Al Fresco

From Chicken Soup for the Soul: All in the Family

BY: By Marianne LaValle-Vincent

The trouble with eating Italian food is that five or six days later you're hungry again.
~George Miller

Every few years, my entire family gets together for a huge reunion. Relatives come from everywhere to hug, kiss and eat. It's an Italian fiasco.

We begin cooking weeks before the gathering. It's a "picnic" of sorts, but if you're Italian, you know there's no such animal. Normally, picnics consist of hot dogs, burgers, etc. We Italians are incapable of eating such foods unless accompanied by staples such as antipasto with assorted home-cured meats, shrimp and fried calamari, olives, polenta, soup (regardless of weather... it can be ninety-five degrees, but gotta have soup), greens and beans, sauce and about eighteen pounds of assorted pasta cooked al dente, along with meatballs, sausage and bracciole, wine, roasted chicken and potatoes, about a hundred loaves of hot Italian bread, and more wine and beer (has to be Molson; one uncle is from Canada). Add to this a few ears of corn on the cob and salt potatoes -- after all, it is a picnic! And then the desserts follow: about seventy-five pounds of assorted homemade Italian cookies, fruited Jell-O with heavy cream (for the uncles with no teeth), ricotta pies, cannoli, biscotti, pasticciotto and sfogliatelle. Then comes the coffee, sambuca, anisette and Galliano, just in case you haven't had enough wine or beer.

The hardest part is getting all this food to the designated picnic spot. Each family is responsible for lugging their own prepared food, and you MUST bring ice and a cooler. There are no paper plates or plastic utensils allowed at this shindig, so we all bring our own china, silverware and linen napkins. (Paper anything is wasteful.)

On the day of the reunion, we start gathering about 7:00 A.M. We bring banquet tables and folding chairs (Uncle Rocky borrows them from the funeral home), and the men start unloading. This takes roughly three hours. Meanwhile, the women are getting the grills ready. The sauce is already simmering, and the cousins start arriving in droves. Breakfast is served: frittatas made to order.

Since no one believes in birth control, large numbers of children run wild, and there is more hair-pulling and hand-biting than you can possibly imagine. My grandmother and grandfather are immediately seated in "lounge chairs" in a shady spot and remain there for the duration of the gathering. They are asleep in five minutes and don't awaken until they smell the fried calamari.

Each family is thoroughly cross-examined by the others, and the stories run wild. There are at least fifteen family members with a back problem, and another twenty-five or so with hemorrhoids. Three or four of the older aunts have dementia, and a large majority of the day is spent re-orienting them. They each carry a purse that weighs about forty-seven pounds, an umbrella and rosary beads. Aunt Palma carries a shopping bag full of other shopping bags. No one questions her; she's the oldest.

Uncle Richard is a bookie, so he's taking bets on what time the cousins from Utica will arrive. Every obscene Italian gesture and cuss word is used in voices that could wake the dead. Uncle Vito brings his keyboard and does a poor impression of Pavarotti. Uncle Nunzio joins him on the accordion. Laurie's daughter is choking on a quarter, and Nicole's kids are running through the park buck naked. At this point, we pretend to "not be related to anyone near the sauce pots." My sisters and I stare at the aunts' mustaches and pray we don't follow in this horrible hormonal tradition. Our eyes are burning from the cigar smoke, so we decide to take a walk by the water.

We bump into Patty Anne on the path. She was recently divorced (an unforgivable sin) and has taken up with her butcher. They are, as my aunts so astutely put it, "living in sin right under God's face." She and Shawn, a non-Italian, are sucking face like a couple of dogs in heat. Aunt Nunni is telling everyone that Patty Anne has shamed the entire family, and that if her mother were still alive, this would have finished her off. It's bad enough they're living together, but he's not even Italian. I pick this moment to tell everyone that his last name is Murphy. Aunt Nancy faints. (I decide this is not a good time to tell them that Cousin Concetta is pregnant with Jake Goldstein's kid. They'll find out soon enough. Concetta is knitting mohair yarmulkes.)

Uncle Louie says grace, and dinner is finally served. We eat for what seems like hours, and my legs hurt from walking up and down the hill to bring food to my grandparents. Other picnickers are looking at us as if we are aliens. While they enjoy hot dogs on paper plates, we are sweating from the steam of the minestrone soup. Heads are being slapped everywhere, and cousins Gino and Michelle are missing. By this time, I am more than ready for alcohol. I start drinking Uncle Tony's homemade grappa. This is no easy task since it tastes like kerosene, but it grows on you. After two glasses, it goes down like champagne. No women drink the homemade red wine because it permanently stains the teeth a deep shade of maroon.

We take the china and silverware to the lake for a quick rinse before dessert is served. The coffee and after-dinner drinks are passed around, and Aunt Nancy starts telling stories about the "Old Country." Everyone starts laughing like crazy. This hilarity doesn't last too long because someone inevitably speaks of Uncle John and Uncle Mikey, who were killed in a train wreck right after arriving in America. The laughter turns to tears, and the novenas flow. The older relatives are making the sign of the cross and looking upward when one of the aunts spots Gino and Michelle. Gino is grinning like the Cheshire cat, and Michelle's hair looks as if it were caught in a monsoon. Uncle Vito slaps Gino in the head, and then hugs him. Aunt Ida bites her hand and asks Michelle if she wants to end up like Patty Anne. Michelle sees Patty Anne and Shawn still locking lips and nods yes.

My aunts have now infiltrated the entire park by "passing the cookie trays," and strangers of every nationality are joining us. It's starting to get dark, so they figure it's time to re-heat everything. Now the crowd gets even bigger.

At about midnight (or when I have about thirty-six mosquito bites), the party breaks up. Dishes are washed and packed along with the cleaned and polished silverware. Promises are made to keep in touch, and kisses fly everywhere. Of course, we won't see half of them for another four or five years. (This is NOT a bad thing.)

In bed later that night, I think of the next reunion. My sisters and I will be considered "The Aunts" by then. I wonder if we'll be sporting any facial hair. Oh, well. In a few years, Pops and I will be sitting in the "Lounge Chairs" on the hill. Life is good.

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