Tag: Italian Americans

The Perfect Proportion

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I was going through my feed on X and I saw someone liked a comment I made.  As is my habit I went back to the posts from this individual to see if it was of interest.  And as I clicked, I saw a picture of what was supposed to be a pizza.  It was a thin crust but it had about two inches of what looked like chopped meat cooked onto it.  I was horrified.  But all things considered, lots of things called pizza don’t seem to resemble what was called pizza back when I was a kid in Brooklyn.  There was a pizzeria on Avenue X that served the typical Neapolitan pie.  It was a large round thin crust with marinara sauce, mozzarella and various cheeses to taste.  For meat lovers you could get pepperoni or sausage garnishing the surface.  But that was about it.  And that was plenty good.  Watching the cooks shaping the dough and twirling it in the air was an entertainment all its own.  Coming hot out of the oven and served on a piece of wax paper with a coke to wash it down was paradise.  If you were rich, you might even buy two slices.  But a slice was a nickel so one was all I could afford and no coke for me.

Later on in life I found out about rectangular pizza with thick crust.  Camera Girl’s mother was Sicilian and that’s how they made pizza.  And that was very good too.  And they had some different ideas about toppings.  They would introduce the seafood motif; anchovies, and even bluefish.  All very heretical to me.  But still delicious.

But her I am sixty years later and what do I see?  Chaos.  Pizza without tomato sauce, without mozzarella, without cheese, vegan pizza, pineapple pizza, pizza without dough!  It’s too much.  And then there are the chain pizza joints.  They stuff cheese in the crust.  What the hell is that?

Well, I guess it’s just the way of the world.  We live in a global environment.  Cuisines from everywhere exist in this world civilization and are adapted to the business environment and every other factor.  It only makes sense that a successful product will morph to expand its popularity.  After all I don’t complain that the Chinese or Thai recipes I like probably aren’t authentic cuisine but instead a version that works for a restaurant competing in an American marketplace.  Why should pizza be any different?

But then I saw that monstrosity with the mound of chopped meat on top.  That must be the sign of the end times and the four horsemen of the apocalypse must be somewhere nearby.

But one good thing came from seeing that.  It made me think back to that pizzeria on Avenue X and the perfect proportion of crust, tomato sauce, olive oil and cheeses.  On a summer afternoon after playing ball and hanging around with the boys from the neighborhood we’d go to that pizzeria and watching the pie being made and waiting for it to bake was the best feeling in the world.  Because you almost didn’t want to start eating it because it would be finished before you knew it.  The anticipation was the thing.  Good times.

Normalcy Restored

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That lying sack of crap, Anthony Fauci M.D., stole a year from us.  And more than a year.  He smashed millions of small businesses that took lifetimes to build up.  He drained away the life savings of a generation of hard-working people.  He interrupted and marred the education of tens of millions of children.  He imprisoned a nation of 330 million and delayed marriages, births and every hope and dream of a nation.  And the most horrible thing is that it was for no benefit whatsoever.  The same people who would have died from COVID did die and are dying despite all of the useless torture that was inflicted on the healthy population of our country.  He is a tin-pot Pol Pot.  May he roast in Hell.

But yesterday was a renewal.  Almost all the descendants of my parents were gathered together in one place and time and enjoyed a party that included all the familiar and life-affirming rituals of a summer get together.  And even the weather blessed us with perfection.  Eighty-two degrees, bright sun with just a few wispy clouds, bone dry air and a refreshing breeze.  Just warm enough for some people to go in the pool and just cool enough to let the young at heart toss around a baseball or play a few lawn games with their kids and grandkids and even let one person watch her great-grand-children play.

Camera Girl in her culinary wisdom decided that instead of a barbecue she would cook the traditional Southern Italian peasant feast.  Ziti baked with cheese, eggplant parmigiana, meatballs, sausage and to start with, our version of an antipasto.  Huge portions were devoured with zeal and fueled loud and animated shouting about amusing and nonsensical things.  And in my earshot, there was not a moment of political discussion or anger.  Spirits were higher than high.  The highlight of the day for me was a four-way catch with two of my grandsons and a nephew.  I haven’t really had a good long baseball catch since forever.  Even the afternoon sun that was directly in my eyes I found enjoyable.  I actually felt young again.  Maybe today my shoulder is a little sore but it felt fine while we were out in that golden sun.

When my younger daughter showed up with her little 2 ½ year old girl the baby was terrified by all of the old fat strange-looking men shouting to be heard over each other in the meal hall I set up with folding tables and chairs.  After all, she has spent her entire conscious life in lockdown and hardly saw anyone but her parents and grandparents.  A cacophony of sound and strange faces truly frightened her.  But her mother was smart.  She took the baby outside on the deck and then into the swimming pool that she loves and there she was able to meet and play with the other children and slowly by degrees bring her back to the crowded areas where even the loudest old men were, at this point, too gorged with food to make much noise or even move.  So even that residue of the Fauci curse was lifted.  From two to ninety-two everyone was partaking in an old-fashioned family get together.

And I will be honest when I say that the relief to finally all get together made this the most enjoyable, least stressful gathering I can ever remember.  By the time the pie and ice cream and coffee were finished and sun was long below the horizon everyone was satisfied and ready to gather their children and say their goodbyes and head back on the road to home.  But promises were made to get together at the other homes for other occasions and other holidays.  Labor Day and Thanksgiving and Christmas lie ahead.  And we have broken the ice and hopefully we won’t allow that creepy little man to steal anymore of our lives away again.  It’s over and normal life has returned.

Laughing at the Corona Virus

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One of my oldest friends sent this to me today.  I’ll have to say that as ridiculous as it is, the laugh I got out of it did me a lot of good.  And the vindictiveness of the last holiday decision rang completely true to the spirit of all the paisans I grew up with.  Revenge and spite were their two favorite past times.  Tell me what you think.

 

 

Fredo Balks

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Watching the video of Chris Cuomo, I was sort of sad to see him demeaned.  I mean anyone who grows up in a large family knows that sibling rivalry and competition in an intellectual environment is stressful.  So, the fact that Chris is sort of the lesser intellect in the Cuomo family is something that many would feel sympathy for.  Of course, the fact that he spouts poisonous lies on CNN about non-Leftists makes him a whole lot less sympathetic.  Sean Hannity was supportive of Cuomo because the incident occurred while Cuomo was out with his wife and young daughter.  This is also something that should be acknowledged.  Being a celebrity doesn’t cancel out your humanity and shouldn’t excuse even your enemies from showing decency around your loved ones.  Once again, Cuomo has never given President Trump or his family any slack when tossing insults and vilifying them about any personal issues that have nothing to do with government.  But let’s just say it’s understandable that Cuomo reacted angrily and forcefully to his heckler.

But then as ever, Cuomo pulled the race card, or slightly less effectively, the ethnicity card.  Chris threatened to throw the heckler down the stairs for what he declared was the equivalent of the “n” word for Italian Americans, “Fredo.”  Huh.

All my ancestors, going back as far as I can determine, were Italians or descendants of Italians living in the United States.  And a good proportion of these were descended from Sicilians.  And on top of that my family is from an Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn that unfortunately was steeped in awareness of the Godfather movies.  I can remember back in the 1970s car horns in my neighborhood playing a portion of the Godfather theme.  It was quite sad.  Anyway, I consider myself relatively authoritative on this subject.  “Fredo” is not an Italian American slur.  It’s a mockery of someone who isn’t the brightest bulb in a family with more accomplished individuals.  In the Godfather movies Fredo is the incompetent older brother of Michael who bumbles and fails and finally betrays the Corleones while trying to show that he isn’t a loser.

In the famous scene where Michael confronts Fredo with his betrayal you hear Fredo defend his own actions by blaming everyone else for demeaning him.  He’s the older brother who whose pride has been wounded.

“I can handle things! I’m smart! Not like everybody says… like dumb… I’m smart and I want respect!”

Okay, so Chris Cuomo isn’t exactly Fredo.  He’s got a good paying job at CNN and all the material success associated with being part of a family that has had two governors of New York State in just two generations of the family.  Not bad.  So why does being called Fredo sting so badly?  Well, to be totally honest if you’ve ever watched any of his work on CNN, he does appear sometimes to be an idiot.  And again, in a highly competitive family maybe some unkind comparisons were made by his siblings or parents.  Who knows?  But the most important consideration is noting that no matter what, when a Leftist is attacked his first instinct is to call his attacker a racist.  Poor Fredo.  Well at least Andrew hasn’t sent him out on the lake to sleep with the fish.