famiglia

  My dad was born on 14th Street in New York City, and at least, c. 2000, the building was still standing. Here's a photo from a trip we made to the city from our home in N.J. (probably to see a Yankee game) in the 1970s. The building is the first brownstone, with Allen's Bar at the ground level. Here's a close-up shot, with my mom and me standing in front of Allen's Bar. The family had more than one apartment in the building. The family patriarch, my great grandfather Don Peppino, a retired chef, had an office in the front of the building, where he would see patients. After he retired from the restaurant he spent his time as a healer. The family lived in rooms at the back of the building. In summertime Don Peppino would sit out on the roof and dry tomatoes, which he would later use to make sauce. Apparently the building also once featured a stoop, and a shop that sold prosthetics and wheelchairs was the storefront in the 1930s. Here's a color polaroid from 1999 or ...

My Aunt Rose was always proud that she shared her birthday with John Lennon. She was beautiful, brash and funny as hell. She wouldn't take crap from anyone. And even though her husband, my uncle John Massimo, was considered the family storyteller, Rose could tell a great story too. Some of my favorite memories are of sitting across her Long Island kitchen table and she telling me the "real dope" on some of our family history. My father adored her, and was probably always a bit jealous of his older brother and his good fortune. When I was in college at Parsons in New York City, so far away from my family in south Jersey I really got to know Aunt Rose, who insisted that I come visit any weekend that I didn't have something else to do or was going home to Jersey. And I did. Uncle John would pick me up at the L.I.R.R. station, and as soon as I crossed the threshold of their home a plate of food would come my way and the stories would start. "You look so thin! Want a ...

14th Street, c. 1976, NewYork, N.Y. Don Peppino would also make a delicious sun-dried tomato sauce in the summer on the roof of their apartment building on 14th Street . He would take the center section of a barrel and stretch a fine mesh screen over the top. He would then set ripe tomatoes on the screen to dry for hours in the sun. When the tomatoes were ready, he would mash the tomatoes, pressing them through the mesh of the screen. The sauce would drip into the large pot he had set below his homemade sieve/drying rack. What a nice way to spend a fine sunny New York City day—Don Peppino and Giovanna (or Giovannina, as he sometimes called her) out on the roof with their grandchildren playing nearby. Giovanna was quite a cook in her own right. The family differs (argues?) on where Giovanna was born, convinced they heard she was from: Cousin Judith: Albania Aunt Paula: Malta Uncle Jim: Grecia Romana Mom: Magna Grecia The most frequent place that is mentioned is Piana dei G...