Minnie Filomena DeLuccia was born in Paterson, New Jersey in 1912. During her childhood she was exposed to and influenced by her mother's peasant recipes that were brought to America from the family's native Naples, Italy. In 1934, Minnie married Armand Giraldi, who also lived in Paterson, and for the next 35 years they raised a family and worked in the same town that they were both born.

In 1972, Minnie and Armand Giraldi moved to Chappaqua, New York. Along with them came over a thousand old-world recipes that Minnie describes as "deceptively simple" with the key ingredient being "a pinch of this and a pinch of that."

Minnie expanded on her southern Italian cooking and modernized it just a bit by studying with the well-known Giuliano Bugialli in Florence for a few years. In 1980, she started her own catering company and cooking school, called Mezzaluna.

In 2000, Minnie put together her first cookbook, Minnie's Kitchen, co-written with veteran author Jack Bishop. It is a compilation of the delectable old-world Italian recipes that she and her family have enjoyed generation after generation.