At age 94, Papa Rudy bakes cakes with all the seriousness of a former ballistics engineer for the Navy and, also, an Italian.
The nonagenarian from Northern Virginia who mastered baking sweet treats at a ripe old age soon went viral.
“He was the first generation, obviously, to go to college, studied engineering at Purdue University,” Rudy’s granddaughter Jill, 28, told The Epoch Times. Papa Rudy, as his granddaughters call him, “worked really hard” and made the American Dream a reality.
For Jill and her sister Jenna, 26, Rudy is proof that setting your mind to a task can help you achieve anything, and that you’re never too old to master a new skill.
“You can find your passion at 25 or you can find it at 90,” Jill said. “It’s never too late.”
They’re a tightly-knit Italian family. Every week the sisters visit Papa Rudy and look forward to a new family baking tradition that began in 2020.
As COVID saw people shuttered into their respective bubbles, Rudy, then 90, began baking steadily. And the weekly visits didn’t stop. Though out in the open-air garage, the family gathered, and sweet anticipation always welled up.
There was dramatic silence as Rudy walked out carrying a baking tray with a lid—the lid was key to the surprise—and then he lifted it and revealed his latest creation. Everyone cheered.
“There’s such a variety,” Jenna said. “He’s not just sitting there making a vanilla or chocolate cake. It’s blueberry something, strawberry shortcake, cinnamon buns.”
His latest was cherry tarts, but there have also been coffee cake, cherry pie, pineapple upside-down cake—some desserts were even gluten-free for the sisters—and the list goes on. He learned these desserts from a favorite chef online.
He’s always had the right attitude toward his endeavors in life, being very serious-minded about his pursuits and detail-oriented.
“I should have just added a little more butter,” he remarked as everyone around him was happily chowing down on coffee cake.
Whether it was on the golf course perfecting his swing, in the lab designing missiles earlier in life, or in the kitchen baking cherry breakfast buns for family, he has always tested himself, Jill said.
How Rudy’s dad returned back home to New York speaking only Italian became a family legend, revealing that you can do whatever you set your mind to, inspiring subsequent generations.
Rudy had placed a sign around his dad’s neck that read, “Please get me back to Brooklyn,” the story goes.
Today, the sisters remember that train story whenever they approach new challenges and goals in life.
Jenna became a nutritional therapy practitioner so she could manage her health and help others. The sisters have both dealt with IBS, fatigue, acne, and insomnia.
Once they found the right diet solution and lifestyle components for their nervous systems and mental health, they began to cultivate true healing.
“Part of the reason that we started Gut Talk was because we were really sick—really, really sick—for years,” Jill said. “We went to tons of doctors, and they would always tell us that we were fine.”
After finding an alternative path to health, they sought to help people on a broader scale. Gut health isn’t as hard as some make it out to be, Jill said.
“You can take tiny little steps that make you better every single day,” she said. “And those compound.
“So our goal really was like when we say, ‘making health more digestible.’”
They were raised to believe you can be President of the United States if you work hard; you can be an astronaut or a surgeon. And Rudy is still their biggest supporter, cheering them on as their viewership grew to over 23,000.
Likewise, posting his kitchen exploits online, the sisters made him go viral. “Papa Rudy is like the baking star,” Jill said. “But he doesn’t want to be famous.”
When he hears about the millions who’ve viewed him online, he gets a little nervous. Jill echoes Papa’s concern: “Are they going to come to my house?”
Jenna recalls his worry: “Are they going to steal my recipes?”
