appetizers, salads, pasta, entrees, seafood and sides (gluten-free pasta included), and guests usually walk away with a take-

Calabria Restaurant co-owners John Direnzo and Maria Spiro.

ASHLEY GREEN/TELEGRAM & GAZETTE

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ARTIST SPOTLIGHT

Kayla Degnan

Kayla Degnan Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

Kayla Degnan lives in Charlton and is a self-taught pen and ink stippling artist with a passion for scienti c illustration. Her art is displayed in a couple of small businesses in Western Massachusetts: Wild Oats Market and The Plant Connector, both of these locations are important to her because they “value community.” More of her work is available on Instagram @Silver_Owl_Design or at www.etsy.com/ shop/silverowldesign.

“Scribbs,” by Kayla Degnan

CONNELL SANDERS

Worcester’s Charlie Slatkin vies for Elon Musk and Je Bezos’ attention

Sarah Connell Sanders

Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

As a kid, Charlie Slatkin’s mother gave him a miniature book she bought from an antique store in their Brooklyn neighborhood. She didn’t know it at the time, but the tiny text titled “The Autobiography Of Robert Hutchings Goddard, Father Of The Space Age” would have a profound in uence on the creative technologist and space evangelist’s future. Buzz Aldrin brought a matching copy of the carddeck-sized volume to the moon and inscribed the message, “Flown to the moon on board Apollo 11 July 16-24 1969,” before gifting it to Goddard’s widow who then gave it to Clark University where her husband had taught physics.

Incidentally, Slatkin’s rst job after graduate school was also as a professor at Clark. His friends had expected him to move to Manhattan and start his own studio. When he told them he was headed for Worcester, at rst they were skeptical. “Haven’t you heard?” he told them, “Worcester is the Paris of the ’80s.” The moniker stuck with our city, and so did Slatkin.

“I actually got a call a couple of months ago from someone in Hollywood asking if they could use the expression in Annie Murphy’s new comedy series,” he said. Reportedly, Murphy will be playing a a Worcester package store clerk. “’Paris of the ‘80s’ has taken on a life of its own.”

The “Schitt’s Creek” starlet isn’t the only celebrity on Slatkin’s mind. “Two of the richest people in the world, Elon Musk and Je Bezos, have both expressed that space travel will be the most important thing in their careers,” he said before pulling out a copy of Christian Davenport’s book, “The Space Barons” and ipping to a passage that compares Bezos to Goddard.

“Did you know Bezos even gave one of his sons the middle name ‘Goddard’?” Slatkin asked me. I did not. “This is such low-hanging fruit for Worcester.”

Slatkin is right. If the richest men in the world idolize the father of modern rocketry, why doesn’t his hometown? Where is Worcester’s sense of wonder? Where are the show-stopping space-focused community experiences? Where are the immersive space “Virtualariums” to inspire the next Robert Goddard among us? And honestly, who can a ord it? Bezos and Musk — that’s who.

Slatkin calls this ambitious nonpro t initiative: “The Wonder Mission .” He envisions a Tesla tractor-trailer pulling up to underserved schools, wrapped in seamless screens with resolution so high that people begin to suspend their disbelief and feel the magic of outer space.

It’s the sort of project with with Slatkin is well-acquainted. WOW Inc., of which Slatkin is president and creative director, does large-scale media installations for institutions like Syracuse Museum of Science, The GW Bush Presidential Library in Dallas Texas, and Comcast HQ. He contributed as a creative director for The China Pavilion at Shanghai Worlds Fair.

In a recent correspondence to Musk, Slatkin states, “I’m convinced that SpaceX’s involvement and leadership in these innovative space education projects would also signi cantly enhance its preeminence in PR, advocacy, investor relations, and most critically, in education/scholarship advancing STEM and STEAM goals.” His letter to Musk was packed in a shiny metal briefcase along with a rocket pin, a Martian meteorite, and a copy of the tiny Goddard autobiography that started it all.

“Space is sexy,” observed Slatkin. “Becoming an interplanetary species isn’t sci- anymore — it’s inevitable.”

Bezos and Musk would tend to agree, but it’s time we let them know that space tourism doesn’t have to start with billionaires; it can start right here with Worcester’s youth.

Charlie Slatkin’s fascination with space began as a young boy in Brooklyn when he received a copy of “The Autobiography Of Robert Hutchings Goddard, Father Of The Space Age.” SUBMITTED PHOTO

LISTEN UP

Foucault shows different sides on ‘Deadstock’

Victor D. Infante

Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

“Deadstock,” the recent album by New England folk veteran Je rey Foucault, is a weird a air, as most such rattlebags of unreleased songs and recordings tend to be, but it doesn’t su er from the purposelessness that dogs most such projects. Indeed, Foucault doesn’t bother with any warning shots here, kicking o with a cover of the Reverend Gary Davis’ “There Is a Destruction on This Land.” It’s hard to nd a more relevant song to today’s world than a gospelblues indictment of a country’s past crimes and sins being soaked into the earth itself. It’s a haunting, deeply e ecting song, and it does a lot of heavy lifting on this album: It signals a seriousness, yes, and a deep songbook, but it also telegraphs that Foucault is showing sides to his work here he doesn’t often reveal. In a lot of ways, “Deadstock” plays with the lens of how one looks at Foucault’s music. “Destruction” is followed by an alternate version of Foucault’s fan favorite, “Mesa, Arizona.” It’s looser than the rendition on the album “Ghost Repeater.” It has kind of a casualness about it that surprises. But again, it’s not just putting up an alternate version for its own sake: Indeed, the song is presented as part of a trilogy, each written back to back while touring in the Southwest. “Mesa, Arizona” gives way to “Any Town Will Do,” which captures the magic and sadness of the liminal spaces between concerts. “Phoenix to Santa Fe,” sings Foucault, “With the radio on/Feels like living/In a Neil Young song/But you won’t feel

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