In Remembrance

     It would not be right to let this week go by without mentioning the passing of my Uncle Tony. He died Friday night, at home and at peace at the age of ninety-nine. He was my mother's last surviving sibling out of seven and he was the last of all my aunts and uncles on both sides of my parents. I feel my mother's sadness. Her loneliness on this earth for someone from her past is palpable. She is all that is left of her generation in our family, the very last one, and she misses them terribly. All I can do to ease her grief is to listen to her tell me the stories. Each morning, over the phone I listen, and I never tire of them.
     We have so many Tony's in our Italian family, we make jokes of it. But there was only one "Uncle" Tony Maffeo. We said his last name with the "Uncle Tony" part when mentioning him in conversation in order to differentiate between him and our other Uncle Tony- Carusone. There were actually three Uncle Tony's, but the third was Uncle Anthony, so that solved that dilemma. The stories my mother tells of their life as children in the 1920's and 30's in downtown Albany, New York makes me long to be there, to play alongside them. The stories have become rich and even foreign in our age of technology. I picture the scenes in sepia because that is how all the photographs have captured them.  
     One particular story tells how my Uncle Tony and his friends built a car when he was nineteen. They built this car from scrounged parts. When it was finished, the boys drove it to the World's Fair in Chicago. The year was 1933. Can you imagine something like that happening today? Uncle Tony was very good at building mechanical things and he also built an airplane two years before. I don't believe it flew, but it had wings and he did drive it on the road. He was seven years older than my mother and when he was fourteen and she was six, they got into a bit of trouble together. One particular day in 1928, he was told by my grandmother that he was not allowed to go to Mid City Park. There was a big city pool there and amusement rides. He disobeyed and went anyway, toting his little sister (my mother) along with him and his friends. I guess they had a grand time until she lost her shoe on one of the rides. He had to carry her piggy back all the way home, a distance of two and a half miles. The lost shoe gave away their deception and my mother recalls being grounded for a very long time. This is the memory my mom talks about most often these past few days, how she so clearly remembers her brother carrying her on his back all the way home.
     Ironically, Uncle Tony was a sickly child and suffered several health issues throughout his long life. Yet he is the longest lived of all the siblings so far. I love the irony of that. He would have liked to have been able to say he lived to be one hundred, but I have a feeling he is much happier that he didn't wait another year to make his final journey home. I picture him with all the generations gone before him, everyone reunited, one by one, into the presence and the glory of the Lord.
     I miss you all, my aunts and uncles, father and sister. Please save a cannoli for me!

Aunt Millie, Uncle Tony, Aunt Katherine, Aunt Angie, I believe the little child on the left is my mom's cousin Maccala and then my mom. (Maccala was named after the Immaculate Conception, but everyone used her nickname which was pronounced, mock a la')

Five of the seven siblings, Aunt Angie, Uncle Lenny (after whom I am named), my mom Marian, Uncle Tony, Aunt Katherine

My grandfather's store, my first cousins Dan and Sonny (with the bike), my Uncle Anthony in front of the window. The Maffeo children were all born and raised in the flat above the store.

Uncle Tony with his beautiful bride, my Aunt Marie

 

Oh My Gosh, These Kids Crack Me Up

     My current job title is Lunch Lady, in slang terms that is. My proper title is Cafeteria Aid. I actually crack myself up with the jobs I choose. I don't even know why I do what I do, but that's another story for another day.
     I do not prepare or serve food, I monitor. In the span of an hour and a half, I assist approximately 300 K through 5th graders with lunch. I open water bottles, cut open fruit snacks and yogurts, slice apples, hand out napkins, give the evil eye, lend encouragement, and keep order (or at least try to keep order.) On occasion, I yell. As in the case of the recent Raisin Throwing Incident. I yelled, "Whoa! That is not cool!" Otherwise, most of the children are absolutely adorable and many of them treat me like I am a good friend and confidant. They tell me jokes, ask earth shattering questions, cry for their Mommys, show me loose teeth, hug me, make me laugh, or if they're a 5th grader, ignore me.
     For the first part of my morning, I assist in other areas of the school. I float around and lend a hand wherever it may be needed. But the real excitement culminates in the cafeteria. There is one incident I'm still chuckling about from two weeks ago. A little boy summoned me to his table with two other first-grade boys. First graders, mind you and cute as a button. One little boy motioned me to come close. I leaned in closer. With eyebrows raised, he asked, "Is 'pushy' a bad word?" With a puzzled look I stood up straight and said, "No. 'Pushy' is not a bad word." He then asked, "Well what does it mean?" "Pushy? Well... pushy means someone is being aggressive. Like when someone pushes or shoves you when you're standing in line. It's not nice behavior, but it's not a bad word.", I reply. The little boy triumphantly turned to the other boys with a look of self-satisfaction and cried, "See! It's not a bad word."
     As I walk away, I shake my head. Whoever told him that 'pushy' is a bad word must have had a lisp.

Confessions of An Addict and How I Use

     Hello. My name is Leonora and I am a compulsive collector of recipes. I don't merely collect them, I use them. Welcome to a peek into my not-so-secret world of the hows and whys of my addiction.
     I like food. Heck, I love food. As a child, when my mother put supper on the table, I clapped my hands with joy. In college, when I was flat broke, I baked extravagant  breads to give my girlfriends at Christmas. I still remember the confused look on one girl's face who just didn't get it. She's not my friend any more.
     My first cookbook was given to me in 1977. It's the red, Betty Crocker's Cookbook. I still use it if I can't remember how long to boil shrimp or how many minutes per pound to roast the pork. I also have my mother's first cookbook that she earned for selling magazine subscriptions during WWII. I have four shelves of cookbooks, including Tempting Kosher Dishes by The Manischewitz Co. copyrighted 1930 and written in Hebrew. I can't read Hebrew, but it's a fascinating cookbook. I collect cookbooks and recipes like some people collect shoes or stray animals. It's very difficult for me to turn them away. Once or twice I've needed to thin my collection. When I feel compelled to do this, I choose the books from which I only use a handful of recipes, copy them out and then give the book away. In recent years, collecting cookbooks has given way to collecting recipes in general. This marked the turning point of my addiction.
     Nowadays, it's so easy to share thousands of recipes over the internet. Magazines are also chock full of beautiful photos of foods and dishes to try. Southern Living, Martha Stewart, even House Beautiful all have good recipes. My friend B. started us on Bon Appetit several years ago and back issues still line one shelf in my cabinet. What's an addict to do?
     Because I was collecting recipes in a whole new way, I needed some way to keep track of them and to save the ones we liked. In the beginning, I had manilla folders stuffed with pages ripped from magazines and index cards scribbled with recipes. In the 1980's I tried the recipe card index route. Painstakingly copying each recipe onto a card. The cards were filed in a kitcheny little box, but it was awkward to use and it just didn't do it for me. I needed something stronger for my addiction. I also wanted it to feel more organized. This was around the time that the computer came into our home and I learned about Microsoft Word. I had the brainstorm to type up all my folders of loose recipes and index cards and store them on our computer. Brilliant! Because I still wanted a hard copy to have on the kitchen counter when I cooked, I printed out each recipe. This way, I could glue accompanying photos onto them. I then slipped each one into a clear, plastic page saver and filed it into a binder categorized by food groups. In the beginning, I started out with one binder that held all of them. After the second year, it became too full, so I had to divide desserts out into their own binder. And recently, I introduced a third binder, sub-dividing appetizers, soups and breads out of the Main Dish binder.
     The system works great for me. Every recipe is filed on my computer which Steve periodically backs up so that all cannot be lost. If a friend ever wants one of my recipes, I simply print it from my documents.
     I had a few months worth of recipes to type recently. I tend to save this job for the winter months when I know I'll have more free time (and no one is home to see). The top photo shows my work spread over the table today, gluing photos to the typed recipes, slipping them into the plastic sleeves and filing them into one of three binders. I culled out some old recipes that we didn't like which made room for some new ones. I've also noticed that tastes in food and ways of cooking have changed over the years. Cookbooks can become outdated whereas cooking from current publications, including the internet, keeps things fresh. We're more tempted to try new things, eat healthier, or simply freshen up our menus a bit.
     My two oldest daughters, who also love to cook, tell me that any recipe they want or need is on the internet. My eldest simply browses the food or recipe she is interested in, then props her iPad on the kitchen counter to cook. While that's a good idea too, I like to be able to browse my recipes when I'm writing a shopping list and more importantly, I want to save recipes that are our favorites. I don't want to look something up every time I need it and take the chance that I won't find it. Plus, I don't have an iPad or tablet or whatever. Maybe I'm just too old to change at this point. Whatever. My addiction is stashed in a safe place where I can easily get my hands on it.
    I almost forgot! Last year, when our third daughter turned nineteen, I printed out all her favorite recipes plus ones that I thought she might like to have. I bought a new binder, made a decorative cover to slip into the front pocket and presented it to her as a gift. She liked it. I don't think she'll become a recipe addict like me, but she likes to be organized. Organizing can be an addiction too. I try not to let that one show. Oh, and bloggers like The English Kitchen and The Smitten Kitchen? Yeah, they're my enablers.

The plastic page-savers wipe clean!

I tried a couple of different cheeses for this recipe and liked this one best, so I tucked its wrapper  into the page saver as a reminder.

I like to add notes.