I have found that I will always have a mindset that I cannot escape or even wants to escape the statement shared below. I was fortunate to have caught the last influential days of a family founded by immigrants. Images, sounds, smells linger constantly. I still hear the sizzle of eggplant in the cast iron pans and the frog legs popping. I still walk by the line of roses under the kitchen window, and anticipate the evening Sunday meal as the aroma of Rosie's sauce wafts deliciously out the window.
I can't look at a mushroom without saying a prayer of thanks that Grandpa, Uncle Frank and Uncle John knew what they were doing on their treks to the Santa Cruz mountains to gather mushrooms to be pickled.
The lamb roasting on a huge bbq pit ...
The roasted pig in the center of the Christmas table with apple and daisies placed appropriately.
The men speaking in Sicilian and playing cards while the women put their soul and love into the meal in Aunt Myrtle's kitchen.
Uncle Frank's and Uncle John's secret BBQ sauce, the one and only and the best I have ever tasted in my life .... their secret recipe taken to the grave.
Me trying to hide under the kitchen table every time my grandmother (Rosie) gave me the awful raw egg and chocolate milk concoction at breakfast.
So much of our life revolved around food ... and I thought every Italian/Sicilian grandmother ran in the kitchen.
... and the mandatory kisses at every function. God forbid you leave someone out in the round of hello and goodbye kisses.
Everybody's basement ...
But mainly it was the "family" ... all the aunts and uncles ... all the cousins ... all the grandparents who weren't my grandparents who were nonetheless my grandparents ... and how anyone who wasn't Sicilian became Sicilian (an offer you couldn't refuse).
We had our village with all its pleasures ... all its open hugs ... all its faults and all its secrets.
When I reflect I feel so blessed I had my village, be it the last days of its existence. It saddens me that our family's new generation had only a taste of all the "sauces" ... their interest wains at the old stories. I can never erase the old country ... I am in my mind the old Sicilian women that surrounded me in my youth.
I still feel the warmth of the old faces, the old days and as much as I am completely in the present, the old faces, the old voices, the old kisses are still the security blanket I pull up under my chin each night with a prayer of thanks.
PS ... I'm the little chubby one in the photo.
