Today is Sunday, and I am thinking back when I was 8 years old. My mother always got up early on Sunday, usually around 5:00 am. It was her ritual to rise early, go to the kitchen and get out her cake of yeast, with the large bread kneading bowl and her flour. While dad and I would sleep on, mom was making the Italian bread for the big Sunday meal. It wasn’t until around 7:00 am, that I could no longer really sleep. I knew she had started the pasta sauce, because the scent of garlic and tomatoes was filling the air which then filled every corner of the house. It was a feeling of security, continuity, and pleasure that made me so happy that I was a little Italian girl. The smell of the sauce meant that the pasta we loved was a sure thing, and the relatives we loved would always follow the pasta.
Another thing about Sundays, was the commitment that mom made for all of us…..church! Sundays and church were the same. After she got the dinner going and the hot bread out of the oven, she would make her rounds in the house, and we knew we had no choice. Dad was getting dressed, and I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth. Mom said, “Pick out your Sunday clothes”, and the rest was up to us. By 7:45 am we were in the only car we owned, mom on her side, and me in the back seat, on the way to the 8:00 Service at Corpus Christi.
After church, we would drive down to the Knodel’s Bakery which is still standing to this day at 6715 West Florissant in Jennings, MO., where I grew up. Dad would get his peanut cake, mom, her cake doughnut, and I usually got the custard filled sugar doughnut. The first thing mom would say when we got into the car was, “Don’t eat your sweet in the car, we will be home in just a minute.” We lived in the little town of Jennings, and our house was a two-story brick on Hord Avenue. Between the house, church, and bakery, the span was not more than 6 miles.
As soon as we got home, Dad shed his black suit, I donned my little play skirt and pull-over poodle sweater, and mom was back in the kitchen with her apron. This went on every Sunday, with dad reading the comics from the St. Louis Post Dispatch, and all of us eating our pastries from the bakery. My brother, who was 11 years older than me was in the Navy, and my sister who was 15 years older than me had two little children, and lived in a town called Overland, about 20 minutes from Jennings. Mom was on the phone with her and said, “The pasta will be on the table at 12:00, are you all coming by?” “Oh, yes,” she said, “we were just hoping you would invite us.”
When 12:00 noon came, the table was set. A big platter of Mostaccioli slathered in my mother’s best Sunday sauce was staring up at all of us. The sauce lacked nothing since it had the juicy meatballs, pieces of chicken and even the tender rib tips to savior its taste. She had a big Italian salad with lots of red wine vinegar and extra virgin olive oil. We all had our favorite things in the salad; pepperoncini, big green Spanish olives, marinated artichokes, and even fresh tomatoes, if she had them. The hot bread was sliced and olive oil plates were on the table to dip the bread. Fresh grated Parmesan fell from a fresh block of cheese with a real grater always on the table. Mom always added a vegetable, sometimes a big platter of breaded fried eggplant, or her wonderful greens, that could be anything from Swiss chard in tomatoes with garlic, or her famous dandelions. Mom told dad to bless the food, and he always recited the same thing, ending with how thankful he was for his family at the table.
These were the Sundays I remember, and while life is much more complex these days, my children still long for Grandma Fiorino’s Pasta with Red Sauce. They have now with in me, and hopefully they will have it for themselves for years to come. Traditions are the glue that hold families together, and I am so blessed to have these cherished memories. Look for Rosalie’s Penne Pasta with Red Sauce; you will find it on my recipe log soon.
God Bless,
Rosalie
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