Last Bite: A Novel of Culinary Romance

by Nancy Verde Barr

  “ . . . Mark will be here. The other boys are away and Mary has to work.”

  The boys might well be away, but I knew that Mary was actually going out with her new lawyer friend, Bill; only that is not considered an acceptable excuse for being absent. My cousin Mark is twenty-five, and the bassist for a rock band that actually earns money, at least enough for him to rent a one-room apartment in the city. He still has to go home to do laundry and get groceries. Mark worries about his music, feeding the hungry, and saving the environment. My aunt Maria worries about feeding him and saving his environment from being condemned by the health department.

  “Remember five.” Mom stopped counting long enough to season the meat with salt and pepper, cover each piece with a slice of prosciutto, and mix the bread crumbs and Parmesan with some olive oil and chopped parsley. She used her right hand to sprinkle the crumb mixture over the prosciutto and resumed counting with her left.

  “Okay, Russell and Sharon will be here with Ben, but Uncle Bob and Aunt Ellen are away . . .”

  My Uncle Bob, named Roberto after his father, is the oldest Conti. Since he’d retired a few years ago, he and Aunt Ellen spend most of their time golfing in hot, sunny places. Their skin is so weathered from the sun that their son, Russell, says they would make a great handbag and pair of shoes. Russell is twenty-seven and bright, with an offbeat, irreverent sense of humor. He is married to Sharon, who is pretty, sweet, and seems totally overwhelmed by the number of people she now calls family. Ben is their adorable but discipline-challenged two-year-old.

  “. . . Uncle Mike will be here, but Aunt Connie is out of town. I’m not sure about the boys . . .”

  Aunt Connie is not out of town. She and Uncle Mike are separated, but the older Contis don’t discuss it. Uncle Mike has what Russell calls a “side order” and what Aunt Connie calls a “slutty bitch whore homewrecker.” They have three grown boys who will come to dinner unless Aunt Connie threatens to throw herself out a window. Uncle Mike is a big man who smokes big cigars, wears big, flashy gold jewelry, and looks as though the slutty bitch whore homewrecker is not all he has on the side.

  “ . . . I won’t count them. Little Joey and Aunt Gina . . .”

  Uncle Little Joey is the youngest Conti, and is still called “Little Joey” even though he is six foot two and built like a Jets linebacker. Little Joey is married to Aunt Gina, who is even more petite than my mother. You just have to wonder.

  “ . . . Raymond.”

  Uncle Little Joey and Aunt Gina’s son, Raymond, is seventeen and his specialty is being sullen. He doesn’t even have to work at it. It’s odd, because as a little boy he was adorable. He’d run around the neighborhood in yellow tights and a red cape, pretending to be Mighty Mouse. Sometime around puberty, he started running around with a crowd into personality-altering substances that are not so adorable. Uncle Tony referred him to a youth therapist, but the work doesn’t seem to have penetrated. I’ve learned to ignore the ridiculous fuzzy, sparse goatee and the pierced tongue and eyebrow, but I still get queasy looking at the screaming mouth oozing droplets of blood tattooed on his cheek.

  “How many is that?” Now that her counting was over, Mom was using both hands to roll the meat up and secure each roll with a toothpick.

  “Fourteen with you, me, and Dad and not counting Ben.” I didn’t have to think about the number because I had rolled a meatball each time Mom had raised or lowered a finger. I’d rolled the ones with raisins into meat ovals.

  She turned toward the living room and raised her voice so my father could hear her. “Mike, we’ll need to put two leaves in the table.” She slid the pork roast into the oven, browned the braciole in a cast-iron skillet, and added them to the sauce, along with my meatballs. We don’t brown our meatballs; they are more tender if they are just added to the sauce.

  My father came in for a chair count and was sidetracked by the loaf of Piri’s bread. He broke off a piece, dipped it in the sauce, and declared it the best ever. The sauce tastes the same every Sunday, but my father’s that kind of guy. He sat down at the table. I needed to keep my hands busy and away from the bread and the pastry, so I offered to go on to the next task. “Want me to start the ravioli?”

  “Not yet. Sharon wants to learn to make them, so she and Russell are coming over early. I thought you might like to show her.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding! Sharon doesn’t cook. She calls the kitchen the room with the big white things. Her oven is a storage bin for Ben’s toys.” If there is a hand equivalent to foot ineptitude, then Sharon had two left hands. She tries, but there is a gene missing there.

  “Oh boy, Paula. I hope you have a backup first course.” My father had been to more than one meal at Sharon and Russell’s house, and he knew the pitfalls.

  “Anyone can learn to cook.” God bless her. My mother refuses to think badly of anyone in the family. Outside the family was another story.

  “There are exceptions. You don’t know Tina.” Truth be known, Tina Lovely was a step ahead of Sharon, but I needed support for my argument.

  “Who’s Tina?”

  “One of the exceptions. Why does Sharon want to learn to make ravioli? Microwavable fish sticks are more her speed.”

  “Because Ben loves them.”

  “Doesn’t she know she can buy them frozen in any grocery store?” I’d never tried them, but I’d seen them.

  “Watch your mouth, Casey.” My father, who grew up on canned Franco-American spaghetti, was now a pasta snob.

  “Nonna already showed her how to make the pasta dough, so you only have to teach her how to make the filling, roll the dough, and shape the ravioli.”

  “Why me? Maybe Nonna would like to show her the rest, since she started.”

  “She won’t get here until late. Mrs. Alfano wanted to go to High Mass at St. Michael’s.”

  “Ah, smells and bells,” said my father, nodding his head. “I wonder whose pain and demise Mrs. Alfano is praying for.” On Sundays, Aunt Maria and Uncle Tony take Nonna and Mrs. Alfano to church before bringing them here. Aunt Maria and Uncle Tony try to find the shortest service possible, one where you could slip in the back door, catch Communion, and leave. Mrs. Alfano insists that salvation can be had only in Gregorian music and burning incense and demands that they go to High Mass at St. Michael’s. My parents go on Saturday night so my mother can start cooking at the crack of Sunday dawn. She’s stopped asking me when I go.

  “Well, I better shower and change now, because there will be no time later if I have to wait for Sharon to get the hang of making ravioli.”

  WHEN I CAME BACK downstairs in clean jeans, a shirt with a collar—my mother’s only criteria for dinner—and shoes, Sharon was waiting for me at the kitchen table with a pad and pencil. She used to be a court stenographer, and she takes copious notes on everything. Ben was sitting on the floor covered in powdered sugar and zeppole cream, and I could hear Russell laughing with my father in the other room. “Hi, Sharon,” I said. “You ready for the ravioli lesson?”

  She wrote “Ravioli Lesson” on her pad. “Hi, Casey. I’m sorry about Richard. What a terrible thing to do.” Sharon and Russell had been on vacation when it happened, and when they got back, Ben came down with chicken pox. This was the first time I’d seen her since the “incident.” “You okay?” she asked.

  “Thanks, Sharon. I’m fine.” Then, in an upbeat tone I had practiced while changing, “Okay, ravioli. We’ll start with the filling.” She wrote “Filling” on her pad. “We’re going to make spinach-and-cheese ravioli today . . .” I was going to mention that they can be filled with a variety of ingredients, but realized as she was writing “spinach-and-cheese” that this would take forever if she was going to record all the possibilities.

  I had her scoop the ricotta cheese into the strainer and explained that it was necessary to drain it and remove the excess water so the filling wouldn’t be runny. As she was writing that down, I washed the spinach and described the process of wilting. So
far, so good. I let her grate the Parmesan and felt bad when she scraped away two fingernails and let out a squeak. Ben began to cry and Sharon picked him up and called Russell to come and get him.

  “Hey, Case. My favorite cousin.” He calls all of us that. He had me in a bear hug as he said, “I heard about the tooth jockey? What a shit! Excuse me, Aunt Paula.”

  “She doesn’t want to talk about it.” Sharon gave him a pointed look. I made a mental note to show her how to make lasagne someday.

  “I’m sorry.” He held me at arm’s length. “You okay?”

  “Fine.” I could see my mother raise her eyebrows.

  Russell dipped a piece of bread into the sauce and then took Ben from Sharon and left the kitchen. I swept away the grated cheese that was speckled with bits of Sharon’s pink fingernails and showed her how to keep her fingers tucked in to avoid losing them. I then showed her how to use the same finger-tucking technique for chopping the spinach. I stood right there as she chopped.

  “Okay, Sharon. Mix the spinach and cheeses together. I’ll get the pasta machine.” I went around the corner to the pantry—really an old broom closet—and when I turned back into the kitchen, Sharon was opening and closing cupboard doors.

  “What do you need?”

  “The mixer.”

  Knowing her limitations, I probably should have said “stir” rather than “mix.” I’ve known brilliant people who, when it comes to cooking, are two chips short of a cookie. They seem to put their brains on hold, and do all kinds of weird things. This is why Sally writes such detailed recipes in her books. She’s fond of saying that a cookbook is only as good as its weakest recipe, and she doesn’t want the success of her books to depend on an inept cook with no common culinary sense.

  “You don’t beat a filling for ravioli, Sharon. You want texture. Just use a wooden spoon or a fork to stir the ingredients together.” She wrote that down, then began to stir them together while I added salt and pepper and grated in some nutmeg.

  “How much salt, pepper, and nutmeg did you add?” She had her pencil poised. I could have told her what Nonna told me—“Enough”—but I knew that would not compute, so I gave her my best guess.

  As I was clamping the pasta machine to the counter, the absolutely best thing happened. Nonna arrived. Church had let out early. It couldn’t have been on account of good behavior, since Mrs. Alfano was there and “good behavior” is not part of her belief system. Didn’t matter why. I knew Nonna would happily take over the ravioli lesson and do a much better job.

  Aunt Maria, Nonna, and Mrs. Alfano came into kitchen together. Aunt Maria had a tray of delicate wandis that she had made. She rolls the dough in a pasta machine before shaping and frying the pastries, so hers are always very thin and crispy. Nonna had red peppers that she had roasted, cut into even strips, and laid out in rows on a pretty dish. Mrs. Alfano had a scowl. It was the one she had spent years perfecting and saved for Sunday dinners. Mrs. Alfano and Nonna are about the same age and both came to America from Italy as young girls, but the likeness stops there. My grandmother is as short as my mother but very round and cuddly. She has white hair that Rita’s Hair House sets in rollers once a week and sprays so generously that it doesn’t move until her next visit. She wears flowered dresses and colorful knit suits. Now that her children are grown, she has relaxed her parenting skills and enjoys being a grandmother.

  Mrs. Alfano enjoys nothing. She’s a big, stout woman, and regardless of what Vogue says, her standard black dresses and thick black stockings do nothing to minimize her size. She has dull gray hair that she pulls back in a bun, no doubt to show as much of the scowl as possible.

  Mrs. Alfano grunted, “Hello,” although it may have just been just a grunt and no hello, and then she sat down at the kitchen table to wait for something to happen that she could criticize.

  Nonna hugged me and then did what she has always done with me: she put both her hands on my face and tilted my head down so she could look intently into my eyes. We grandchildren knew about the eyes in the back of her head and believed even the eyes in the front had some special gift of vision.

  “You will be fine, cara mia. Richard was not the right one for you.” She’d been saying the same thing every Sunday for five weeks. “I see a very different man in your life. You will not settle for a gerbil.”

  “You can see the gerbil?” I said, truly amazed.

  “Your father told me. But I do see the man, and he’s more special than that Richard.”

  Mrs. Alfano saw her chance and pounced. “I never liked him. He’s a bum.” She’d been saying that for five Sundays in a row. Even though she probably had it right, it was annoying. Nonna and Aunt Maria each broke off a piece of the bread, dipped it into the sauce, and told my mother how good it was. Aunt Maria generously put a little sauce and a piece of bread in a saucer and brought it to Mrs. Alfano, who tasted but said nothing.

  WITH THE EXCEPTION OF Mrs. Alfano, who continued to sit, stare, and scowl, we spent the next two hours fixing dinner and catching up. As I expected, Nonna was happy to finish the ravioli lesson with Sharon. She told Sharon to watch carefully and then she broke off an egg-sized piece of dough and rolled it through the machine several times to knead it. Even with her fingers badly bent with arthritis, she kneaded and stretched the dough more smoothly than anyone in the family could. She laid the long, wide sheets of pasta out on the floured counter and began to place little piles of filling evenly along the sheet. Sharon picked up her pencil and asked, “How much filling in each?” Nonna picked up some filling and held it up for Sharon to get a good look. “This much,” she said. She had Sharon dip her finger in water and then paint lines around each pile of filling before folding the dough over and pressing where the lines were so the dough would stick. When she handed Sharon the ravioli wheel, I was going to mention the grated fingernails, but to my surprise, Sharon rolled perfectly straight lines without injury.

  Meanwhile, Aunt Maria made a large salad and I peeled and cut up potatoes to roast in the pan with the pork. Mrs. Alfano ate the last sfogliatella. The rest of the family arrived just as we were ready to sit down, and the noise level went up considerably.

  Until Nonna turned eighty last year, she had family meals at her house. And unless you were dead, you were there. On her eightieth birthday, her children finally convinced her to move into an assisted-living facility and Mom continued the tradition at our house. It’s not compulsory anymore, but everyone still comes if they can. My parents had the wall between the dining room and sunporch removed and converted the entire area into a room with a table large enough to accommodate the entire family. Fourteen of us now sat comfortably, with our heads bowed, waiting for Dad to finish grace. Ben sat in a high chair smashing the olives. Dad asked God to bless the food and finished, as usual, with a request to bless all the people here with us. Fourteen pairs of eyes looked at the enormous spread and quickly shouted, “Amen.”

  Eating dinner together is not as simple as it used to be. Aunt Gina is lactose intolerant and can’t digest the ricotta filling, so she cut her ravioli open, ate the pasta, and gave the filling to Uncle Little Joey, who is on the Atkins diet and can’t eat the pasta. He ate the ravioli filling and licked the cream cheese out of the celery stalks on the antipasto plate. Mark is a vegetarian, so he ate the ravioli but asked for it without the meat sauce. Raymond is fasting for Rastafarian rights and only drank Coca-Cola. Uncle Mike is on a low-fat diet, so he ate Uncle Little Joey’s empty celery stalks. Mrs. Alfano complained that the gravy was too thin and the pasta too thick and ate seconds anyway. Every Sunday, Mom pretends not to notice the food juggling, but poor Nonna always looks genuinely saddened by it.

  “Michael, why can’t you eat just a few ravioli? What’s that going to hurt?” For someone of Nonna’s background of lean times, not eating on purpose was just wrong.

  “I can’t, Ma. They’re not on my diet. Besides, I drank a Slim-Fast before I came, so I’m not really hungry.”

  “I knew
a man who drank that stuff for three days and then just dropped dead. He was perfectly okay before that.” Mrs. Alfano always knows someone who did the same thing as someone else and did not survive, or at the very least was confined to a wheelchair and would forever be a terrible burden to the family.

  “I doubt that it was Slim-Fast, Mom.” Uncle Tony should have known better.

  “You think they are going to teach you that kind of thing in medical school? If people don’t get sick, what is there for doctors to do?”

  “I heard a good one about doctors the other day.” God bless my father. He had one for every occasion.

  “This doctor is late for a meeting, so he rushes in and quickly sits down. The doctor sitting next to him looks at him strangely and then asks him why he has a rectal thermometer behind his ear. The doctor pulls it off and looks at it. ‘Damn. Some asshole has my pen!’”

  “Mike!” Mom sounded outraged, but I could see the twinkle in her eyes. The rest of us were laughing except for Mrs. Alfano, who was blessing herself.

  “What?” Dad’s innocent look was as funny as his joke. He loved to stir up a little trouble and then act as if he had no idea what he’d done.

  “I know a woman who had her temperature taken that way in the hospital and they put a hole in something and now the family has to do everything for her. She can’t get out of bed. They’re all praying she’ll die.” Mrs. Alfano was on a roll now.

  Russell was sitting next to me, and I don’t think anyone but me heard him say, “Is that all it’ll take? A little prayer and Mrs. A’s gone?”

  “Sharon made the ravioli. They came out really well. Brava, Sharon!” I wanted to give Sharon some encouragement. Besides, this seemed like a safe topic.

  “I heard on television that ravioli were created to use up leftovers. So ravioli are really garbage.” Just like Mrs. Alfano, Raymond held to the if-you-can’t-say-something-nasty-just-scowl school of behavior.