Annual Knights of Columbus feed a success

Wherever Jack Pesola starts to cook, people form a line.

About 325 people showed up Saturday for the John Paul II Council of Knights of Columbus' annual Cioppino feed at the Arbuckle Fire Hall.

"It's very gratifying to have the community come out to support us," Pescola said.

It was the third "Taste of Italy" event the Knights have sponsored to raise money for the community and Sacred Heart Parish.

The John Paul II Council is the Catholic fraternal organization for Arbuckle, Williams and Maxwell — a smaller group than the Colusa Council, which also hosts several community events throughout the year.

The goal of the west side Knights is to raise money to build a community kitchen for the Parish Hall at the Arbuckle church, Pesola said.

"It's something we're hoping to have for the community by this coming spring," Pesola said.

As for the Cioppino served Saturday, it is one that Pesola calls his own.

Pesola said he had asked his mother for the recipe when he was young, and her response was, "If you want the recipe, you will have to watch me make it."

Since them, Pesola said he takes a bit of this and that to make the succulent fish stew, which is traditionally served on a long pasta.

"I never measure anything,' Pesola said. "I just put in whatever I feel like."

Popular in California, Cioppino is probably most known as the "San Francisco" staple of Italian restaurants.

Like Sal Lucido's father, who immigrated to the Bay Area from Italy in the 1920s, the Italians developed the recipe because of the variety of seafood found in abundance on the west coast.

"You can put just about every kind of seafood into it," Lucido said. "It's very good."

The name comes from Ciuppin, a word in the Ligurian dialect of the Italian port city of Genoa, and means "to chop."

The word, Lucido said, describes the process of making the stew by chopping up bits and pieces of seafood, including fish, crab, scallops and shrimp, and adding clams or muscles or whatever seafood is available.

But the secret, Pesola says, is 'in the sauce."

The third annual "Taste of Italy" included a tri-tip dinner option, raffle and silent auction of items donated by local businesses.

Jerry Choate performed on the accordion.