Hello everyone, ciao tutti! Wishing you all a very happy Christmas and new year! Thank you for joining me here this past year. 💛
I went to the old box of photos to find a Christmassy one and came across this 1960s photograph of Nanna Francesca and Nonno Anni about to head out to a dinner dance (at Cloudland’s ballroom). It shows their Christmas tree I know from my ‘70s childhood, the ‘good cabinet’ that was lost in the flood and their 1930s clock that now sits on the ‘good cabinet’ in my living room. 😊
Nonno Anni wasn’t often in a suit. When I’d stay over, I remember him mostly in a pair of King Gees and a navy singlet working out in the backyard or maintaining the flats. And while Nanna Francesca always wore dresses, they were usually ‘house ones’. Her evening dress was likely made by her friend the dressmaker, an Italian lady a few streets away in New Farm.
Nanna and I would sometimes walk together to her house with its lovely flower garden out front. While a fitting was done and the two women chatted away in Italian, I’d sit on the plastic-covered couch with some dry, Italian biscuits I’d been given as a rerun of an old movie like Ben-Hur blared from the tv set. I’d felt a bit bored at the time but now I’m really grateful these little vignettes were part of my childhood.
Nanna Francesca’s pearls weren’t real, despite all the years my grandparents worked so hard during, days, nights and weekends on the farm, at the Astoria Café and in their milk bar. That sort of thing didn’t matter to her or Nonno Anni. As long as there was plenty of food in the house, a chair for each of us to sit on and we were all together, that’s all that was needed to count.
There’s an Italian saying, l’amore si misura in piatti cucinati – love is measured in cooked dishes and Nanna Francesca certainly showed us her love in the Christmas eve dinners she’d spend all day preparing for us including fish, of course, zippuli and pasta with no meat in the passata in the Italian tradition of no meat the night before Christmas.
I’d do anything to sit down again for one of those epic meals all together (even the baccalà I couldn’t stand the smell of!) 😄 Yet, while those times are now a beautiful memory, the love Nonno and Nanna gave me still feels close. As well as their example that you don’t need a lot of extra things to find a little happiness. Whatever this time of year may be for you, may the coming year bring a little happiness, and peace. Buon Natale. Zoe x 🌠
Time for some Italian Christmas treats… these poco zeppole {zippoli} are flavoured with citrus zest and Boronia Marsala {yes, the bottle with the little horse and cart on the label for those in the know}.
These little doughnut balls are also known as zippoli, zeppole or sfingi in Italy depending on the region where they are cooked. (I’ve also tasted the German version quarkbällchen – known too as ‘Bavarian snowballs’ – from a roadside stall not far from 
Caggionetti/calcionetti are traditional Italian Christmas treats particularly popular in Abruzzo (where my Granny Maddalena made them). They have a filling of almonds, walnuts, chocolate, chickpeas, lemon zest, cinnamon and honey enclosed in paper-thin ravioli casings fried in white wine and olive oil then cooled and dusted with icing sugar.
Zoë Boccabella 