While everyone else in what seems to be the entire world gets all jazzed about St. Patrick’s Day, with it’s green clothes, and green beer, and drunken shenanigans, I see March 17th as any other lucky day that happens to be two days before an even better saint’s day!
St. Joseph’s Day!
St. Joseph’s Day commemorates Joseph of the Bible, Jesus’ foster daddy, Mary’s faithful husband, and is celebrated by the Italian community by giving food to the needy, wearing red….
AND EATING ZEPPOLE!
Zeppole pronounced zep-po-lee are celestial italian doughnuts. Fried dough! How impressive and amazing is that?! My Italian ancestors are some brilliant folks!
When I was younger, my Nonna would have all of the family over on March 19th. I don’t remember wearing red, but I do remember walking into her home in Boston that typically wore a delightful aroma of garlic and basil to the smell of yeast dough frying on her stove… I remember her standing over that huge pot of hot oil, pulling off little pieces of airy dough that she had prepared in mass quantities earlier in the day by squishing the yeasty water with the flour and salt. And then slapping the dough until the gluten developed. And then allowing that delicate mixture to rise to perfection.
As the creamy-colored, hot, fried dough became golden, she would lift it out with her giant spoon, letting the oil drain and then would drop it on an enormous pile of white granulated sugar. She would roll it around and cover it liberally and then she would bestow that beautiful morsel upon anyone in the vicinity. Which would include all of us. My sister and brother, cousins, aunts, uncles, mothers and fathers. She preferred to serve them straight out of the fryer, while they were crisp, and heavenly. We all gathered, hopeful for the next delicious bite!
Nonna and I had a very special relationship and I knew beyond any doubt that she loved me deeply and without measure, but one year in particular, I remember feeling especially loved by her. Just as we arrived and were walking through my Grandpa’s garage to her kitchen, she motioned for me to come right away. I shimmied over to her through the crowd that was already surrounding her, and she handed me a sugar-coated napkin with a little zeppole sitting right in the middle of it. It was shaped liked a duck. And she had saved it just for me.
I will be making a small batch of zeppole today, not in honor of a man-appointed saint, but in honor of my Nonna, of my heritage, and of the traditions that are kept alive by remembering and repeating them.
To continue a legacy.
To live well.
Loves Doves 