Concettina

Connie was my next door neighbor when we bought our first house, a two and a half story monster that housed two flats.  She had her husband, Sal, and two boys, Santino and Calogero.  Santo and Charlie.  We would say an occasional hello, but that was that except for the two boys who came over to play with Brian.  He would go over there, and come back with stories of spinach soup and homemade pizza, cookies and pasta with sauces.  This was a wonder, for at home he was the child who would go to bed with a cheek full of peas after "trying one bite" rather than swallow.  I would check on him and find a trail of green goosh on his pillow: peas.  He still hates them.  Yet in the land of Sicily, he ate them in pasta sauce along with any other vegetable Connie offered.

I had gotten to know her after giving her a quart of green and yellow beans from my garden.  She wondered if I was Italian because I grew cucuzza, a lovely squash remembered from a childhood neighbor's garden.  She taught me to hand pollinate the blossoms after a dismal production, and I provided tomatoes and chocolate chip cookies in gratitude for her patience.  The language barrier was formidable, and Santino would be called to translate.  I asked for some of her recipes, as I was overjoyed to find food that Brian would actually eat.

She always made her own loaves of bread, baking it in the second kitchen in the basement which is one of the most brilliant ideas ever in summertime.  With extra dough, she would stretch it out in a baking sheet containing about a quarter inch of olive oil, dotting it with sliced garlic, a small amount of fresh tomato, anchovies, and a light sprinkle of parmesan cheese.  More olive oil on top, then bake in a slow oven for a few hours till it became crisp and slightly golden.   Her apron was always on, if not a towel tucked in around her waist.

Her cookies came year round, the mainstays being the sugar cookie dough rolled in twists and frosted with rainbow sprinkles, thumbprints made mostly of walnuts, osse de morte, the bones of the dead; sesame, chocolate balls, and cucidati.  You would go over for coffee, and the cookies, grapes and walnuts in shells would be brought out.  "Hey Brian, you want a  cook'?"  Such warm, good hearted people.  I still have many of her cookie recipes, and cannot say how grateful I was for her friendship.

I had impulsively grabbed a blob of frozen dough from the grocery yesterday, with the idea of replicating her pizza.  Since St. Joseph's Day, I have been on a fishy journey: the fishier, the better, and had purchased a jar of lovely anchovies from the import grocery down on Grant Street.  They needed a base of dough and garlic to rise to their best calling, and so that is how it happened that my oven was the source of Sicilian heaven just moments ago.  I can see her, tall, thin, worked to a bone with one of the cleanest homes I have ever been in.

We parted somewhat when my family moved two streets away, yet still the boys would play together.  Connie and I kept in touch and would visit.  Once my marriage dissolved, there was a difference.  She didn't understand, and would say, "Come over.  You bring you husband,"  for he had been a friend to them as well.  I ran into Santino many years back, his new family with him, a wife and a beautiful little girl.  Everyone was fine, Sal had retired, Connie still with her garden and home.

Again, a part of my life that I do not wish to forget.  The hands that lift you up, that let you lift them up also.  Day in day out.  It strengthens us.