11.

There’s one person who comes to mind when we think of dessert, and that’s our great-grandfather Gregory Auditorre. He came here as a baker from Italy and opened two pastry shops in Brooklyn. They were pretty popular and have a very impressive legacy. There’s an institution in Carroll Gardens called Court Pastry on Court Street that’s seriously the Holy Grail of Italian cookies. The guy who owns it, Gasper Zerilli, he worked for our great-grandfather and makes the same treats that we would eat growin’ up from Great-Grandpa Gregory’s shop—cannolis, sfogliatelle, saviata, anisette cookies, lemon drops, twist cookies. There’s even a picture of our great-grandfather on the wall.

Our great-grandfather wasn’t just a great baker, though—the guy also loved to paint. One of his bakeries was named Mona Lisa, and he did all kinds of renditions of the famous painting—Mona Lisa lookin’ at the Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa with cats. It was odd, but it was creative. He put his own spin on it, you know? He did a big mural in our uncle Pudgie’s place in Miami, Casale’s Alley, and his painting of the three Kennedy brothers is still hangin’ in all our restaurants. He had a coupla exhibits in the sixties in Manhattan, and when he retired from the pastry shop, he took up painting full-time.

Sal’s mom, Bella, in Basille’s, Middletown, New Jersey