Melissa Muller is an anthropologist and writer based in Sicily. Born and raised in New York, she holds a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. Her studies revolved around the gastronomy of the
Mediterranean regions with specific focus on Sicily, the island from where her maternal grandmother hailed. After her studies, Melissa opened a Sicilian restaurant in New York City that become a laboratory where she shared her love of Sicilian cuisine, along with her cultural research of the island. After several years of intense research, she wrote Sicily: Recipes Rooted in Tradition (Rizzoli). A time came when her distance from Sicily no longer satisfied her soul, and although she had created a corner of Sicily in Manhattan, Melissa made a life changing move to her beloved Sicily. She now lives with her family at Feudo Montoni, her husband Fabio’s organic farm and winery in the center of the island, where she is specifically dedicated to the organic cultivation of heritage Sicilian plants and the production of food products. She is assembling her fieldwork for a second book, a work of narrative non-fiction with recipes intertwined that will focus on the uncontaminated rural heart of Sicily that is now her home.