One sunny summer day, Maria and her daughter Sofia decided to take a leisurely stroll through the fields near their small town. While wandering around, they came across a small tree that immediately caught Maria’s eye. Curious, she took a closer look and was surprised to see that it was covered with tiny white fruits that she did not recognize.
At first Maria thought the fruits were bird eggs or something similar. But upon closer inspection she realized that they were actually white eggplants. Sofia was fascinated by the unusual sight and begged her mother to select some and try to cook with them.
Although Maria was hesitant to use the white eggplants as she wasn’t sure how to prepare them, Sofia’s enthusiasm convinced her to give it a try. She picked a few and brought them home.
Upon her return, Maria devoted herself to cooking and searched online for the best way to use the eggplants. She settled on a classic Italian dish: eggplant parmesan, a recipe she had always loved.
Maria sliced the eggplant thinly and fried it until golden brown, then covered it in rich tomato sauce and melted mozzarella cheese before baking the dish to perfection. When it was ready, she and Sofia enjoyed the meal together.
To Maria’s delight, the eggplant parmesan turned out to be exceptionally delicious. The eggplants were tender and flavorful and paired perfectly with the spicy tomato sauce and gooey cheese.
From then on, Maria made it a summer tradition to visit the field and check on the white eggplant tree. Every year the tree was there, producing its unique fruit. Maria would gather a few eggplants and use them to make her beloved eggplant parmesan, a dish that had become a family favorite.
The discovery of the white eggplant tree not only led Maria and Sofia to a new culinary adventure, but also reminded them that amazing finds can sometimes come from the most unexpected places.
Nicholas Cage’s twin grandchildren haven’t met their famous grandad
This actor, who belongs to one of Hollywood’s most famous dynasties, is a National Treasure but in his personal life, he’s trapped in a “quiet, horrible nightmare.”
The Family Man actor, who once bought a seat on a plane for his child’s imaginary friend, is now living in a “hostile environment” created by his son’s ex-wife, who’s preventing him from meeting his four-year-old twin granddaughters.
Keep reading to learn the identity of the star whose name change was inspired by a superhero!
When this actor was only 15, he was seated in a car with his uncle, one of Hollywood’s leading filmmakers, and begged him for a chance to appear in one of his award-winning films.
“Give me a screen test, I’ll show you acting. There was just silence in the car,” said the star, who’s proudly bizarre both on and off screen.
As a 17-year-old, the actor paved his own path to stardom and earned a minor role in the 1982 hit, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, a coming-of age cult favorite.
“I was the brunt of jokes because my name was still Coppola,” says Nicholas Cage, who was born in 1962 as Nicholas Kim Coppola.
“People would not stop saying things like, ‘I love the smell of Nicolas in the morning,’ because of Apocalypse Now…and it made it hard to work and I said, ‘I don’t need this,’ and changed it to Cage,” the star explains of dropping the surname that connected him to his famous relative, Francis Ford Coppola.
Next, explaining why he chose Cage, he says, “It’s a combination of Luke Cage from Marvel comics, who was a character I liked, also named Power Man, and John Cage, the avant-garde composer. Speaks volumes about everything I’ve been up to ever since.”
His first starring role with Cage as his last name came in 1983’s Valley Girl and the anonymity he said made him feel as if he “had this weight come off my body.”
“Wow, I really can do this. And I felt liberated by that experience,” he tells Hollywood Reporter. “And you can see it in Valley Girl that I’m free. Whereas in Fast Times, or even Rumble Fish, I’m somewhat stuck,” he says, referring to his appearance in 1983’s Rumble Fish, a film directed by his uncle.
Over the next several years, Cage worked in back-to-back films, earning the reputation as one of Hollywood’s most sought-after actors.
In 1988, he earned Golden Globe nominations for Moonstruck with Cher and Honeymoon in Vegas with Sarah Jessica Parker.
It was also the same year he met actor Christina Fulton, who in December 1990 gave birth to his first son, Weston Coppola Cage, an actor who appeared as the younger version of his dad in the 2014 film Rage.
Cage, who earned an Oscar for his 1995 role in Leaving Las Vegas, also shares a son Kal-El (Superman’s birth name) born in 2005 with his third wife Alice Kim, and daughter August Francesca (born 2022) with his fifth wife, Riko Shibata.
Cage was also famously married to Patricia Arquette (1995 to 2001) and Lisa Marie Presley (2002), whom he filed for divorce only months later.
Speaking with People, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent actor says that family comes “first and foremost.”
“There’s no version of Nick Cage in reality that doesn’t want to spend time with his children…There’s no version of Nick Cage that didn’t put family first over career,” says the star of Raising Arizona.
He adds, “I turned down Lord of the Rings and I turned down Matrix because I didn’t want to go to New Zealand for three years or Australia for three years because I needed to be home with my son Weston, that’s a fact.”
Offering evidence to that, actor Minnie Driver once said: “Was once on a plane with [Nicholas Cage] and his son and a seat had also been purchased for his son’s imaginary friend.”
Weston Coppola Cage
To this day the Adaptation star has a very tight bond with his children, and two of his grandchildren, Lucian (born 2014) and Sorin (2016), who Weston shares with his second wife.
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