Home. Every once in awhile it takes a little more than the physical place itself to make that word resonate within me; to transform it from a word to a feeling, a quiet vibration that hums through my soul and bones. While I spent two days humbled by the presence of the place I call "home," it wasn't until I found myself seated at a familiar table in a restaurant I've been intimately acquainted with for years, did I find myself glowing, singing softly the intensity of "home."
Cleveland will always be my home. My knowledge of the world through the wide lens of Northeastern Ohio is like graffiti on the walls of my heart. The gritty chip of a city deemed nationally miserable, regionally depressed, and locally beloved sits proudly on my shoulder. There is so much more to Cleveland than gray clouds, hard winters and seemingly bitter people. Like every other city in America, Cleveland has a living, breathing culture that penetrates it's city blocks, stretching roots out to the suburbs, and implanting itself in those of us lucky enough to call ourselves "Clevelanders."
There was a time in it's history when Cleveland was a booming industrial center. The now almost century old Terminal Tower shined bright, new, and clean over a city situated perfectly for shipping and trading by sea and land. Cleveland was a destination for domestic and international immigrants alike. Like Detroit, it was a temptation for the gleaming, weary eyes of tired, poor Appalachian farmers looking for better, more productive ways to provide for their families. And like every other booming American city, Cleveland was the recipient of an influx of international immigrants looking for the same things. My Italian grandfather's appreciation of his life in America is something I will never forget. It fuels my patriotism, and further entrenches my heavy cultural ties, knotted to Italy and Slovenia forever.
My grandfather wasn't the only Italian immigrant to call Cleveland home. According to Ohio History Central...
"In 1870, only thirty-five Italian immigrants resided in Cleveland. By 1920, their numbers had surged to more than twenty thousand people. Most of these immigrants found low-paying jobs in factories, as day laborers, or as waiters, waitresses, and cooks in restaurants. Immigrants who were more successful established businesses that supplied their fellow migrants with traditional Italian products or began their own clothing or construction companies. In Cleveland, the Italian immigrants tended to settle in their own communities, preferring to live among people who shared similar cultural beliefs and spoke the same language as they did. By the late 1800s, most Italian immigrants in Cleveland had settled in two neighborhoods nicknamed Big Italy and Little Italy. Most of these immigrants were followers of the Roman Catholic Church."
They came in droves. For me, this meant not only my existence as a human being, but also my roots forming and growing in a city steeped in cultural diversity. It is hard for me to view the world through lenses that aren't tinted with that diversity. My entire understanding of my cultural identity is based on an immigration culture that helped create, paint, and write the majestic city from which I proudly hail. This is precisely why "home" is so much more to me than just the house where my parents live, more than just my parents themselves.
One of the communities where Italian people settled in the early twentieth century was the community where I grew up. An Eastside suburb of Cleveland, Wickliffe was an ideal place for many of these immigrants to settle. It was in perfect proximity to many different employment opportunities, it was accessible to Cleveland by street car, and it was a small, tight knit place with good public schools and promises of a beautiful American life. My mother's family settled there along with several other families from close, similar communities in Italy. Lisa Salotto, the owner of Vittorio's Buon Appetito restaurant in Wickliffe, is from one of those other families. Our familial histories have been intertwined for more than one generation now, and that connection is evident every time I sit down at a table in the utter perfection that is the presence and energy of her Italian restaurant.
This past Saturday night my parents, Uncle and I enjoyed a soul nourishing Italian dining experience at Lisa's charming restaurant. Two dining rooms are dimly lit by sconces, and columns wrapped with glittering strands of tiny clear bulbs. The cozy mocha walls warmly reflect the simple elegance of stark white table cloths and glasses of swirled, breathing red wine. A play list of Italian-American favorites, highlighted by the Rat Pack was just barely audible, as background mood music ought to be, so that conversation can flow, engage, and rise to fill and warm a room. The words spoken at our table over tenderly sweet, flour dusted homemade rolls and a dish of pungent aromatics soaking in pungently smooth olive oil were shared with love, as nothing else can result from such surroundings.
The food at Vittorio's is picturesque, and unlike the cover of Food & Wine or Gourmet Magazine, it's actually there in front of you filling each of your senses with something uniquely Italian-American. I ordered a bowl of what I feel to be, by far, the best Italian Wedding soup I've ever eaten. There is nothing superior to the fullness of the broth, the juicy pieces of chicken, tiny quaintly spiced meatballs and a handful of al dente pastina. This is the soup I want to be fed with care by someone who loves me greatly when I am sick, covers pulled up to my waist, sitting up in bed with a runny nose; it is medicinal.
I followed that by ordering Eggplant Roulades as my entree. Wafer thin slices of grill-marked, smoky eggplant doused in oil and herbs found themselves wrapped around rich, creamy, salty Italian cheeses and baked happily on a bed of nothing less than ancestral marinara. A glass of Merlot and the opportunity to look into the eyes of three people who love me unconditionally, to make conversation with them and share a few moments sharing our lives, and my soul found itself humming the sounds of home.
If you find yourself on the Eastside of Cleveland and you're craving just such an experience, a plate of Vittorio's pork parmigiana, a glass of wine, or just the feeling of being at home, then I highly recommend you step into Vittorio's for a round or two of Frank Sinatra and good old fashioned love, done Italian-American style. Buon Appetito. Enjoy.
No comments:
Post a Comment