Gloria could cook, but she couldn't bake.
Why would she with Cioffi’s just a few blocks past the Gowanus on Union Street? On Carroll Street, everything had to be bigger than life: Cioffi’s was not just a great Neapolitan/Sicilian bakery, it was “the pastry store where Sinatra (`Frank' to us) ordered his cannoli and sfogliatella whenever he was in New York.” On Sunday mornings, if you were willing to stand on line halfway to Columbia Street, you could get a dozen Napoleons, Sfinge, Pasta Ciotte, “With the Cross” Baba au Rhum, Napoleons, and other delights for $3.60. And have change leftover for a small bag of pignoli cookies. As a teen, I had this down to a science. I’d arrive at Cioffi’s on the half-hour when everyone else was in church, and risk damnation for a crunchy ricotta cream cannoli speckled with cintron or chocolate chips
On March 19th, St Joseph’s Day, Cioffi’s turned out fabulous Zeppole di San Giuseppe. My father was a Joe and our scattered relatives were obligated to gift him boxes of zeppoles (fried dough topped with custard. a sour cherry and powdered sugar) from pastry stores all over Brooklyn, which I would devour with glass after glass of cold milk until I threw up.
However, I couldn’t get Pizza di Grano aka Pastiera di Grano, a traditional peasant pie made with sweet ricotta (think Italian cheese cake only denser) flecked with grain, lemon peel and candied citron. These were baked by a handful of neighborhood Italian ladies only at Eastertime. On Sunday morning, one of them—I don’t recall whom—Baby-Doll Stuto, Angie Pepe, Maggie Christiano—would show up after mass and bring ,my mother a pizza di grano wrapped in crinkly aluminum foil as an Easter gift. I don’t know if it was the rarity, the scarcity, or that the friggin’ pie just tasted so good, but I became obsessed with pizza di grano, a problem because Gloria loved sweets and Joey, Tommy and Greg, my three brothers, were gluttons.
Even Cioffi’s fell down. Their pizza di grano looked all right, with a checkerboard of dough strips on top, but tasted “commercial,” as if it had been baked and shoved out on the counter without love or respect. Easters came and went; I hunted pizza di grano in Bensonhurst, on Court Street, in Little Italy; nothing compared with the old ladies’ magical creation. (By the way, what the hell was grano (grain)? Where do you get it in Brooklyn, and what do you do with it? ) I’d heard they kept it in in brown paper bags, but they weren’t talking.
They were always dressed in black, always in mourning for some family member, always doing seasonal things, canning tomatoes over boiling pots in backyards, stringing hot peppers to dry in the sun, making novenas.
Life moved on. By some miracle, I was hired as a Newsweek reporter and worked briefly in London, Boston, New York and ultimately, Atlanta, where there apparently was plenty of grain, but no Italians. Most Easters, I’d fly home to Brooklyn where Gloria somehow saved me a sliver of her pizza di grano.
“Mom, just get me the recipe.” I’d say grumbling and picking at the crumbs.
I worked for Newsweek. I had all power. We had a Rome bureau, an extensive research library, access to Julia Child, the best chefs....
“They won’t give it to me.”
“What?”
“I asked them. They won’t give it to me.”
“Who?”
“Never mind.”
“Mom!”
"It's a secret."
Life went on. In the 1980s, Thomas died of AIDS. My father died of emphysema. Joseph and Gregory descended into the hell of drugging and gambling. The Gowanus was taking its toll of us, as it did every neighborhood family. I was not spared, but the worst, by far the worst, was Gloria’s cancer which you can read about—I still cannot—Losing Mom--on my blog. At Gloria’s funeral, I sat there in front of her open casket trying to figure out how things had gone so terribly wrong, so fast. I was still in my 30s. At one point, an old woman hobbled up to me. I kissed her dry cheek, smelled her old lady perfume. She pressed an envelope into my hand.
“Il Posto (The Mail),” I thought. The traditional offering of money to help defray funeral expenses, a holdover from our immigrant days. I stuffed the envelope into my jacket pocket.
I found it a few days later after Gloria’s funeral. I opened it. It was written in Italian, in tiny script on yellowed paper. It was the recipe for pizza di grano. I read the first few lines, It began: “Under a full moon, soak the grain....”
I’ve never tried to make my own.
Why would she with Cioffi’s just a few blocks past the Gowanus on Union Street? On Carroll Street, everything had to be bigger than life: Cioffi’s was not just a great Neapolitan/Sicilian bakery, it was “the pastry store where Sinatra (`Frank' to us) ordered his cannoli and sfogliatella whenever he was in New York.” On Sunday mornings, if you were willing to stand on line halfway to Columbia Street, you could get a dozen Napoleons, Sfinge, Pasta Ciotte, “With the Cross” Baba au Rhum, Napoleons, and other delights for $3.60. And have change leftover for a small bag of pignoli cookies. As a teen, I had this down to a science. I’d arrive at Cioffi’s on the half-hour when everyone else was in church, and risk damnation for a crunchy ricotta cream cannoli speckled with cintron or chocolate chips
On March 19th, St Joseph’s Day, Cioffi’s turned out fabulous Zeppole di San Giuseppe. My father was a Joe and our scattered relatives were obligated to gift him boxes of zeppoles (fried dough topped with custard. a sour cherry and powdered sugar) from pastry stores all over Brooklyn, which I would devour with glass after glass of cold milk until I threw up.
However, I couldn’t get Pizza di Grano aka Pastiera di Grano, a traditional peasant pie made with sweet ricotta (think Italian cheese cake only denser) flecked with grain, lemon peel and candied citron. These were baked by a handful of neighborhood Italian ladies only at Eastertime. On Sunday morning, one of them—I don’t recall whom—Baby-Doll Stuto, Angie Pepe, Maggie Christiano—would show up after mass and bring ,my mother a pizza di grano wrapped in crinkly aluminum foil as an Easter gift. I don’t know if it was the rarity, the scarcity, or that the friggin’ pie just tasted so good, but I became obsessed with pizza di grano, a problem because Gloria loved sweets and Joey, Tommy and Greg, my three brothers, were gluttons.
Even Cioffi’s fell down. Their pizza di grano looked all right, with a checkerboard of dough strips on top, but tasted “commercial,” as if it had been baked and shoved out on the counter without love or respect. Easters came and went; I hunted pizza di grano in Bensonhurst, on Court Street, in Little Italy; nothing compared with the old ladies’ magical creation. (By the way, what the hell was grano (grain)? Where do you get it in Brooklyn, and what do you do with it? ) I’d heard they kept it in in brown paper bags, but they weren’t talking.
They were always dressed in black, always in mourning for some family member, always doing seasonal things, canning tomatoes over boiling pots in backyards, stringing hot peppers to dry in the sun, making novenas.
Life moved on. By some miracle, I was hired as a Newsweek reporter and worked briefly in London, Boston, New York and ultimately, Atlanta, where there apparently was plenty of grain, but no Italians. Most Easters, I’d fly home to Brooklyn where Gloria somehow saved me a sliver of her pizza di grano.
“Mom, just get me the recipe.” I’d say grumbling and picking at the crumbs.
I worked for Newsweek. I had all power. We had a Rome bureau, an extensive research library, access to Julia Child, the best chefs....
“They won’t give it to me.”
“What?”
“I asked them. They won’t give it to me.”
“Who?”
“Never mind.”
“Mom!”
"It's a secret."
Life went on. In the 1980s, Thomas died of AIDS. My father died of emphysema. Joseph and Gregory descended into the hell of drugging and gambling. The Gowanus was taking its toll of us, as it did every neighborhood family. I was not spared, but the worst, by far the worst, was Gloria’s cancer which you can read about—I still cannot—Losing Mom--on my blog. At Gloria’s funeral, I sat there in front of her open casket trying to figure out how things had gone so terribly wrong, so fast. I was still in my 30s. At one point, an old woman hobbled up to me. I kissed her dry cheek, smelled her old lady perfume. She pressed an envelope into my hand.
“Il Posto (The Mail),” I thought. The traditional offering of money to help defray funeral expenses, a holdover from our immigrant days. I stuffed the envelope into my jacket pocket.
I found it a few days later after Gloria’s funeral. I opened it. It was written in Italian, in tiny script on yellowed paper. It was the recipe for pizza di grano. I read the first few lines, It began: “Under a full moon, soak the grain....”
I’ve never tried to make my own.
Great story, Vinnie. Nobody -- NOBODY -- does Italian/Brooklyn like you.
ReplyDeleteThanks LaFong, I'm still writing 'em
DeleteCioffi's was owned and operated by my grandfather, Frank Cioffi...the whole family would work there. By the time I was growing up in the '70s, my grandfather had already retired...I was always told his pastry shop was the best in Brooklyn and that people would leave Sunday mass early to beat the lines into the store. Amazing stories!
ReplyDelete