HER COOKING SPIRIT
THE DAY BELLA’S SOUL-TORTURED mamma, Lucia Medina Donato, gave birth to her final child, Little Luigi, she threw the steaming baby into Bella’s seven-year-old arms. “You have to be the mamma now,” she spit. Hair crazing, eyes blazing, she grabbed her daughter by the ears and yanked her close. “I never loved your papa,” she hoarsely whispered. “I only ever loved Tino Scarabino. That’s it.” Then she took a deep breath, stopped talking forever, and never left her bed.
Manolo Antonio Donato, Bella’s too-proud papa and the always-tired night watchman at the Robertson Scale factory where the family lived, went his own kind of crazy. He had a smiling scar that started in the right corner of his mouth and sliced up his cheek, but he always looked mean. “Who’s gonna cook? What the fuck are we gonna eat?”
“I’m starving!” Bella’s big brother, the firstborn, Manolo Antonio Junior, hollered.
“We’re hungry too!” Bella’s sisters, pretty Concetta Regina and addle-brained Lucrezia Angelina, screamed. The two girls had tried like hell to cook but they destroyed everything. Chickens met charred ends. Pigs were boiled down to grizzle. Tomatoes never stopped bleeding.
After cursing her life and the world God created, Bella wrapped and plopped her yowling baby brother into a makeshift wooden wagon. She crossed herself, dragged it out of the factory complex and pulled it four long blocks to LoMonico’s corner market while singing,
Lullaby, lullaby, lullaby, ooh,
Who will I give this baby to?
Lullaby, lullaby, lullaby, eee,
I will keep this baby for me …
“I gotta make a big pot of tomato gravy for my starving family!” Bella yelled over the infant’s wailing as she yanked the wobbling wagon into the store’s warm belly.
The owner’s giant wife, Big Betty LoMonico, lumbered out from behind the register. She towered over the little girl like a Coney Island elephant lording over a mouse.
“What’s your name?”
“Belladonna Marie Donato.”
“From the Robertson Scale factory. What’s your baby’s name?”
“This is my mamma’s baby, but she gave him to me. I’m his Bellamamma. His name is Little Luigi.”
“Where is your mamma?”
“She’s in bed.”
“What is she doing there?”
“She’s got the great depression.”
“What about your papa?”
“He says if I don’t make something for my family to eat right away, he’s gonna kill me.”
Big Betty knew little ones in need of an angel when she saw them. She lifted the bawling infant out of the wagon and grabbed Bella by the hand. The shock of it made Bella wince. But the little girl’s arm tingled in a way it had never tingled before, and she decided she liked it.
“You come with me.”
The colossal woman tugged Bella past Big Bud, who was busy butchering behind the meat counter.
“Where are we going?”
She marched her through the crowded store and into a sprawling kitchen, where bright white Jersey sunshine blasted through billowing lace curtains; where a monster stove crouched warm and ready to roar; where a weathered butcher block stood warped and clean; where a vased bouquet of fresh basil rested in the middle of a linened table, lush and inviting; where a Radiola was softly crooning Paul Whiteman’s “My Blue Heaven.”
Bella never wanted to leave. “You really live here?”
“When was the last time this baby had something in its belly?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mary, Mother of God, help me. Please.”
Muttering the Lord’s Prayer, Big Betty rummaged through overstuffed drawers until she found an empty glass bottle and an old rubber nipple. As she boiled them, she poured water into another pot, added unsweetened evaporated milk and Karo Syrup, and snapped a flame on under it. Once the mixture cooled down, she funneled it into the bottle and thrust it into Bella’s hand. “Shove the nipple in that baby’s mouth and feed him!”
Luigi suckled like a starved calf.
The bottle drained fast.
“Now rub and pat his back!”
While Bella did as she was told, Big Betty gathered several mason jars of summer-ripened tomatoes, canisters of spices, a softball-sized onion, a ring of garlic, and a rough-edged wedge of Pecorino cheese. After carefully placing the burped baby in a soft pile of dish towels, she clutched her big chest. “Sometimes I have a little trouble breathing,” she said. She pinched off a small chunk of the cheese, popped it into her mouth and worked it around. After a moment, she took a deep breath. “There. Now I feel better.” With renewed strength, she slammed a thick cutting board onto the kitchen table in front of the basil. “Garlic heads. Always smash them to loosen the skin. Then pop out the cloves.” She handed Bella a wooden mallet. “We need at least ten of them.”
As Bella got to work, Big Betty poured a heaping glug of Montebologna Olive Oil (the Olive Oil of Italian Kings!) into a cauldron-sized pot she had slapped onto the stove. Then she took a healthy swig and patted her bountiful breasts. “Keeps the insides greased. Keeps the old clock ticking.”
After frying the garlic cloves and tossing in a pinch of chili flakes, Big Betty had Bella hand crush the tomatoes and throw them into the pot too. Then she grabbed a huge handful of basil from the vase on the table and thrust it into Bella’s face. “Take a good, deep sniff,” she said. “That’s it! Drink it in! Ain’t it delicious?”
It made Bella sneeze, but she loved the fragrant spiciness of it.
After they chopped and added the pungent leaves, Big Betty ordered Bella to measure the spices, one at a time, with her hands and toss them in too. Salt. Pepper. Oregano. She didn’t tell her how much. But she watched carefully.
“That’s it! You got it!” The giant woman gripped Bella’s little chin in her big hand and squeezed. “The Cooking Spirit is inside you! Can you feel it?”
The only thing Bella felt was her starving stomach grumbling. “No,” she said through squashed lips.
“Don’t worry. You will. Believe me,” the big woman said as she drizzled a spoonful of honey into the simmering tomato gravy. “My secret ingredient. Don’t tell anybody.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
As the tomato gravy sent its Italian perfume into the room, Big Betty plated a fistful of chocolate biscotti. Then she sat Bella at the kitchen table and asked her about her home.
“We live in the caretaker’s house at the Robertson Scale factory.”
“Tell me about your family.”
With a mouthful of chocolate crumbs, Bella gave Big Betty the rundown. “My oldest brother is Manolo Antonio Junior. But we call him Tony. He’s ten. He likes boxing. Sometimes he tries to box me.”
“Don’t let him do that.”
“When he does, I grab him by his coglioni and squeeze until he begs for mercy.”
“Bravissimo!”
“I also have two sisters. Concetta Regina. We call her Connie. She’s very pretty. And Lucrezia Angelina. We call her Lulu. She’s stupid. They are nine and six. I will be eight next week.”
“I wish you a happy birthday.”
“Grazie.”
“Prego. When did your mamma get the great depression?”
“Right after she pushed out Little Luigi. She always used to cook and clean,” Bella continued. “Now she stays in bed all day and she doesn’t speak.”
“Not a word?”
“Not nothing.”
Big Betty compressed her lips and nodded with a deep understanding. “Before your mamma got the great depression, was she happy?”
Now Bella compressed her lips.
“Did she teach you how to cook?”
“My mamma never taught me anything.”
“What about your papa?”
Memories of Manolo tossing Bella over the waves in the Jersey ocean while her bitter mamma watched from the beach flooded over her.
Papa! Catch me!
He called her his little tomato.
This was before Lucia’s knife flew. Before Little Luigi came. Before Manolo Donato’s tomato garden became his mistress, his only friend, his everything. When he wasn’t guarding the factory grounds at night, or asleep on his basement cot when the world was light, he tended his Sicilian tomatoes with a shovel, or a pruner, or a spade. He coddled them and cooed to them. He entered them in every carnival, county fair, and festival contest and usually won first place.
So ripe.
So tasty.
“My papa always makes me wash his feet,” Bella whispered to Big Betty.
“What do you mean?”
“I have to do it after he works all night guarding the factory and always after he does his gardening.”
In the murky shadows of the living room, Manolo would take a seat on his throne of an armchair like a king. Then Bella would slosh in with a bowl loaded with warm water and place it on the floor. She would kneel in front of his feet, untie and remove his shoes, then peel off his socks to reveal toes cracked and moldy, onioned bunions red and mean.
“So smelly.”
Then she would begin washing. She’d done this routine daily since she was three. Never Lulu. Never Connie.
“Only me.”
“That’s disgusting.”
Bella didn’t tell Big Betty she sometimes spit in the water before carrying it in, that she sometimes squatted over the bowl and peed.
“My papa hates me.”
For a while neither of them said a thing. Then Big Betty LoMonico took little Belladonna Marie Donato’s hands in hers. “You listen to me. If the world gets bad. If Manolo Junior tries to box you. If your papa makes you wash his stinking feet. Call upon the holy hands of your Cooking Spirit. The Cooking Spirit will fix it.”
Bella wanted to believe the big woman. She really did.
“Can the Cooking Spirit fix the great depression?”
The moment of silence that followed was seismic. It was Vesuvius before the deluge. Tephra and sulfur gasses gathered above their heads.
“The Cooking Spirit can fix anything.”
“You mean like the Holy Ghost? Like Jesus?”
“More like a guardian angel. One that will be with you always. Capisce?”
“No. Non capisco.”
“Non preoccuparti. Don’t worry. You’ll understand soon, my little darling.”
No one had ever called Bella darling before. At first, she wanted to punch the jumbo woman and bite her in her mammoth shins. Then she decided maybe she might hug and kiss her instead.
After the gravy finished cooking, Big Betty dipped her wooden spoon into the pot and gave Bella a taste.
When the sweet tang entered the scrappy little girl’s mouth, the floor left her feet. It tasted better than the chocolate biscotti. It tasted better than anything. Her insides swooned, her heart crooned, and she flew all the way up to Heaven.
“Now do you feel the Cooking Spirit?”
“Yes!”
“Of course you do!”
After Bella dropped back down to the floor, Big Betty covered and loaded the pot of tomato gravy into her wobbly wagon along with two pounds of dry spaghetti, the entire wedge of Pecorino cheese, ten tins of White House evaporated milk, and a snoozing Little Luigi.
“Now go and feed the rest of your family!”
Bella wrapped her small arms around the gigantic woman’s enormous waist. Then she kissed her pillowy stomach. She wanted to say I love you. But she couldn’t say those words.
Not yet.
“Come back soon!” Big Betty hollered as she pushed Bella and her wagon out the door of the store. “Next time I’ll teach you how to make my big mamma’s magic meatballs! Meatballs saved my life once!” the big woman sang. “And someday they’re gonna save yours too!”
Big Betty LoMonico’s Tomato Gravy
Inherited from Big Betty’s big mamma,
Claudia Signorelli.
This recipe carried Bella
in its delicious Italian arms
for her entire life.
It was the Sicilian fuel
that lit the fire that simmered
in her bodacious heart
until the day she died.
(You will have to keep reading for the magic meatball recipe.)
2 large (half-pound) cans of good quality Italian plum tomatoes
3–4 tablespoons of Montebologna Olive Oil (the Olive Oil of Italian Kings!)
8–10 whole cloves garlic, skinned
a nice pinch or two of red chili flakes
a few dashes of dried oregano
kosher salt, to taste
fresh ground black pepper, to taste
1 teaspoon raw honey
a healthy handful of fresh basil, chopped
1.Separate and skin the garlic cloves. Be sure and keep them whole.
2.Place canned tomatoes in a large bowl and use your hands to squash them until smashed real good. Preferably while singing “My Blue Heaven.”
3.Put olive oil in a big pot. Take a healthy swig to keep everything ticking properly. Tilt the pot on a flame to create a healthy puddle in its bottom crook and fry cloves until golden. Don’t burn them!
4.Right the pot and add red chili flakes and let them sizzle for 30 seconds while muttering the Lord’s Prayer.
5.Add hand-crushed tomatoes to the pot.
6.Add dried oregano, salt, black pepper, honey, and stir. Let the holy hands of the Cooking Spirit guide you.
7.Add chopped basil after drinking in the fragrance. Be sure and take a deep sniff.
8.Bring the gravy to a rolling boil while occasionally stirring with a wooden spoon, preferably your mamma’s.
9.Lower flame, set lid on pot, and let the gravy simmer for a few hours. Play some cards. Eat some biscotti. Sing a few songs. Dance around the kitchen.
10.When the gravy is done, when it tastes better than candy, thank the Cooking Spirit and serve tossed with your favorite pasta immediately.
11.Buon appetito! Mangiare bene! Stare bene! Delizioso!