The family at the beginning
Romualdo and Titina Magnelli.
Ro and Ti — born Titina Librandi, later known as Catina in the United States — were born and raised in Castiglione Cosentino, a hill town in the province of Cosenza, Calabria. They married there. Ro's work as an architectural engineer kept the family on the move from place to place, and their six children grew up in that life before the family's path eventually led to Pennsylvania.
Romualdo and Titina
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Ti
She kept everything immaculate.
Ti was a seamstress, a gardener, and the cook of the family — and a powerhouse in all three. Her flower gardens were immaculate. The home was immaculate. There was always food somewhere and always something to do, kept to a standard that never seemed to break. She cooked largely without written recipes — the knowledge lived in repetition: watching, tasting, adjusting, knowing what something should look and feel like.
Ro
An architectural engineer, and a gardener.
Ro built his professional life as an architectural engineer. He did not cook the family meals. He cured meats and made wine — but his real work, especially in retirement, was in the ground: four big gardens around the property and half an acre of potato field, tilled entirely by hand with ordinary hoes. No power tools. No hoses, either — he carried five-gallon buckets to and from the gardens and watered the potatoes by hand. In summer you could see him going back and forth from morning on, and that was his job. He grew much of what the family ate. Ti helped, but Ro was the workhorse.
Together
A powerhouse together.
Ro and Ti contributed equally to the life they created — acres and gardens and flowers and food and family, kept immaculate, as if it were nothing at all. Family dinners were constant, with everybody coming over, and neither of them ever complained. That was simply how it was.
To their granddaughter, now a mother of two, the childhood they made looks different in hindsight. It was seamless — so effortless-feeling that no one knew how hard they worked to keep it that way. The normalcy was the miracle.
Their beginning
Castiglione Cosentino.
The village sits in the hills north of Cosenza, where the Crati valley meets the lower slopes of the Sila. It is a landscape of olive groves, chestnut woods, wheat, peppers, and potatoes — and of cooking shaped by season and by what the year provided.
The family
Six children.
Old-world habits and the demands of a family that moved place to place ran side by side. Food was made by hand, ingredients were preserved, wine was made for dinner, and skills were practiced until the next generation simply grew up around them.
What continued
Librandi's, and after.
In 2003, Ti and one of her daughters opened Librandi's, carrying what they knew into another generation of work, food, and family. Ro died in 2012. Much of what surrounded their life together remained: the techniques, the stories, and the habits the family had absorbed over decades.
Another generation
What Casa Magnelli carries forward.
Today, their granddaughter is gathering family memories alongside dishes rooted in Calabria and Southern Italy, the stories behind them, and traditions that remain worth keeping.
Some knowledge comes directly through Ro and Ti. Other recipes begin with the broader place they came from and are researched from there. The distinction matters.
Casa Magnelli preserves what belongs to this family while continuing to learn about the food, customs, and everyday life that surrounded it.
Venite a tavola.
Come to the kitchen →A note on the record
This story is built from family records, photographs, documents, and memories passed down. Where something belongs specifically to Ro and Ti, we say so. Where a recipe, custom, or piece of history belongs more broadly to Calabria or Southern Italy, we say that too.
There is still more to uncover, and this story will grow as the record does. Nothing needs to be invented to make it worth telling.
About Erika
Who runs Casa Magnelli.
Casa Magnelli is written, researched and tested by Erika A. Cochran, granddaughter of Ro and Ti. Recipes here are free and ad-free. How they are researched and corrected is set out in our editorial standards.
Casa Magnelli is proudly 100% woman-owned and veteran-owned.