Sometimes, when I'm feeling exceptionally down, closing my eyes and digging deep to pull out the very roots of my heritage, the Italians within me, the bakers and cooks, my grandparents and my Mother's kitchen, is the only thing that can pull me up from there. Daydreaming of baking seems to fill the void in the moments when I wonder what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, and if it's what I'm meant to be doing. The answer is invariably almost always the same.
It's not just daydreaming of baking, however. It's daydreaming of carefully cultivating my heritage, working to nurture and tend it, keeping it alive. Sometimes, I don't just want to bake chocolate chip cookies. Don't get me wrong, because I love them. Chocolate chip cookies are like being seven years old again, baking with my Mom after dinner, after meatloaf and fried potatoes. That's another type of nostalgia for another day. Lately I've been daydreaming of baking Italian things, reminiscent of Presti's bakery in Little Italy, something I'd find in the cases there, glistening with glaze or covered in powdered sugar, speckled with non-pareils, or sliced and toasted with the exposed white meats of almonds studding their surfaces. I want to bake a cappuccino, a small table, Nuns passing on the street, an old man and his dog and a cigar, speaking Italian, and the perfect cookie for dunking.
Since beginning my new job, I've also begun a new friendship. One, I have no doubt, which is directly impacting this desire for Mom and Pop Italian comfort, this cleaving for nostalgic bakery. My co-worker Charlene and I have a lot of things in common. To say the least, we share an office, we're both from Cleveland suburbs, we're the same age, we've had a countless number of similar life experiences, and we're both at least partially Italian, which means our families both consume what is probably too much red wine, and they also all got that genetic tendency to love food, to love to make food, and to love to share food.
Spending time with Charlene makes me feel like I'm less of a vagabond, an outcast, less of a rarity. When I lived in Morgan County, it was hard to stumble upon another Italian, let alone another person of similarly recent American ancestry. It was hard to meet someone who knew what a pizzele is, what a canoli is, and what it means when someone in your family simply responds to something you'd like to talk more about with just, "Okay." And it's certainly easy to share an office with someone can quite literally laugh through tears, who can make me laugh through anything, and from whom joy seems to emanate. She might not agree with that statement, but if she were on the outside looking in, she'd know that she's one of the kindest, most embraceable people I've ever known. Charlene makes me smile even when she's not around, by remembering a story she's told me, or thinking about our similar experiences of home, family and culture.
We've joked about putting an Italian flag in our office, and this weekend I decided to send some of my reminiscing, my kindled nostalgia to the soldier I've been sending letters and boxes to since January. Because I can't tell you much about that soldier, I'm just going to refer to that soldier from now on as "Chopper." In hopes that my own soul-warming ways would also warm Chopper's heart, I baked up a batch of simple, traditional Italian cookies called Anginetti, or lemon drops. I used a recipe from a cookbook I love called Sweet Maria's Italian Cookie Tray by Maria Bruscino Sanchez. I made a few changes, but the cookies still turned out fluffy and cake-like, soft and zinging with lemon. Because I wanted them to look like something from old home, I frosted them with a lemon glaze and topped them with pastel sprinkles. I can see these sweet gems on the shelf of a bakery in my wildest of dreams, being scooped up by the dozen for smiling kids and adults alike.
I can't thank Charlene, or Chopper enough for how much joy they bring to me, simply by being themselves and being in the hustle and bustle of my daily life. Buona Pasqua, Happy Easter, God bless and always, always, always eat well to feed your body and your soul. Salute.
Anginetti
(Based off of Sweet Maria's "Lemon Drop Cookies")
3 local, free range eggs
1/2 cup grass fed low-fat milk
2 tsps. lemon extract
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tsps. freshly grated lemon zest
1/2 cup organic sugar
1/2 cup sunflower or safflower oil
2 cups organic artisan all purpose flour
2 cups organic whole wheat pastry flour
8 tsps. baking powder
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In an electric mixer on medium speed, beat eggs, milk, lemon extract, vanilla extract, lemon zest, sugar and oil until pale and foamy.
3. In a large bowl, mix together the flours, baking powder and sea salt. Add all at once to the wet mixture and beat until a soft, sticky dough is formed.
4. Drop by greased teaspoon full onto a parchment lined cookie sheet and bake immediately for 8 minutes, or until the cookies are gently browned on the bottom side.
5. Transfer to a cooling rack and cool completely.
6. In a medium size mixing bowl, combine 2 cups confectioner's sugar, 1/4 cup lemon juice, 2 TBS. water, 1 tsp. freshly grated lemon zest, and a few granules of salt. Whisk together until smooth. Adjust liquid or sugar to make a glaze of medium thickness that will stick to the cookie and not run off. Frost the cool cookies and top with sprinkles.
Makes 50-60 bite size cookies.
