29 May 2025 4 min read Commentary

Don't Let the Bastards Win

The thing you've been trying to figure out might already be written down.

Building something from nothing will cost you everything and still won't promise a payoff.

I have a love-hate relationship with any movie that can make me cry. I love that ‘catharsis’ of recognition, when something resonates so deeply, you feel so 'not alone in this experience of life'.

I hate it because I cry ugly. Like, red-nosed, blotchy-faced, bleary-eyed, 'don’t look at me’ levels of hideous.

But every now and then, a story hits you with a hard-hitting truth: building something you believe in will cost you everything and still won’t promise a payoff. But for some reason, you try to build it anyway.

When I sat down to watch Nonnas on Netflix with the Balkan Storm, I figured I was in for a sweet little documentary, some light comfort food vibes, maybe even a few cooking tips.

I did not expect to see shadows of my own life in a movie about grandmothers and gravy.

The film follows Joe Scaravella (played by Vince Vaughn), a Staten Island guy who, after losing his mother and grandmother, decides to open a restaurant. But not just any restaurant, one that would be staffed by grandmothers from around the world, each one cooking traditional dishes passed down through generations, served straight from the soul.

It’s a wild idea and it nearly doesn’t work.

Joe pours in his savings. He struggles to market the concept. He navigates the bedlam of clashing cultures, conflicting palates, and strong-willed matriarchs with zero interest in being managed.

He doesn’t have a blueprint or even a backup plan; he just has this gut instinct that what he’s doing matters and that people need this.

And that’s where it got me. Because I’m smack-dab in the middle of building something too. Something scattered and fragile and more important to me than anything I’ve ever done.

I’ve got no long-term investors or a ‘how-to’ guide (thank you, ChatGPT, for teaching me how to code a website). Just a voice in my head that won’t shut up and a vision I can’t shake.

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While I’m trying to hold the line for my family, I’ve been pouring everything I have into this project, one I believe in more than anything I’ve ever created before.

So much so that even my Type-A ‘get shit done’ husband has voiced concerns.

It’s fine, though really.

I think.

But the truth is, I’m out here every day trying to conjure something out of thin air, praying it sticks before my energy and enthusiam runs out.

And that’s what Nonnas shows so well, the tension happening in the back of the house. The financial and emotional stress. The exhaustion of believing in something long before the world around you catches up to it.

There’s even a Staten Island local who actively told people not to go to Joe’s restaurant. Just out there trash-talking the place, undercutting his efforts, trashing the vision before it even had a chance to exist.

Because there’s always someone like that trying to undermine your dream, isn't there? Someone who puts you down or poo-poos your dreams.

Always someone who’d rather watch you fail than admit you’re doing something they'll never have the guts to attempt.

Sometimes it’s a bitter bystander with too much time and too little vision. Or a frenemy who pokes holes in your dream and tells you they're just 'concerned about you'.

And sometimes, perhaps worst of all, it’s you.

And that’s where the real battle is, isn’t it? Not letting doubt, your own or others', decide whether you keep going or not.

That's the whole power of not quitting, the rough, unglamorous discipline of coming back again and again when it would be so much easier to walk away.

Nontheless, perseverance through doubt is the only way forward.

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There’s this moment when Joe, desperate and running on fumes, shows up at the New York Times office with a bag of food. He’s not even sure the critic is going to read the letter, let alone taste what he brought.

When he hears nothing back from them, he figures it’s over. He is tapped out: no more money to fuel his dream. So he throws a party, one last hurrah to use up the inventory before closing his doors forever.

But behind the scenes, something was already happening for Joe. A review had gone to print. And the next morning, there was a line out the door.

That was fifteen years ago. Proof that when you keep going even when no one believes in you, the story changes.

Enoteca Maria is still open and run by grandmothers from every corner of the world. Still thriving, still feeding people like family, all because someone refused to quit on something that felt right.

And God knows I needed that reminder.

Because if someone told me I had to fail 28 times before I hit the thing that changes my life, I’d ask if I could knock out five by tomorrow. That’s where I am now: iterating, refining, learning what doesn’t work, even when it’s uncomfortable for me.

Especially when it’s uncomfortable for me.

I have no idea how this story ends for us yet, but that's part of building something from nothing: you just keep going without guarantees, no matter what. I can’t even talk publicly about half of what we’re up against in so many areas of life.

Not yet, anyway.

What I can say is that I’ve never fought harder for something that no one else can see yet. I never believed this deeply in something without knowing if it’ll ever really take off.

This platform has a pulse, which means everything to me. I never expected it to get this far already. So I keep working, keep betting on what this could be, even when it hurts like hell.

Because sometimes, the breakthrough comes right after you thought you’d lost.

The Balkan Storm says it all the time: Don’t let the bastards win.

And I won't.