- Rita Watson: Remembering Grandma’s Easter baking during a musical afternoon – Published 3/21/2015 in Entertainment & Life
Read the original in the newspaper to see the priceless photo of my grandparents.
Within a concert hall of oil portraits, overlooking a snow-covered cemetery, I saw myself frolicking through the water at Grandma and Grandpa’s beach house. Commentary in a program at the Boston Athenaeum was my cue to return to a time just before Easter when we were first allowed to dip our toes into the water.
The pianist for The Capital Trio, Duncan Cumming, dedicated a Schubert piece to his teacher, Frank Glazer. His teacher believed that an opening chord should say, “Listen, I am going to tell a story.” As the violin, cello, and piano conversed, my story began to unfold.
I am not certain that Schubert would have appreciated my wanderings during his Impromptu in C minor, Op. 90 No. 1. Nonetheless, there I was taking an ocean splash, returning to Grandma’s kitchen while she baked pies for Aunt Rose in Providence, and licking batter from the spatula for her Easter lamb cake.
The music began lightly, perfect for tiptoeing in the water before rushing back into a warm kitchen where I was greeted by Grandma preparing her rice pie, wheat pie, cheese and ham Pizza Rustica and, of course, seeing her mixing the cake batter. Grandma baked these before Palm Sunday so that we could bring them to her Providence sister.
As the musical notes glided from a frolicking march to sounds reminiscent of waves crashing against rocks, I remembered Grandma’s voice: “Anthony turn down that music. The opera is drowning out my thinking. I need to concentrate on my pies.”
Taking pies to Aunt Rose — and visiting Roger Williams Park — was special for our mother during her courtship days. Before they married, Providence was as far as she and our father were allowed to travel together.
Grandma’s Easter pies became legendary; however, because she never wrote a recipe, it is difficult to re-create her delights. Each time she baked she would try a different flavorful accent, from lemon or orange rind to hazelnut liquor. Grandpa and his brothers ran a pastry shop where all of the traditional pies were baked.
Yet Grandma was always reminding her sister-in-law, the pastry shop’s Grande Dame, that she could bake a heavenly dessert right in her own kitchen. Indeed, Grandma’s Easter lamb cake, made from her mother’s own mold, was like food for the gods.
At the end of their day of bickering about music being too loud, Grandma’s face would light up when Grandpa put his arm around her at dinner, took a second bite of cake and spoke words that were music to Grandma’s ears: “Nancy, this tastes even better than my mother’s; may she rest in peace.”
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Page 2 of 2 – Rita Esposito Watson, also a PsychologyToday.com columnist, is writing “Italian Kisses: Gram’s Wisdom.”