The life of Philadelphia filmmaker Robert Patriarca has been measured in cannoli. So, his audiences may find it hard to believe the 28-year-old Frankford native didn’t actually consume the Italian pastry until he was 14 years old. “We grew up without cannoli in our household,” he recently confided, while sitting amid copious amounts of the tube-shaped shells in Cafe Crema on 9th Street.

Since his grandmother scorned the sweet, he was deprived of the dessert through adolescence. But, one afternoon, when his cousin Anthony DiSalvio dropped off the delights from Don Giovanni’s Classic Bakery, Patriarca experienced nothing short of a revelation. “It just changed my life,” he said. “It really did … it was just enlightening. I had one. I had a glass of milk. And then, I had a second and then a third.”