Recently, I was debating what to bake for my yoga teacher as a gift. I was uncertain what would be appropriate: green tea shortbread, perhaps? The food I make for myself is fairly low in fat. With the exception of eggs, I rarely use animal products, even dairy.
On one hand, I wanted to make his Christmas present seem ‘special’ and out of the everyday, low-fat banana bread category-ordinary. On the other hand I didn’t want to offend. Fortunately, I overheard him saying that he loves cheese. When asked what he would respond, upon conversing with more aesthetic yogis, he said he’d reply:
“Well, I am Italian.’
I breathed a sign of relief, and immediately began planning to make my version of
Bake or Break’s Sea Salt Brownies.
They seemed like ideal ‘guy food’ (my yoga teacher is a pretty athletic dude)—salty and not too sweet.
I understand about Italians and food. Although my maternal Italian grandfather died when my mother was still a child, I do remember some of my mother’s distant Italian relatives: I called them Uncle Louie and Aunt Menina, although they weren’t my Uncle or Aunt. Everyone called them that—the people who rented rooms from them, the people who worked in Uncle Louie’s terrazzo tile company.
Uncle Louie was thus ‘in construction,’ but not ‘in construction’ Italian as in having mysteriously smooth hands, a habit of paying in cash with wads of hundred dollar bills and horse heads-showing-up-in-the-bedclothes-of-people-he-didn’t-like kind of construction. Louis’ hands were as calloused and ugly as the beautiful mosaic he created upon floors and walls, a skill he had learned in the old country. Both Louie and his wife were of small, blunt-shaped peasant stock, as if they had begun to resemble the masonry tools from which Louie made his money.
Uncle Louie and Aunt Menina were Real Deal Jersey Italian. Mass every morning. I don’t mean ‘almost every morning.’ And I certainly don’t mean every Sunday. You could set your watch by them at the church.
Menina would wear a pastel-colored kerchief over her head in the spring, and a plastic, clear white one in inclement weather. Her hair was a bright, shiny copper color that never changed, no matter how old she grew.
Menina’s food was legendary. Like Louie, she was born in Sicily, but she had taken to Italian-American food in a Big Way. Their house was pristine and looked like a hermetically sealed apartment from Brooklyn in the 1940s. There wasn’t a single stain on the outdated floral wallpaper, even in the kitchen, which, under her loving touch, yielded tender ravioli in tomato sauce, spaghetti pie, and ziti in foil-covered porcelain dishes.
Cans and cans of canned Italian tomatoes lined the open shelves.
I remember sitting on the slippery, plastic-covered sofa feeling bored whenever I went to visit them. I didn’t like the texture of the joints of the ravioli disks. The ziti felt too heavy in my stomach, and while I was fascinated with the whirls of parmesan and bread-crumb studded, red-threads of angel hair suspended in the mozzarella and provolone of the spaghetti pie, I liked the name better than the taste.
Menina also made a ten layer chocolate cake. The usual number is seven. But seven, according to Menina would be ‘too stingy.’
I couldn’t even finish more than one layer of that cake. This comes from a kid who used to demand the corner pieces of birthday cake—with icing roses—to maximize her sugar consumption. Only the boyfriends of my cousins who were athletes, or men who worked in occupations that required a great deal of heavy lifting could finish a slice.
There was an absence of green in Menina’s food—I remember it all in white (pasta cheese), red (sauce), and brown (meatballs, chocolate). But it was, even though it did not please my fincky palate, made with love and although the children, accustomed to McNuggets, tended to pick at it, the adults devoured it with gusto.
I admit that I did not love Menina and Louie. My other cousins, who were well trained,
knew how to sit in silence and listen to adult conversation and not say a word. I would bring toys and coloring books to amuse myself, chatter aimlessly. This was not how a child should be raised. I would sit and talk to my stuffed Thumper when I should be eating ziti. I think my aunt did not see a charming Disney creation but what should be
conigilio con pomodoro.
My parents divorced when I was in 6th grade. I still remember the profound sense of relief. No more going to the table and being terrified if I bought a book to read. No more need to worry about having every toy put away before my father got home. No more worries about my mother having to pick lint off the blue shag carpet, or wash the floor every week, to preserve my father’s sense of order.
I remember sitting in the closet of my grandmother’s home, where we moved after the divorce, and simply breathing with relief.
One day, I was home in the middle of the afternoon. It was early summer, and my mother was at work.
“Hello, it’s Aunt Menina.” I wrinkled my nose. I remembered the feeling of the slippery couch, the airless house. The ravioli.
“Uh, hi,” I said. I was reading Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley and Me. I had also fixed myself some toaster waffles with syrup.
“I heard about the tragedy.”
“What?”
“The divorce. I am so, so sorry”
Suddenly, it clicked, even in my thick, television and sugar-addled little skull.
“Oh, Aunt Menina, please don’t be sorry. It’s for the best. It’s easier—”
“I was so shocked.”
I didn’t understand. I mean, even I could see—everyone could see—how incompatible my parents were—I’d already perused books about divorced kids like Just as Long as We’re Together even BEFORE my parents talked about getting separated, praying that I could be like the heroes and heroines of The Divorce Express.
“No one wants a divorce,” said Meina—“maybe, if you talked things over with them—maybe they might get back together.”
Even I, even I knew that this was so Not Judy Blume of her to say. “No, no, Aunt Menina—I know you mean well, but no. It doesn’t work that way.”
“If their little girl talked with them…”
“Don’t you understand that it’s better this way? It’s kind—it’s kind of a relief,” I blurted out.
There was a sound of silent shock over the phone, shock at the cold words of this monstrous little girl.
I didn’t still quite get it, even after I hung up the phone. The conversation was so Not Cool! So totally NOT JUDY BLUME! Didn’t adults get it? Wasn’t I the person who was supposed to blame myself and not Get It?
That was the last time I spoke with Aunt Menina. With the money so carefully saved, they paid for several of my younger relative’s education and first cars. Not mine. My mother attended Menina’s funeral, after she died. There was no request to give donations to a cause—everyone sent flowers and wept.
I understand better now what my Aunt and Uncle went through to establish themselves in the New World, the faith that sustained them. And I wish I had been a little bit more flexible as a child to enter their world—just as I also wish they could have been a bit more flexible to understand mine.
Today, I see many younger Italian-American women and men cooking the food of their ancestors—on the web, in cookbooks. As well as the red and the white, there are other colors—the colors of bitter greens, beans, and other Italian peasant foods that didn’t survive the first passage across the Atlantic to become traditional American cuisine.
One woman I know is legendary for making the Feast of the Seven Fishes every Christmas. But she also goes to the gym frequently. Like my yoga teacher and other Italian-Americans of today, she appreciates the past and has a reverence of what nourishes the body—but she also believes that sometimes it is healthy to bend, rather than break on the wheels of tradition.
Sea Salt Brownies
Ingredients
1 and ½ sticks of butter
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
¼ cup and 2 tablespoons cocoa
2 cups light brown or white granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 and ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup white whole wheat flour
½ teaspoon sea salt
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350F and line a 9 inch pan (I used a round cake pan) with foil or parchment (I used parchment) buttering the sides to allow for overflow.
- Melt the unsweetened chocolate and butter slowly in a pan on the stovetop. DO NOT BURN. Nothing is sadder than burnt chocolate!
- Mix together the beaten eggs, vanilla extract, sugar, cocoa, and flour. Pour chocolate and butter mixture into the flour, and stir, either by hand or with a mixer.
- Pour into the prepared pan. Sprinkle sea salt across the batter and smooth with a butter knife.
- Bake for 30-35 minutes, until slightly underdone.
- Cool at room temperature for an hour. Refrigerate for an hour. Cut carefully and only when fully cooled. Makes approximately 6-9 brownies, generously sliced.
