600 Crises or Growing Up Italian

Many Italians can’t laugh at themselves. They worked hard to get where they are, and mocking their customs is not within their scope. But I lucked out. I’m only three-fourths Italian descent, and that other fourth (due to my maternal English/Irish grandmother), enables me to make light of the Italian way. That’s why I had to write this book.

The other reason involves Richard Nixon as my nemesis. He could get to me no matter what, even though it was he who ended the Vietnam War (it drives me crazy that he happened to be President when public pressure boiled over). As part of my obsession with him I read his book, Six Crises, during which I kept thinking---this guy thought that he had crises big enough to write about--he should try my family on for size. They live in crisis, minute by minute, and no one has written anything about that. Okay, so I guess that’s what I’ll do.

FOOD

THE FAT FARM

Never a dull moment, Grandma Helen used to say. Her non-Italian status was something she constantly reminded us about. To her we were pigs, artists, gypsies (my father was a musician)---all of which we considered highly complimentary---well, maybe not the pigs part. Helen would be screaming at us kids, Will you clear off the dining room table so we don’t have to eat like pigs (her favorite word)! And we couldn’t do it because she was making us laugh, which of course, intensified her irritation. Then her husband, Lorenzo Batastini, would yell at Helen to stop yelling at us, and there you have it---a family crisis---many of which centered around the most important element of Italian life: food…especially at our Maine summer cottage, Fernwood…

How much food was there? We had so much food at Fernwood that my sister and I called it The Fat Farm. The era of the European spa, Weight Watchers, and aerobic jogging inspired the name. The Olivieri household was the antithesis of all that. Jane Fonda would be blaring in the background and we’d be baking blueberry pies---not the normal size, of course, Olivieri size: blockbuster.

We made people fat. Skinny people, anorexics, you name it. Five-pound weight gain was the minimum. There were some people so thin that they were under doctor’s orders to drink milkshakes with their meals. They gained. My husband’s family, genetically thin people, stayed one week and had to buy new clothes before returning to Iowa.

An artist friend of mine visiting from Iowa, on a very strict diet, was overwhelmed by the meals that were produced in our small wooden kitchen. The woman spent as much time as she could outdoors, to avoid the tempting odors. And whenever she’d come in to join the family, inevitably in the kitchen, she couldn’t find a place to sit.

One day in front of her on the table were two giant-sized cakes in the making, one rum, one whipped cream. She moved to stand against the wall, and became wedged between a bowl of fruit and a pan of lasagna. Her next move was blocked by a mountain of muffins, rolls, and breadstuffs. Three pizzas were cooling on the stove.

She left our place with some beautiful sketches…and six extra pounds…

We had help, though. It wasn’t just the amount of food, it was the Maine air. You think you have an appetite until you hit that northern atmosphere. Boom! The appetite barrier breaks wide open and expands to three times its normal size. College roommates, friends, old sweethearts, it strikes everybody. Yes, and children.

If your children wake up at 7 A.M. at home, they’ll wake up at 6 in Maine. Why?---because they’re hungry. All right, so they want your attention while on vacation, but still, they’re starving to death. My four year-old-nephew was down in the kitchen one morning screaming his lungs out.

I came downstairs. What’s the problem, Ma, what, what?

She said, I don’t know. I’ve fed him two scrambled eggs, two pieces of toast, apple juice, a waffle, and part of a chocolate chip muffin. I don’t know what he wants.

Alka-Seltzer, was my first reaction.

She said, He’s yelling about wanting some alphabet soup, but I can’t believe it.

Give it to him, I said.

The child sat there and ate two bowls of soup. He didn’t say a word.

And his brother was the bigger eater. He was two. The two year-old was walking with his mother right after breakfast, and he kept articulating about something in her purse. She ignored him. He persisted.

I looked at my sister. Jane, what does he want?

She pulled out a sandwich bag of Lucky Charms. The toddler started munching all the little marshmallow things first, and then ate the oat stuff. At one point we had to stop in the middle of the road, while he maneuvered his baby fingers to the correct piece of cereal.

Back at the house, the adults were nibbling the lunch that was supposed to be for the beach, and discussing what to have for supper. You see, one of the rules of The Fat Farm is : never eat a meal without talking about the next.

Some other rules are: never go to bed hungry ; get up early so you can practice eating a lot, in preparation for the big meal ; invite hefty eaters to dinner---my father Len loves to cook for them, thus fulfilling his need to create abbondanza (the Italian phrase for way too much food); and, oh yes---bring money to repair all the cane-seated chairs that will break under the strain.

***

Another thing about The Fat Farm is ethnic crossover. Everyone is so hungry all the time, we don’t care whether it’s perrogies, sauerkraut, or raspberry cobbler. We’ll eat it, even my Italian father.

Blueberries are a favorite. One morning my husband Chuck thought he’d be a good guy, get up before everyone, and feed the kids so the rest of us could sleep. He saw a package of blueberry muffin mix in the cupboard and mixed up a batch. The kids smelled the muffins and ran downstairs. There were several left over for the adults, but not many. First come, first served, at The Fat Farm.

By the time my dad got to the table there were none. Uh-oh. And everyone was raving about Chuck’s culinary delights. Well, we always had such variety for breakfast, no one thought a muffin would be missed, amid the ham and eggs, English muffins, homemade jam, waffles, fresh fruit ... No. My father had had his heart set on a blueberry muffin. He’d smelled them from upstairs. Chuck had gone from being hero of the morning to persona non grata, in a flash. That’s when we created The Fat Farm rule: never make one of anything.

Another version of that rule is: never pick fruit for just one pie. My son’s eighteen year-old friend Dave was the rule breaker in this case. He and my husband were about to drive back to Iowa after a two-week stay, and Dave wanted to bring home some Maine blueberries.

We showed him the field next door, gave him a saucepan and said, Have at it. And while you’re there, please pick enough so we can make a pie.

Twenty minutes later he came back with the pan overflowing. It looked like enough berries for three pies, according to him. (Dave had no comprehension of abbondanza.)

As Dave was packing his clothes upstairs, downstairs my father’s food rhythm had kicked in. Breakfast over, Dad was ready to tackle the task of making dessert for supper. He saw the pan of berries and started to make a pie. In true Fat Farm style, he used most of the berries and put the remainder in the refrigerator.

The next day Dave went to get his blueberries to take on the trip, but saw that there were not many left. He found some that my mother had hidden way back in the refrigerator (Just in case, she’d said, but we never knew why). Dave switched his container with hers, not thinking this a misdemeanor, not to mention felony---the field was full of blueberries. We said goodbye, and the two guys took off for Iowa.

Two nights later my mother discovered her loss, while I was calling Chuck to see if he’d gotten home all right. Aahh, she sucked in her breath. You guys took the wrong container of blueberries! I was saving those! she whined in the direction of the phone.

Chuck couldn’t believe his ears. After the long hot trip, the late hour, and the one-package-muffin-mix mistake on his record, he couldn’t handle the explanation of Len using up Dave’s berries for the pie; he hung up in exasperation. I yelled at my mother for being insane. She screamed back, "If there’d been enough picked for two pies, this wouldn’t have happened!!"

***

I was talking to my parents about the unspoken rule: never exercise. Of course, they denied such a thing. Francesca related her long list of achievements in that field: pre-marital stint as professional jazz and modern dancer, many years of teaching ballet and jazz, ten years of choreography, and thousands of hours teaching phys ed.

But Ma, that’s what you used to do. Now that you’re retired, all you do is walk back and forth between houses that are thirty yards apart.

My legs hurt.

Your legs hurt because you don’t walk with them. You use a car to go everywhere.

Your father uses the car all the time to play the horses, she pointed the finger at him, sibling style.

Olindo joined the conversation. Swimming is the best exercise.

You should know, Dad.

What do you mean? I go in the water.

Dad, I haven’t seen you in a bathing suit since the year of my wedding. That was over twenty years ago.

Well, I used to go in the water.

That’s my point. You and Ma don’t walk, you don’t swim, you don’t get enough exercise.

Carol, we’re over seventy years old, that water is cold!

The water got colder as you got older?

No, our circulation got worse and that makes us get colder more easily. Only young people can stand Maine water.

Then why do I see old geezers at least ten years older than you, go in that water?

Well, you get to a certain age and you can’t feel anything.

Oh, I get it. Young kids and octogenarians. Well, what about me? I’m 42, I swim in Maine water all the time. It isn’t exactly warm to me, either. It’s absolutely freezing, but it’s so much fun I don’t care.

Well you’re crazy.

How about walking, Dad, you can’t say that makes you cold.

It hurts.

What?

My knees.

Dad, your knees hurt because you’re always using them to stand up to the stove.

Cooking is good exercise.

Oh?

You really move around when you cook.

Yeah. From the stove to the table, then back to the stove. That’s a lot of walking, Dad.

I move plenty, don’t worry, especially when I get home.

You mean back in Rhode Island?

Dad turned in his seat for emphasis, and said with complete seriousness, Listen, do you realize how much walking you have to do at the racetrack?!

***

Food cannot be thrown out. It is the gift of God. Only He who giveth can taketh away. We mortals do not dare assume such a responsibility. It can be petrified (as in the bananas of my first banana cream pie), it can be blue-molded (pick a slice from any of the five loaves of bread on the counter), or just plain rotten (as in the meatballs Len tried to give away to Pat, our neighbor, before I clued her in---did I ever hear about that!).

Olindo’s 69th birthday cake was a good example. John, another neighbor, and Pat were guests at the party. Everyone was having a good time, a little vino here, a little vino there, when I brought out the cake. I’d made Dad’s favorite, devil’s food with coconut frosting. He looked as though he wanted to dive right into it. It was high and moist and looked delightful. After a few seconds of everyone tasting the cake, a look went around the table that spelled disaster.

The ingredients had come right from the cupboard…wait a minute…how old was that coconut?? I reached into the garbage to find the expiration date. Uh-oh. One year over. I was distraught. After all that work of making a homemade cake…but I should have known. Fat Farm rule #8 : never dispose of food, no matter what.

The guests started to laugh, then I gave in, but Olindo got huffy. It’s not that bad, he scolded, as he scraped off the frosting and cleaned his plate. The cake is delicious.

Thus we have the food is sacred school of thought. It upholds the basic tenet of Christian marriage: you take the bad with the good, until death takes over. And death has come pretty close…

***

One year my two brothers, sister, and I, had just arrived at the Maine cottage from our various states of residence---California, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Iowa. Olindo was about to prepare a special dinner in celebration of the reunion. He had brought eight pounds of veal cutlets up from Rhode Island. A real luxury item. Unfortunately, the day of his trip had been very hot, and they had not been under refrigeration.

With a ceremonial flourish, Dad took out the meat to show his surrounding brood. We all backed away, holding our noses. Imagine the most nauseating odor you’ve experienced and then top it. That’s what these cutlets smelled like.

My dad had his usual response for comments questioning the freshness of any food he has bought, Whatsa matter?

We were all backed up against the door. Dad!!

What?

We’ll die if we eat those!

What are you talking about, there’s nothing wrong with them. He pretended to sniff.

We appreciate your thinking of us, and buying this specialty, but please, Dad, they’ve gone rotten.

My father stood up. "Well that’s gratitude for you, $7.99 a pound