Slowing Down Mid-day by Barbara Quinn

In Sicily they still shut down mid-day for about a 4 hour break. Other than restaurants and bars everyone is at home enjoying themselves between the hours of 12 or 1 to 4 or 4:30. Then it’s back to work again till 8 PM. That means there are four rush hours. Outside the big cities it’s not very crowded and the tiny roads are able to handle the rush home. How wonderful to be able to be with your family mid-day for a meal, a nap, and a little love. Life has a different rhythm. The dinner hour often begins at 10 PM and afterwards there is a “passeggiata” – a walk around the town square or along the ocean where all ages take a healthy, long stroll. I enjoyed joining the crowd walking along, studying the shoes which are the best giveaway to nationality. (We left the sneakers and baseball caps at home!)

As tourists, the mid-day hours were a good time to take a drive out to the countryside. We drove past shuttered shops and were often the only car in remote villages. Even the gas stations were closed. Luckily some of them have machines that will take your cash and allow you to fill up. One day we put in more money than we needed. The machine spit out a piece of paper that we stared at. A young boy on a bike came over. Eventually we understood that he wanted to help us out. He took the receipt to a closed shop where he knew the owner and returned with our cash. We were more than happy to reward him with a tip. Then we headed off to a local bar for an espresso and a chat with the few locals who were hanging out.

It’s fascinating to see how different cultures approach life and to learn that there are many ways to fill the twenty-four hours of each day. We commute too long and far to adopt this lifestyle in the States. Could you imagine the local mall shutting down between 12 and 4? But what a thrill and pleasure it was to be a part of it for a short time.

A Piece of Cake by Barbara Quinn

It’s nearly St. Patrick’s Day, the Irish High Holy Day, a holiday that I celebrate happily with my Irish-American husband. I love hearing Irish music, which is what we did last night, and going out for corned beef or shepherd’s pie. Tom has his Guinness and I my Tullamore Dew. But for me, St. Patrick’s Day also signals another holiday, one that is high in my Italian-American pastry pantheon: St. Joseph’s Day.

St. Joseph’s occurs March 19. This holiday is usually celebrated quietly and privately here in the United States. The thing that it is best known for in many Italian-American homes is the St. Joseph’s pastry. (How unusual, huh? an Italian holiday that revolves around food!) But some churches, including ones in Lousiana, construct intricate St. Joseph's altars, which are also popular in Southern Italy.

Many cultures have special cakes or pastries. One of my favorites is the King Cake which makes its appearance around Mardi Gras down in Lousiana. Every year someone mails me one and I am thrilled to receive it. A plastic baby that symbolizes the infant Jesus is hidden inside a rich icing covered coffee cake. The person who finds the babe gets good luck, and is responsible for bringing the next King Cake.

Growing up in an Italian-Americans home many of our holidays had special desserts. Easter had grana, a wheat pie, Christmas the honey-coated strufoli, and St. Joseph’s its two mouth-watering pastries: the cannoli filled sfinge, and the custard filled St. Jospeph’s zeppolle. The zeppole is not like the fried and powdered sugared one that they serve at street fairs. St. Joseph’s zeppole is a cream puff, often baked, and then split open and filled with a custard that may have almond and vanilla flavors, and cherry juice. The sfinge is often a fried dough, split and stuffed with a sweetened ricotta that is found in cannoli. Both types of pastries have their camps and fierce aficionados. I like them both. They’re a southern Italian tradition, popular in Naples and Sicily. They are my favorite harbinger of spring. I’m extremely grateful that they only appear for the month of March, or I’d be eating way too many of them.

What They Gave Me by Nannette Croce

Like so many I am all too ready to blame my parents for what I did or didn’t do in life. Growing up with an extended Italian family I can spread the blame around to aunts and uncles as well. But in recent years, as most of them have passed away or aged, I’m softening my view and seeing what I gained from each of those people who played such major role in my formative years.

My Mom gave me my quick wit, heightened sense of justice, and fashion sense.

My Dad, the Engineer, gave me my organizational skills, my logical approach to problem solving, and my slightly more tempered ambition.

My Aunt Jeannette, the intellectual of the family, gave me a love of history and also entrusted to me all the important family papers and journals, even though I was not the oldest, but knowing I would most appreciate them. Uncle Fred, the only non-Italian, taught me how the rest of the world lives and that with an open mind and a big heart, you will never be an outsider.

Aunt Thelma, with no children of her own, told wonderful stories and taught me not to forget my inner child, even when I had one of my own. While her artistic ability skipped my generation, she passed it to two grandnieces. Uncle Bill, the “gregarious one” taught me how to enjoy good wine and the society of friends and family, and, eventually, how to accept death with grace and dignity.

Yes, there were drawbacks growing up with so many people poking noses into my business, but as the years pass on, I realize it’s the benefits that maintained the strongest hold.

Pot Dreams by Barbara Quinn

I bought a new pot today. It’s a Le Creuset, a cast-iron pot that’s covered with enamel. These pots come with a lifetime warranty and unlike others that I’ve owned, they do last. I inherited two of them from my mother and after forty years they still look new, still get the job done better than any others. The new pot joined the old in the cabinet and fit right in.

That pot got me thinking about how when I was a child my family lived in an attached triplex in the Bronx. Three stairs at the front were perfect for playing stoop ball with a red “spaldeen.” The front yard had two peach trees, and a magnificent magnolia tree, tended by my grandfather. The triplex was part of a row of similar houses. My parents, brother, and I lived in the middle unit, my aunt and uncle were upstairs with my three cousins, and the ground floor housed my grandmother and grandfather. Every Sunday we gathered at my grandparents for dinner: loud, many-coursed Italian dinner.

Sunday was spaghetti and chicken day. The sauce simmered in a pot much like my new one, while everyone attended mass. At dinner there was an antipasto of various veggies, and cured meats like prosciutto and capicolla. There was fresh mozzarella and pungent provolone, several types of olives and always the wine. My grandfather had seltzer delivered. At dinner he sprayed seltzer into a small amount of wine. We were drinking wine spritzers before anyone knew what they were. I loved those shiny metal seltzer canisters with their mysterious cartridges that powered the blast of bubbly liquid. We drank wine with seltzer, or wine with water, or wine with coke from the time we could sip from a cup. No one’s an alcoholic in the family. Italians drink with their meals, not to get drunk.

We still gather for major holidays and events, but not as often. Sometimes we make gnocchi by hand, the way my mother taught me. I take out her old wood board and go through the same motions generations have gone through. I rice the potatoes onto the board, make a well and when all is assembled, knead the dough. I feel connected to my past. The new pot will make its appearance at one of these dinners. My wish is that years from now it will still be in use, providing sustenance to future generations, a part of something timeless and good.