I wrote this long ago to give my daughters and my son a glimpse of some of my happier moments as a young fella. I decided to repost it due to a recent wave of sentimentality.
I connected with my son via Facebook, where we are officially friends. We've had some humorous exchanges, and I'm really enjoying the back-and-forth teasing. His profile contains a photo of him while mugging for the camera with a very pretty girl next to him, only a friend, it turns out, who has a beautiful olive complexion. At least, in the photo it appears that way.
I pursued an old inside family joke by inquiring about the girl's heritage to ensure that he would be serious only about an Italian girl, which in truth, matters to me not in the least. The insistence of all things Italian is something I have used to tease all my children. The girl thought that was cute and commented back asking my son if she really looks Italian. I commented back trying to explain the joke. It occurred to me that I could expand my brief explanation and bring back a family memory, about which I have always been fond.
My father used to tease me about just such a thing when I was a teenager, usually at the big Sunday dinners my mother prepared for the family. First, a word about those dinners and my mother: I'm headed this way partly because of this recent exchange with my son and partly because of a story that my friend, Joe Pignatello, published about his family experience growing up in an Italian family and neighborhood in New Jersey. I re-published Joe's story at my Web site. We had somewhat similar experiences. We understand each other well.
Okay--about my mother: Oh my, what a cook. The Sunday dinners usually included as guests my sister, brother-in-law, and niece, who drove over from a neighboring town. My brother and his wife (their daughter had not yet been born). And then there was me, the youngest offspring of my parents--spoiled baby, as my siblings often claimed.
Mother would have spent a couple of hours shopping for just the right pork, beef, chicken, sausage, tomato sauce and paste, and other ingredients a day or two before the dinner. I would have driven her because she never drove a car. She would get up early and start the preparation. She would inspect, trim, clean, and otherwise prepare the ingredients meticulously. I think she relished this part of it. The sauce (call it gravy, if you like; we called it sauce, meaning Mother's sauce and no other, for there was no other to us) would start sometimes around 8 a.m., sometimes later, for the late afternoon meal.
On those occasions, a few of the households around us would know that Babe had started her sauce again. To us, all was right in the world when our brains picked up that olfactory signal. Mother was barely five feet tall and very petite. But somehow, she would lift very large pots full of sauce and the meats that had been braising inside and transfer the contents with ease and dexterity into their platters. And she wanted no one in her way when she was doing it. She would carry nearly overflowing platters in her small hands to the table from her small kitchen (and, again, do not get in her way). Absolutely everything would arrive at precisely the same time at optimal temperature with steam wafting from every dish. I've been cooking at home for years, and I still don't know how she did that.
I am recounting this with exactitude, dear reader. There is no exaggeration here, no embellishment from a loving offspring remembering his mama. I'm telling you it was perfect; it was wondrous. Occasionally, I would invite a friend from school. Such invitations became coveted. My fortunate friends, none of whom had ever encountered such a meal, would recount the experience at school, furthering my mother's renown. Mothers of friends would seek out my mother's advice and ask for recipes, as though recipes for my mother's food existed.
(Let's take a moment here for the lump in my throat to subside. It's time for an espresso, anyway. I find that the hot liquid helps ease the constriction that now arises in my throat; and espresso--well, espresso has its own unique comforting properties. But, I digress.)
So, we are at the table approximately at the midpoint of the meal, which as I recall would be about an hour after it started. My father is engrossed in what is before him and seemingly zoned into it. He waits until he thinks my mother is looking his way and takes a few forbidden stabs directly inside the table’s large salad bowl instead of using the salad tongs to acquire the salad for his plate. He does this because he knows my mother will protest and he can start a round of teasing her and then, in the same spirit, take a shot or two at his son-in-law, whom he loved as much as any of us. And so it would start.
Dad looks directly at me. I pretend not to notice him and look down at my plate at a remaining morsel of manicotti or something.
"Hey, you. The little one over there, I am talking to you," he says, feigning gruffness. I have to look up; it's expected.
"How old are you?"
"I'm 16, Pop."
"Hmmm . . ." He acts as though he is searching the space between me and whoever is next to me, shakes his head, and returns to the supposed object of his attention. A few seconds later, he adds:
"You married, yet?"
"No, Pop, not yet," giving the response everyone expects.
"Humph, not married." He looks incredulously at Mom and tilts his head upward, shrugs his shoulders as though to say "What's up with that? Why is he not married?" Mom gives a slight shrug as if to say, "Don't ask me," and focuses on her plate. I'm so on my own at this point.
He shakes his head again and returns to the salad bowl for the few remaining avocado tidbits swimming in the oil and vinegar. Again, Mom pretends to be outraged. After a few seconds, he lifts his head, leans over to Mom as though he were going to say something intimate, nudges her arm with his hand and says, for all to hear:
"Remind me to call Uncle Domenico and tell him to hurry up and find that nice, plump, Italian, Catholic girl from Calabria for this one. It's time for this boy to get started making us some more grandchildren." Mom, of course, nods in agreement. Then, he turns back to me and feigns a menacing look while pointing with his fork dripping a bit of sauce or dressing:
"I want six fat, little babies from you, boy, and you better hurry up about it."
"I'll get right on that, Pop."
Dad is obviously pleased with himself, and even my adorable little niece, MIchelle, who is about five or six, is in on the joke, as everyone nods in agreement and offers some supportive assent, as expected. We are all pleased.
Now, nearly sixty years later, I enjoy that memory. About ten or twelve years ago, I got to share it with my son, who at the time, was well beyond 16 and not yet married.
Six fat, little babies, Nicholas, and you'd better hurry up about it.
I connected with my son via Facebook, where we are officially friends. We've had some humorous exchanges, and I'm really enjoying the back-and-forth teasing. His profile contains a photo of him while mugging for the camera with a very pretty girl next to him, only a friend, it turns out, who has a beautiful olive complexion. At least, in the photo it appears that way.
I pursued an old inside family joke by inquiring about the girl's heritage to ensure that he would be serious only about an Italian girl, which in truth, matters to me not in the least. The insistence of all things Italian is something I have used to tease all my children. The girl thought that was cute and commented back asking my son if she really looks Italian. I commented back trying to explain the joke. It occurred to me that I could expand my brief explanation and bring back a family memory, about which I have always been fond.
My father used to tease me about just such a thing when I was a teenager, usually at the big Sunday dinners my mother prepared for the family. First, a word about those dinners and my mother: I'm headed this way partly because of this recent exchange with my son and partly because of a story that my friend, Joe Pignatello, published about his family experience growing up in an Italian family and neighborhood in New Jersey. I re-published Joe's story at my Web site. We had somewhat similar experiences. We understand each other well.
Okay--about my mother: Oh my, what a cook. The Sunday dinners usually included as guests my sister, brother-in-law, and niece, who drove over from a neighboring town. My brother and his wife (their daughter had not yet been born). And then there was me, the youngest offspring of my parents--spoiled baby, as my siblings often claimed.
Mother would have spent a couple of hours shopping for just the right pork, beef, chicken, sausage, tomato sauce and paste, and other ingredients a day or two before the dinner. I would have driven her because she never drove a car. She would get up early and start the preparation. She would inspect, trim, clean, and otherwise prepare the ingredients meticulously. I think she relished this part of it. The sauce (call it gravy, if you like; we called it sauce, meaning Mother's sauce and no other, for there was no other to us) would start sometimes around 8 a.m., sometimes later, for the late afternoon meal.
On those occasions, a few of the households around us would know that Babe had started her sauce again. To us, all was right in the world when our brains picked up that olfactory signal. Mother was barely five feet tall and very petite. But somehow, she would lift very large pots full of sauce and the meats that had been braising inside and transfer the contents with ease and dexterity into their platters. And she wanted no one in her way when she was doing it. She would carry nearly overflowing platters in her small hands to the table from her small kitchen (and, again, do not get in her way). Absolutely everything would arrive at precisely the same time at optimal temperature with steam wafting from every dish. I've been cooking at home for years, and I still don't know how she did that.
I am recounting this with exactitude, dear reader. There is no exaggeration here, no embellishment from a loving offspring remembering his mama. I'm telling you it was perfect; it was wondrous. Occasionally, I would invite a friend from school. Such invitations became coveted. My fortunate friends, none of whom had ever encountered such a meal, would recount the experience at school, furthering my mother's renown. Mothers of friends would seek out my mother's advice and ask for recipes, as though recipes for my mother's food existed.
(Let's take a moment here for the lump in my throat to subside. It's time for an espresso, anyway. I find that the hot liquid helps ease the constriction that now arises in my throat; and espresso--well, espresso has its own unique comforting properties. But, I digress.)
So, we are at the table approximately at the midpoint of the meal, which as I recall would be about an hour after it started. My father is engrossed in what is before him and seemingly zoned into it. He waits until he thinks my mother is looking his way and takes a few forbidden stabs directly inside the table’s large salad bowl instead of using the salad tongs to acquire the salad for his plate. He does this because he knows my mother will protest and he can start a round of teasing her and then, in the same spirit, take a shot or two at his son-in-law, whom he loved as much as any of us. And so it would start.
Dad looks directly at me. I pretend not to notice him and look down at my plate at a remaining morsel of manicotti or something.
"Hey, you. The little one over there, I am talking to you," he says, feigning gruffness. I have to look up; it's expected.
"How old are you?"
"I'm 16, Pop."
"Hmmm . . ." He acts as though he is searching the space between me and whoever is next to me, shakes his head, and returns to the supposed object of his attention. A few seconds later, he adds:
"You married, yet?"
"No, Pop, not yet," giving the response everyone expects.
"Humph, not married." He looks incredulously at Mom and tilts his head upward, shrugs his shoulders as though to say "What's up with that? Why is he not married?" Mom gives a slight shrug as if to say, "Don't ask me," and focuses on her plate. I'm so on my own at this point.
He shakes his head again and returns to the salad bowl for the few remaining avocado tidbits swimming in the oil and vinegar. Again, Mom pretends to be outraged. After a few seconds, he lifts his head, leans over to Mom as though he were going to say something intimate, nudges her arm with his hand and says, for all to hear:
"Remind me to call Uncle Domenico and tell him to hurry up and find that nice, plump, Italian, Catholic girl from Calabria for this one. It's time for this boy to get started making us some more grandchildren." Mom, of course, nods in agreement. Then, he turns back to me and feigns a menacing look while pointing with his fork dripping a bit of sauce or dressing:
"I want six fat, little babies from you, boy, and you better hurry up about it."
"I'll get right on that, Pop."
Dad is obviously pleased with himself, and even my adorable little niece, MIchelle, who is about five or six, is in on the joke, as everyone nods in agreement and offers some supportive assent, as expected. We are all pleased.
Now, nearly sixty years later, I enjoy that memory. About ten or twelve years ago, I got to share it with my son, who at the time, was well beyond 16 and not yet married.
Six fat, little babies, Nicholas, and you'd better hurry up about it.