Today is National Italian Food Day. I have wonderful book and delicious story for you.The book “Bean Banquet” by by Patricia R Gregory is a great book. We already talked about it. Cooking beans is a wonderful art…And then you eat, perchance to f…..fill your belly. She also wrote another book “Mangia Bene, Traditional Recipes of Italy” Pasqualina (Patricia) R. Rio, 2003.
This is a wonderful ‘old school’ Italian cookbook. How do I know? Because there is a recipe for “Lasagna Al Forno E Polpettine Della Theresa Tenore Rio.” It is an unbelievable lasagna. My wife’s mother had this same recipe. She was a cousin to the author, and niece to the recipe writer. Her recollection was that it came one generation further up, from Pasquale and Nunziata (my wife’s great grandmother). Don’t know for sure, but I do know this is a good recipe. While I won’t print from the author’s book (track it down and buy it!), I will tell you that one of reasons it is so good is because you roll out some tiny meatballs (about size of a marble) to layer in when assembling the lasagna. I will not eat lasagna anywhere else, because I was so enamored with my mother-in-laws recipe. I even was in charge of cooking the meatballs one time, until I kept snacking while cooking.
My mother-in-law was interesting. One evening (Sept 18 11:30 pm, 1978 to be exact), I had found myself sitting on her roof with a friend. I had planned out an elaborate birthday surprise for her daughter (this being before we married) , and I was about to set it in motion. I had a friend of mine that had made the hour and half trip from school with me. We had put a large happy birthday sign outside her window, along with a small wrapped present. We were going to light off firecrackers, to wake her up. Then when she would see the present, she would go outside, and I would throw a bucket of water on her, shouting “Happy Birthday!” We were waiting until midnight, because her birthday was actually on the 19th, and I wanted to be the first to wish her Happy Birthday.
Midnight came, fireworks were lit, and they exploded, echoing through the neighborhood. Then things started going wrong. The neighbor woke up, came out, and started yelling about how he was going to call the police. They my girlfriend’s brother and father came out… with a gun! My college friend meekly crawled behind the chimney, praying for a quick painless ride to heaven. After an agonizing 15 minutes, my girlfriend came out and I tossed water on her, barely grazing the side of her hair. My hands and arms were like rubber with fear.
I had not planned on what to do after the water toss-the consequences. I eventually had to go inside to face her family. The father shook just his head and went back to bed. The mother yelled at me for a good twenty minutes. Then, when finally she took a breath of air, and I interjected that I had to make the 1 1/2 hour drive back to school, she did the strangest thing. She stopped yelling, and starting bringing out food from her fridge. ”You have to eat before you go,” she said. I was forced to eat a feast of left overs. One of the reheated items was, you guessed it, her homemade lasagna. It was so special. Perhaps it could have been because I thought I may be eating my last meal, but later- since you see I survived, I was invited for the lasagna meal again. It was even better.
Life is full of pasta-bilities. Leave the pun, and take the cannoli.
Librarytomes 