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 🌠
On the kitchen table today… olive twigs from the backyard. I planted this olive tree as a sapling with Nonno Anni, almost twenty years ago now, one March on San Giuseppe day (Italian Father’s day), and it’s stayed a lovely connection to him and, of course, Italy. That said, it’s never given one single olive in Brisbane’s subtropical humidity 😄 but it seems happy and its leaves are a beautiful pale green. (With many health benefits too – I’ve discovered a sprig of olive leaves can be added to soups, stews and even to the water used to boil pasta! Might give it a go and see.)
Melanzane fritte – made with eggplants from the backyard vegie patch, just like the crumbed, fried eggplant slices that Nonna Gia and Sofie cook together in, The Proxy Bride. I’ve put these ones on one of Nanna Francesca’s plates and next to them is a little pot I bought in Italy to stand in as a ‘chilli pot’ (though I confess mine has salt in it at present!)
…focaccia with tomatoes, asparagus and parsley, nasturtiums, rosemary and chives from the vegie patch. A joint effort between Roger and me this time (he being the bread baker, me the gardener). My focaccia decorating skills didn’t turn out quite as pretty as I’d hoped – and one tray copped the hotter side of the oven – but sprinkled with olive oil and salt and eaten while still warm, that didn’t seem to matter in the end! Buona Domenica!
The Italian saying, ‘Prendere due piccioni con una fava’ – catch two pigeons with one fava bean – sounds slightly kinder than ‘kill two birds with one stone’ but its meaning, ‘achieve two aims at once’ is the same. It’s fave (broad bean) time again here and they’re particularly fresh, sweet and earthy tasting at present.
‘Gallina vecchia fa buon brodo’ – an old hen makes good broth as the Italian saying goes, for it brings age and experience in the magic of food being medicine and comfort. (A good quality, free range chicken who’s led a pleasant, kind life in the outdoors and lived a bit longer is good too.) It’s been a while since I’ve roasted a whole chicken and made broth, something Granny Maddalena did as one of her remedies as the village witch. (Her chicken soup was said to cure her son, Elia from typhoid when a doctor couldn’t.)
The perfect thing to make when it’s cool and rainy outside, warm and cosy inside. Schiacciata al rosmarino e pomodori. A hearth bread like focaccia (except this time made in the oven not a fireplace!) 💛🍅🌿
Last of the summer basil… in mid-autumn – time for basil pesto! I grew up with southern Italian cooking and so came to this dish from the north a bit later on. There are so many variations but I’ve tried to make it as close as I can to the original Ligurian version using basil, pine nuts, garlic, olive oil and Parmigiano Reggiano.
Polpette and peas in gravy, such an ‘Australitaliano’ combination – meatballs and peas in tomato sauce. Comfort food at its best. Nanna Francesca cooked this a lot (and when I was a kid, I found it a bit confusing that, being southern Italian, she called the tomato passata or sugo – ‘gravy’ considering my Australian Mum called gravy a deep-brown liquid accompanying a roast). Nanna Francesca would’ve been 95 today so it seems fitting to cook her polpette e piselli in gravy. We always celebrated her birthday on the 12th, the day she was born though the official date on her birth certificate was the 19th (lodged late as her parents argued who to name her after). Tradition won, as did her father, and being the first-born, Francesca was named after her paternal grandmother.
Chatting over the fence my Sicilian neighbour, who is in her eighties, recommended to put a lemon leaf under polpette (those Italian slightly egg-shaped meatballs) when frying them in olive oil in the pan – not necessarily to eat the leaf but for it to impart flavour during cooking. I haven’t tried that yet however seeing these fresh young leaves I might need to give it a go.
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}.
Traditional lasagne, for me, is in the same category of favourite, comfort food as a good, old-style hamburger with the lot. {Perhaps a reflection of an Italian-Australian upbringing!} I learned to make lasagne when I was about 11 or 12, and must have made hundreds over the years.
So many traditional Italian dishes were created by combining leftovers, which I love as I can’t stand wasting good food by tossing it out. And while I know I would definitely not be the first to try this, it was a happy discovery when faced with some leftover prosciutto to fry it, sprinkle it and taste for the first time – basil pesto orecchiette with crispy prosciutto.
For my Great-Granny Maddalena’s frittata, the main ingredients were eggs, some salt and flat-leaf parsley. She also used a lot of olive oil (her frittata never stuck to the pan!)
Zoë Boccabella 