Pam’s story connects to Crying in H Mart because in this book Michelle talks about her relationship with her mother and how she can no longer shop in H Mart after her death. She talks about food and how it’s more than something we eat. It carries connection, memory and love. When I was interviewing Pam she talked so fondly about her Aunt and everything she taught her including the dishes she learned how to cook in her grandmother's house. In the book Michelle expresses her feelings through cooking and the meals she makes hold deep feelings for her and the people around. In the same way, Pam’s grandmother’s kitchen wasn’t just a place where they made food, it was where care, love and culture were passed down. Manicotti is not only a dish to Pam, it's a connection to her family, her heritage and the warmth she grew up in. Just like in the book, love isn’t spoken, it’s felt through what is made and shared.
From Yna's Kitchen To Her Own
By: Adriana Navarro
Pam likes to say her life started in two places at once. Meadville City Hospital, where she was born, and in her grandmother’s kitchen, where she was raised. “I grew up in that house,” she says, smiling, like she can still smell the sauce simmering. Her parents worked long hours, so most days she was with her grandmother and her aunt, Anna D’Angelo – though Pam always called her “Yna.” The kitchen was the center of everything. Flour on the counters, voices overlapping, laughter mixing with the sound of pots clinking. That’s where she learned to cook, really cook, everything from scratch. Her favorite, manicotti, still tastes like home every time she makes it.
Her family’s story runs deeper than recipes. Her grandparents came to Meadville as immigrants. Her grandfather worked long days in a factory and her grandmother opened a small Italian restaurant right out of their house. Growing up Italian in Meadville wasn’t always easy. “There were times kids weren’t allowed to play with me,” she remembers. Still, she never let that define her. Outside of those moments, Meadville felt like a true community—downtown bustling people, neighbors who knew each other, a kind of small-town warmth that stayed with her.
That idea of “love, trust, safety… just warmth” is how Pam defines family, and it’s something she carried into her own life. She got married and had twin boys, the center of everything she ever wanted. When she was pregnant, she read to them every night. “Education mattered to me,” she says. When she was young, she once told her parents she wanted to be a teacher. They told her she wasn’t going to college. So with her own boys, she changed the language: not if you go to college, but when.
She built her life around giving, whether it was raising her children, learning from her husband’s big family, working, or showing up for the people she loves. Her aunt Yna remained one of her biggest influences, even helping care for her boys when Pam returned to work. Now, when Pam reads authors like Isabel Allende or Ann Patchett, she sees pieces of her own story reflected back. Stories about family, resilience, and where we come from. Because for Pam, everything always comes back to that kitchen – a place where love was made daily, passed down, and never measured. Only felt.
Pam