Naples! (9780698152687)

by De Laurentiis, Giada; Gambatesa, Francesca (ILT)

  GROSSET & DUNLAP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

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  Text copyright © 2013 by GDL Foods, Inc. Illustrations copyright © 2013 by Francesca Gambatesa. Published by Grosset & Dunlap, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  ISBN 978-0-698-15268-7

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  A Note from Giada

  Zia’s Tomato-Basil Pizza

  Zia’s Zeppole

  This book is dedicated to my aunt Raffy, who always inspires me to be adventurous in cooking and in life!

  Questo libro è dedicato a mia zia Raffy, che ispira sempre che io sia avventurosa in cucina e nella vita!

  “Alfredo!” Mom called from the kitchen as she flipped open two Presto Pesto pizza boxes in the middle of the table. “Let’s go! Dinner! Emilia! You too!”

  Alfie gladly tossed aside his geography homework—his favorite subject—and ran down the hall to the kitchen. He loved maps, but he loved food more. In the kitchen, he reached across the table and scooped up a slice of Supreme Meat Machine pizza, which sagged under the weight of three kinds of meat, four kinds of cheese, and two kinds of olives. Alfie tilted his head back, aimed the tip of the slice into his open mouth, and started backing out of the kitchen.

  “Hang on,” Mom said. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Mmph rooph. Learning about rifers in Egypt.”

  “You eat at the table with the famiglia. Sit down and get a napkin,” Mom said. “Where’s your sister?”

  His sister, Emilia, older by just one year, entered the kitchen with her eyes glued to the history textbook in her hand. She looked up and inspected the pizza boxes.

  “Why are we having pizza now?” she asked. “We’re in charge of bringing pizza to school on Friday for United Nations Day.” Their school was going to “taste the foods of the world,” as Emilia’s teacher, Ms. Esch, said. Alfie and Emilia, whose classes would be combined for one afternoon, offered to bring pizza to represent the food of Italy, since that’s where their family was from.

  “Mauricio! Andiamo! Mangiamo!” Mom called to the kids’ dad, as she slid a slice of pizza onto a paper plate.

  “Then that’ll be three times this week,” Emilia said with a sigh as she stared at the pizza.

  “That’s why this week rules,” Alfie said. Why did his sister love to act like awesome things weren’t awesome?

  Emilia inspected Alfie’s spread. “You can’t eat all the meat slices. Mom, he’s taking all the Supreme Meat.”

  “I’m a growing man,” Alfie said. “I need protein.”

  “Please, you’re barely eleven,” Emilia said. “Give me one, boy.” She tried to snatch one off his plate, but he quickly pulled it away. “Mom! Tell Alfredo to give me the Supreme Meat.” She used his proper name just to bug him—he despised his given name, which is why he went by the nickname Alfie.

  “Kids, share,” Mom said. “Emilia, pull your hair back. It’s getting in your slice.” She brushed Emilia’s long, wavy hair, which was golden at the ends, back over her shoulder.

  “I got it,” Emilia said. She tucked her hair into the back of her fuchsia shirt.

  “You should cut that mop,” Alfie said. “You look like a mermaid.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “Ciao, ciao!” a voice called from the front door. “Hello, hello!” Dad was finally home.

  “We’re in here!” Mom hollered back.

  “And I,” Dad said, his voice getting closer, “found a surprise on our doorstep.”

  In the doorway stood a slim, tiny woman in ridiculously high heels. Her salt-and-pepper hair was tied back in a loose braid, showing off the chunky gold and multicolored-stone necklace around her neck. She wore a graphic T-shirt under a dark blazer, slim jeans, and roughed-up tan leather boots. She was older than their mom, but somehow the clothes looked right on her.

  “Ciao, famiglia!” she said, spreading her arms wide. “Bambina! Arianna!” she said to Mom.

  “Zia!” Mom said, using the Italian word for aunt and dropping her slice on the table with a thunk. She sprang from her seat, and she and Zia wrapped each other up in a tight, twirling hug, laughing and screaming the whole time. “Zia! Zia! You’re here! Come sta?”

  “Molto bene!” Zia laughed. “Molto bene!”

  “I thought you were coming next week,” Mom said to Zia Donatella, holding her tight around her small waist.

  “You knew Donatella was coming?” Dad asked from the doorway.

  “I’m sorry. Didn’t I tell you?” Mom said.

  Dad eyed Mom while he set down the two large suitcases.

  Great-aunt Donatella was from Italy—just like their mom and dad—but she lived all over the world, traveling from country to country searching for adventures. It’d been a while since they’d seen her, but Alfie loved her visits. She told stories of places he’d never even thought of visiting. Zia Donatella gave him his first world map when he was five, pointing to a spot in Egypt where she had just seen ancient pyramids. Since then, Alfie covered his walls with maps, memorizing capitals, rivers, mountains, and everything else he thought might be useful for his future job as a professional explorer.

  “Kids, give your great-aunt Donatella a hug!” Mom said.

  While Emilia hugged Zia tightly around her waist, Alfie stood at a cool distance. As excited as he was to see her, he was getting older and didn’t think he should hug her like she was Santa Claus at the mall.

  “My goodness, how you’ve both grown!” Zia Donatella said. When Emilia finally released Zia from her hug, Zia stepped closer to Alfie, taking his face in her hands. Alfie couldn’t help but smile. “Bello!”

  “Want some dinner?” Alfie offered. “We got pizza!”

  Zia Donatella looked at the cardboard boxes and slices of pizza on the table, now cooled with sweating cheese on top. “Ma che mangiate? What are you eating? This is your dinner?”

  “Don’t start, Zia Donatella,” Mom sa
id, combining the remaining pizza into one box and tossing the other. “We’re just busy. Besides, we’re not amazing chefs like you are.”

  “It doesn’t take a chef to cook a homemade meal, ragazza,” Zia said.

  “Zia, have you run into any bulls lately?” Alfie asked, remembering the story she had told of watching bulls race through a Spanish town; she was almost pummeled by them.

  Zia Donatella smiled and said, “Thankfully, no. But I did see a wildebeest in Namibia.”

  “That’s awesome!”

  “He tasted pretty good, too,” she said, winking.

  Alfie was so stunned that for a moment he couldn’t react. Then he said, “Mom! Can we have wildebeest for dinner tomorrow night?”

  “I don’t think the Save ’n Shop here carries that,” Mom said.

  Eyeing the pizza, Zia said, “Does this food you’re eating have a name?”

  “Fast,” Emilia said, making Alfie snort out a laugh as she tried to hide her own giggle.

  “Zia, don’t you know pizza when you see it?” Alfie asked because—seriously!—it was food from their motherland!

  “You poor children. You really think this is pizza.” Zia looked more upset than offended. “Let me cook something,” Zia said, pushing back her chair. “Mi piace molto cuocere! I love to cook!”

  “Zia,” Mom said, but Zia had already started digging through the pantry. She found canned fruit cocktail, individually wrapped cinnamon rolls, and boxed mac and cheese. She held a can of peas up to Mom and asked, “Will I find anything fresh in the refrigerator?”

  “Why don’t we get you settled in?” Dad suggested. “Tomorrow we can shop. Honey?” he said to Mom, asking with a nod where to put Zia’s bags.

  “Well, why don’t you take . . . ?” She looked between Emilia and Alfie. They knew what was coming—someone was about to lose his or her room.

  Emilia sat up straight in a desperate attempt to show how responsible she was and therefore how deserving of keeping her room. Alfie tried the opposite approach. He murdered the last slice of Supreme Meat Machine, hoping to show Mom how messy he was and that no one in her right mind would ever put any human in his room. It was strictly an “at your own risk” sort of place.

  “You can take . . . Alfie’s room,” Mom declared.

  “Mom!” Alfie said. “That’s not fair!”

  “Emilia is the oldest,” Mom said.

  “But I’m the man!” he said.

  “Ha! You wish,” Emilia said.

  Alfie felt bad about being rude in front of Zia Donatella, but he couldn’t believe he was getting kicked out of his room. “Where am I going to sleep?”

  “Well,” Mom said, thinking. “Maybe you could bunk in Emilia’s room?”

  “No!” he and Emilia both yelled at the same time. At least they agreed on that.

  “He can take the pullout sofa in the office,” Dad said. “If we put an air mattress on top, it’s not that bad.”

  “Not that bad,” Alfie thought. Translation: future spine surgery may be required.

  “Great, then it’s settled,” Mom said. “But first, Alfredo, get that room straightened up.”

  Alfie sulked to his room to clean it up—and to say arrivederci to his privacy.

  Sleep was impossible in the so-called bed. It was more like sleeping on a bag full of baseballs. Alfie’s parents hadn’t been able to find the pump for the air mattress, so Dad said he’d have to tough it out for the night. Noises from the kitchen also kept him awake.

  It was probably Zia Donatella, who loved creating new dishes inspired by her travels. Her arrival had been so chaotic, she hadn’t had time to tell them any new stories.

  A loud bang came from the kitchen, and since Alfie couldn’t sleep anyway, he decided to get up to inspect. He ran into Emilia in the hall.

  “Can’t sleep, either?” he whispered.

  “Nah,” she said.

  They heard another clang in the kitchen.

  “Guess Zia can’t, either,” Alfie said.

  Emilia nodded. “Let’s go see what she’s up to.”

  They headed down the darkened hall together. When they entered the kitchen, Alfie smiled at the scene created by Zia Donatella. Every light was on and the contents of the cabinets were scattered across the countertops—bags of flour and sugar, spices, bowls, spoons, and more. In the middle of all of it was Zia Donatella, dressed in a long, flowing gown, black and red with bits of gold. Alfie couldn’t tell if it was a dress or a nightgown, but what did it matter—it had a huge dragon snaking around from the back to the front, which made it the greatest whatever-it-was he’d ever seen.

  “Zia,” Alfie said in a loud whisper. He didn’t want his parents to wake up, although with all this noise, it was a miracle they hadn’t already.

  Zia Donatella turned from the refrigerator with a carton of eggs in her hand. “Hello, my bambini,” she said. “I was wondering when you were going to visit me.”

  Alfie and Emilia leaned on the counter. Alfie’s forearms were immediately coated in flour. “What are you doing?” he asked as he dusted off the flour.

  “It’s a miracle you have any actual food in here,” she said, inspecting her ingredients. “But when you’re clever, you can always find something to cook up. So—I cook.”

  “In the middle of the night?” Emilia asked.

  Zia Donatella stopped for a moment, resting her hand on her hip. “I’m homesick,” she said. “Have you ever been homesick?”

  “It’s hard to get homesick when you hardly ever go anywhere,” Alfie said. “Our last vacation was three summers ago.”

  “Mom and Dad just get busy with work,” Emilia said, defending their parents. “But they promise we’ll go somewhere next summer.”

  “Or the one after that,” Alfie said, nudging his sister and making her smile.

  “Well, I hope someday you know the feeling,” Zia said. “It’s always good to get away and see the world, but there’s nothing like feeling connected to your home and feeling the need to go back, even for a visit.”

  “But you’re here now,” Emilia said. “Don’t you feel better?”

  “Not this home!” Zia said, waving her away. “My home. Your parents’ home. Your nonna’s home.”

  “You mean Naples, in Italy,” Alfie said.

  “Esatto,” Zia said. “Exactly.” She stepped back to the stove, where she heated oil in a deep skillet. “Once, I was in the Philippines and we discovered a place called Boracay with the most beautiful beaches I’d ever seen in my life. Clear water and sand as white as sugar. But suddenly, despite the beauty of the place, I felt this ache in my heart for home. Home to me meant plates of spaghetti, bowls of risotto, and fresh fish straight from the sea. I realized that if I found the right ingredients, I could cook the things I missed. And so I made my new friends the most amazing fish with lemon and spaghetti.” Zia tossed a dash of salt into the mixing bowl in front of her, then paused as if thinking fondly of the dish. “The spaghetti may have been a little more Filipino than Italian, but the feeling was still there. I tasted home in my cooking. When you cook from the heart you can go anywhere in the world without getting on a plane. Much less expensive,” she said with a wink. She added flour and a few other ingredients to the bowl. “Besides, I couldn’t sleep thinking about that wretched pizza you poor children were eating. Pizza—how dare you even call it that!”

  “Come on, Zia,” Alfie said. He had to admit it was kind of fun to see her get so riled up over the pizza. “I thought you’d be happy about us eating food from Italy.”

  “That’s not food!” she snapped as she added butter to the bowl and turned on the mixer. “And it’s certainly not Italian.”

  “Look, Zia,” Alfie said over the noise of the mixer. “Italian food is in my genes. And Presto Pesto is good Italian food.”

  “Good Italian�
�oh my goodness, you kids,” Zia said. Emilia giggled, but she also nudged Alfie to tell him to go easy on the teasing.

  Zia turned off the mixer and removed the attachment. “When I was a little girl in Naples, I ate the best pizza every week and didn’t even realize it. Nowhere else in the world can make pizza that good.”

  “What’s so special about it?” Emilia asked.

  “Oh, nothing much,” Zia said. “Just the dough and the sauce and the cheese and the basil. Not to mention the way the dough is made, how the tomatoes and basil are grown, the hands used to stretch the cheese . . .”

  “Hands that make cheese?” Alfie said. “I’d like to see that.”

  “You will, I assure you. They’ll show you themselves,” Zia said.

  “Who will?” Alfie asked.

  “I will show you myself,” Zia said. “Do you know what else is wonderful about Naples? Emilia, can you please hand me that slotted spoon.”

  Emilia handed her the spoon and asked, “What, Zia?”

  Zia took her mixture to the pan of hot oil on the stove, scooped up balls of dough, and dropped them into the hot oil. “The chaos!” she said, stepping back from the sizzling pops and crackles of oil. “Naples is full of contradictions—beautiful cathedrals on streets with dark alleys. It’s loud, it’s fast, it’s a little dirty in some places. But the people are wonderful and the food is always fresh—even the street food. Like the zeppole.” She scooped out some of the fried balls and rested them on a plate covered with a paper towel.

  “Is that what these are?” Emilia asked, leaning over the plate.

  “Sí,” she said. “When I was a little girl, my sister—your nonna, your grandmother—and I would walk the winding streets together, never once getting lost. Any money we had in our pockets we’d always use to buy zeppole from a street vendor. We’d walk down to the park and eat them as we looked out at the water.”

  “That’s the Gulf of Naples, right?” Alfie said, trying to picture Italy on his maps.