December 10, 2018- Sunday, December 9-Our house. Our house was filled with love and cookies yesterday. For the past 7 years (since our father passed on December 17, 2011) my two sisters Angela, Annie, me and our families gather to bake. Stories of past and present are remembered and told again and again.   My two daughters continue to make the  Sicilian fig filled cookie called cucidati each year following an age old recipe that calls for flour for example, with no specific measurement, just flour. The filling is prepared each year by my daughter JoAnna. She needs a large pot, a few pounds of chopped dried figs, orange juice, chopped almonds and honey. JoAnna knows what it should taste like, feel like and smell like and each year it is made to perfection. She said this year is her favorite! Laura is in charge of the dough. This dough recipe calls for whiskey, flour, eggs and other ingredients that are included by the feel of the dough. Laura said she takes a clump of dough and keeps adding flour until her sister and she feel their way to the perfect rolling consistency.  JoAnna  rolls the dough, thin, in long lengths and with a spoon, gently drops the luxurous filling on the dough. She then covers the filling with dough and cuts each into approximately one inch squares. They are baked, and cooled. The next step is decorating. Italian colored tiny balls of sugar, adorn each cookie as soon as the home made thin lemon- sugar frosting lightly painted on by the gang sitting at the extra long dining table waiting for the cookies to cool. While waiting, they decorate the famous ‘S’ cookie  made each year by my sister Annie. This age old recipe is a lightly browned cookie rolled by hand and shaped into the letter ‘s’. Our niece Tonya, and our two nephews this year brought peanut butter cookies with chocolate kisses in each one to decorate  and our grandson pitches right in. Our niece brought adorable reindeer peanut butter cookies. There is room for everyone in my small kitchen each dodging the other yet making room and taking turns with the mixer. It all adds to the festivities. Our kitchen is dancing. In this age where we can buy rolls of dough in our local grocery store to slice and bake, this next generation together with their aunts and cousins, choose to bake from scratch using the old recipes from their ancestors. I remember a few years ago when I first noticed Pizzelles in our local grocery store. To me, they looked thick, not delicate. I feel pleased they have become so popular that local grocery stores carry them. This has not diminished the pride we feel making them ourselves.  A Pizzelle is a thin almost wafer like cookie. The dough consists basically of  eggs, flour, and butter. These young bakers have learned again by watching and trial and error how much dough to scoop by the spoonful and carefully drop each onto the hot iron. They close the iron and hear the initial sizzle. They count, sing, to whatever number or song works so when they are finished counting or singing, they open the top of the iron and there they are (my mom used to say prayers…one Hail Mary and one Glory Be) lightly browned Pizzelles. They place each on a cooling tray until they are cooled and crisp and then transfer them to their specific container. These two have become masters of these delicate snowflake like cookie. I have a photograph of Valerie before she was one watching on as her mom made Pizzelles. My mother, (who passed on February 3, 2001)the huge  Christmas cookie  baker in our family, gave each of her daughters and granddaughter a Pizzelle iron as gifts years ago. We still have them and use them.

I for some reason like making Biscotti, and   chocolate spice cookies, my sister Angie makes the ricotta cookie. It seems we all have our go to and gravitate toward it each year.

These cookies are split among all of us to take home and are then made into plates of cookies (small cookie trays) decorated with little wrapped candies to give away to friends and neighbors.

Sharing recipes and gathering to bake them seems to be our natural way of celebrating the lives of our Italian/Sicilian loved ones who have passed yet their memories live because we were invited into their kitchen to help chop, stir, bake decorate and share stories.

Until next time,

Ciao, Nurturing Nonni