Ode to Nana

My Nana died when I was just 12 years old.  I didn’t know her very well because we lived a fair distance from her but I loved her fiercely. She was a woman who was ebullient, generous, kind and beautiful – oh and she fed me – constantly – gotta love that!

She was born Caterina Carbone but everyone knew her as Kitty.  She was born in the US, of Italian immigrants and she loved her family, her church and food!  I remember as a kid that she always had a pot of something simmering on the stove- usually tomato sauce with fragrant herbs, spices and homemade sausage.  Now Kitty was a busy woman (church guilds, charity shows, women’s clubs – you name it!) so I don’t think she did a whole lot of scratch cooking, except for the sauces, but her sister Rose lived downstairs from her in the duplex they all shared and Rose did do scratch – sausages, pastas, etc.  But Nana always had a fridge full of goodies for us when we showed up and there were no rules against snacking at any time!

Food was in the Carbone blood, however and Nana’s brother Anthony, opened a restaurant in West Hartford.  By the time I came onto the scene it was a well established Italian ristorante – Carbone’s (which is still operating today!) run by my Dad’s cousin Carl & his wife Billy, who rolled all the pasta by hand.  I remember visiting the place as a tyke and they always had this fabulously rich and tasty frozen treat that they gave to us kids in a small paper cup which we greedily licked at until the paper fell apart.  I never knew what this treat was until recently when I discovered the taste again as an adult – it was semifreddo, a frozen treat that is simple to make and pleases kids and adults alike.

There are many,many recipes, styles and flavors of semifreddo and I don’t have the recipe they used so I opted for a simple version using nothing more than 3 eggs, 1/2 cup of sugar, a vanilla pod and some cream.  You simply separate the eggs and sugar, beat each separately – the yolks with the vanilla and sugar until very thick and doubled, the whites and sugar until stiff and shiny and the cream until stiff but not quite butter.  Fold them all together, turn into a loaf pan and freeze.  That’s it!  I happened to have some saskatoon berry coulis in the fridge along with fresh berries so I chose to serve it that way – Simple, delicious and a lovely trip down memory lane.

I remember always thinking that my Nana was very rich because they had ‘diamond’ doorknobs, she always wore lots of ‘diamond’ jewelry and they always had tons of food in the fridge.  I discovered much later that the knobs were glass as was the jewelry and anyone can afford to spoil kids with treats for a week or so.  She was rich, however in all the ways that count. So this one is for Nana and the smiles this little excursion gave me at the memories of her; slapping a doily on my head and dragging me to mass, entertaining me with her sheer love of life and the wonderfully happy belly I always had.

This is Nana the way I remember her – having fun, doing a silly hat show for charity and always, always smiling so beautifully.