Nonny's Cooking

My daughter Sam has 2 roommates. They are all sorority sisters—alpha chi omega. Lauren is a CPA like Sam, and Steph, after getting her degree at Lehigh, went to culinary school and became a chef. Steph works at Maiolino, an upscale, award winning Italian restaurant in the Gramercy Park hotel in Manhattan. The restaurant specializes in Italian delicacies like braised rabbit, tripe, suckling pig and other organ meats. It takes months to get a dinner reservation (if you are lucky) at Maiolino and diners must dig deeply into their pockets to cover the cost of the bill.

My mother’s mother—my grandmother—we called her Nonny—lived with my grandfather at 655 East 233 Street in the Wakefield section of the Bronx. They lived in a 4 room apartment, on the third floor of a 1920’s style  walk-up building. My grandparents were both Sicilian.

Nonny only stood 4’11” tall, but she packed a whole lot of wonderfulness in that little Italian grandmother body. My grandmother was a phenomenal cook---and everything was meticulously prepared. The ingredients were always fresh and the flavors were unrivaled. I never remember visiting her for lunch and not having frittata, freshly fried veal cutlets, roasted peppers, escarole and tomato salad. And ever-present were the things she purchased at the salumeria: soppressata, mozzarella, peppernata cheese and black oil cured olives. And she would often make specialties: braised rabbit caponata style, snails in tomato sauce, calamari salad, and stuffed artichokes. Everything was made from scratch. Everything was perfectly seasoned. Everything was made with love.

Every Thursday my mother and her sisters would travel to the Bronx from the suburbs (except for my Aunt Jackie—who lived in the apartment building next to my grandparents) to visit their parents and each other for lunch. And if the grandchildren were off from school, they would visit too. And because of the age division between me and my cousins--my brother Mark, and my cousin Richard and I(we were the youngest) were the trine of grandchildren that I would find myself dining with most often on those Thursday afternoons.

One particular Thursday, when my brother and I and my cousin Richard were off from school, we went with our mothers to Nonny and Grandpa’s apartment. Nonny had prepared veal cutlets. The veal cutlets that day were exceptional--the best ones we had ever tasted. They were petite in size,  sweet and so tender. They melted in your mouth. They were so good that the 3 of us asked permission for some more, and of course my grandmother, so pleased how much we enjoyed them, was happy to give the 3 of us another helping. So we all ate a second round and enjoyed those veal cutlets the second time around just as much as we did the first round.

At some point during the food fest, some one of us ( I think my cousin Richard) said Gee Nonny these are the best veal cutlets we have ever eaten. And Nonny laughed and said good!—mangia--- but those are not veal cutlets, they are fried brains. And we thought she was kidding so we laughed ha ha ha brains!! Ha ha Nonny you are so funny ha ha Nonny made us brains!!! And then she said No they are really fried brains, not veal cutlets. And then I remembered that we were a family who ate pickled pig’s feet on Thankgiving--and regularly served brasciole made from pork skin, and ate sautéed pork liver wrapped in fascia and bay leaf. And suddenly, as delicious as those “veal cutlets” were before we knew what we were eating, all of a sudden they no longer tasted as good. We had eaten lamb brains. We didn’t ask for thirds.

When I speak with Steph and she tells me of the delicacies prepared at Maiolino I think of Nonny. And I secretly wish Steph could have spent one day in Nonny’s kitchen to see how authentic Italian cooking is really prepared--- and taste what it is like to eat pure love—because that’s what Nonny’s cooking was—when the freshness of the flavors caressed your palate you tasted how much she loved you—and that is the ingredient that Steph’s upscale, high priced award winning Manhattan restaurant will never be able to duplicate-- and pure love is a course they cannot teach in culinary school.

655 East 233 Street: Nonny and Grandpa's apartment in the Bronx.