“Every Sunday, the whole block smelled like tomato sauce. You could walk down the street and know what everyone was cooking.” Marguerite Henderson, who has inspired so many Utahns in the culinary arts, grew up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, in a world that felt like its own little country. Her street was lined with families who all knew one another, and inside her house lived three generations - grandparents, aunts, uncles, her mother and brother - seven people “on a good day.”

Marguerite’s grandparents had come from Sicily in 1920, bringing with them the stories that stitched together family lore - olive groves and grocery stores back home, a grandmother who declared after the First World War, “We’re out of here,” and bought the tickets herself, and a brother already settled just outside of New York City waiting to help them get started. There were always whispers about how no one seemed to work but money never ran out - those colorful, half-true tales that make a family unforgettable. It was a lively, flavorful upbringing, steeped in love and tradition.

Marguerite was a true city kid with a key to the world. There were piano, dance, and art lessons. Saturdays were spent by the stage door waiting for actors to emerge, subway rides to the Met or a Broadway matinee. And the day Dustin Hoffman strolled by during a bomb scare evacuation near St. John’s and she simply said, “hi.” She attended public school through eighth grade, a Catholic girls’ high school, then St. John’s University to study elementary education. Yet the truest lessons always came from home.

Marguerite’s mother, Rose, was the heart of it all. She was elegant, social, and deeply talented. She worked in the garment district, sketching prom gowns on scraps of paper and sewing them into perfection at night. She was an extraordinary cook who taught herself through the recipes of Craig Claiborne of The New York Times and, in the early days, Julia Child. “She was so particular about how things were cut and chopped. Everything had to be uniform.” Every Sunday, Rose set the table with china and crystal, and she had a gift for making her daughter feel capable in the kitchen. By fourteen, Marguerite was cooking family dinners. By seventeen, her friends were lining up for a seat at the table.

In that house of many women, there was balance. Marguerite’s grandmother did not cook but crocheted the most beautiful sweaters for everyone in the family. Out back grew grapevines for homemade wine, tidy rows of tomatoes and garlic, and a single fig tree that stood watch in the center. “It was a good life,” Marguerite said softly. “We just didn’t realize at the time how lucky we were.”

Love and chance have always followed Marguerite. At a grand Italian wedding in Manhattan in 1970 - “complete with a satin money bag and all” - she met Robert, a West Point graduate just beginning his life in the military. Her date had canceled, leaving an empty seat that changed everything. Soon there were Fifth Dimension concert tickets with Robert, dinners in the city, and a wedding one week after she graduated from St. John’s. Germany followed - first as a young officer’s wife, later as a teacher during their four-year posting after law school. She taught literacy to GIs, some behind grade level but all eager to learn, and in between, she and Robert traveled across Europe on a shoestring. Their two children - Justin, born in 1976, and Sarah, in 1978 - joined the adventure.

When it came time for law school, Robert chose the University of Utah over Harvard, wanting to stay close to his family’s Idaho ranch. By 1980, they had settled in Salt Lake City with two small children and Marguerite’s firm belief that she needed to keep her mind, her hands, and her heart working together. “I could never not work,” she said.

Marguerite’s path unfolded naturally, one opportunity leading to the next. While living near Fort Lewis in Washington State, she spotted a small newspaper ad seeking someone to teach night classes in French and Italian cooking at a community college. She took the chance and discovered that teaching food was as fulfilling as cooking it. In Salt Lake City, another ad led her to Gabby Gourmet, Fred Wix’s beloved shop in Holladay, where from 1980 to 1983 her classes were packed every night. Students became clients, and soon she launched her own catering business, Culinary Delights, serving film commission organizations, banks, and community events. She delivered lunches to Robert Redford during Sundance at the Egyptian Theatre, catered fundraisers - including one for Senator Orrin Hatch - and became known for generous, beautifully prepared meals that brought people together.

By 1994, Marguerite and her business partner, Eileen, opened a small restaurant-market in Park City that quickly became a local favorite. The following year, they moved to the Avenues and opened Cucina, a place that still lives in the city’s memory. Its glass cases overflowed with roasted vegetables, chicken salads, pastas, fruit, and composed greens. She baked her famous scones each morning and insisted that day-old bread become bread pudding- never sandwiches. Lunchtime was a whirlwind of hospital and university orders, neighbors stopping in for dinner to go, and lines that stretched out the door on rainy Fridays. “I’d send someone down the line with brownies cut into quarters so no one waited hungry,” she recalled.

The soul of Cucina was the people who made it hum. Marguerite’s daughter managed the front, her son delivered orders, and the kitchen was filled with cooks who were treated and paid with respect. Most memorable of all was Joaquin, the dishwasher who arrived each day in a pressed white shirt and bow tie and stayed for decades. He raised his family on that job, watched over the dining room with quiet pride, and became part of the Henderson story. “God was looking out for us,” Marguerite said.

Television soon came calling. First it was small cooking segments filmed at Cucina, followed by a long run on KSL’s News at Noon, where   Marguerite became affectionately known as “the Wednesday Lady.” Her first cookbook, Savor the Memories (2001), was self-published and illustrated by a high school friend. Later came her partnership with Utah publisher Gibbs Smith, followed by more books and countless home cooking classes that sold out season.

When she and Eileen sold Cucina in 2001, it was not goodbye - it was simply the next chapter. Marguerite continued writing, consulting, and developing recipes for organizations from the California Cheese Commission to local restaurants. She kept appearing on television, kept opening her home kitchen to students, and kept feeding her community in every sense of the word.

Throughout the conversation, Marguerite returned again and again to Brooklyn, to her mother, and to the lessons passed down through food. The family recipes were not just meals - they were love stories told through flour, tomatoes, and time. Her nephew still cooks her grandmother’s bolognese and keeps Rose’s handwritten carrot cake recipe framed on the kitchen wall. And Marguerite, now a grandmother herself, still feels that connection each time she slices a carrot just right.

Due in fall of 2026, Heirloom Italian Cookbook - a celebration of 125 recipes and the stories behind them - will be published by Gibbs Smith. Sicily may be having its moment in world travel, but Marguerite’s moment has been building for decades. It is the scent of Sunday sauce drifting through Bensonhurst, the fig tree in her backyard, the Easter parade on Fifth Avenue, the laughter around Cucina’s tables, and the steady rhythm of a woman who has always followed her heart into the kitchen. “I introduced my mother in the Cucina kitchen once and said, ‘This is the lady who made me who I am today.’”