BELLA’S SWEET LITTLE CANNOLI
EVERY SATURDAY, AFTER A long workday week of selling meatball sandwiches and cooking for her family, Bella took two buses and three trolleys all the way to the Saint Francis of Assisi Home for Wayward Orphans to visit her baby.
She brought along baskets filled with homemade treats for the nuns. Wax-paper-wrapped meatball submarines and mason jars full of homemade pastas swimming in tomato gravy. She dropped the bounty on the table in the communal kitchen and waited for the penguins to swarm in.
“What a bounty!”
“Sinfully delicious!”
“The good Lord is surely smiling upon us!”
While the sisters filled their holy gullets, Bella left to find her son, always tucked safely in his crib.
She liked to give him her finger to grab on to with one of his strong little fists.
“My God, you’re gettin’ so strong! And so big!”
She wrapped him in his blanket and rocked him and kissed him and sang to him. She pulled crumbled bits of Pecorino from a small sack in her coat pocket and worked them into his finger-sized mouth.
To make sure he knew where he came from.
She never mentioned her trips to the orphanage to anyone.
All during that long, brutal winter business boomed, and she visited her son.
After making payments to Dino and dropping a small percentage into the family till to appease the beast snoozing in the basement below everyone’s feet, she stashed the rest in the box buried in the floor of the food stand.
Each day brought her closer to claiming and keeping her baby.
Each day brought the two of them closer to flying away.
Together.
Forever.
Bella and her baby.
She traveled around town, pushing the empty baby pram like a demented circus clown.
Once in a while she parked the carriage in front of what was left of Francis Anthony Mozzarelli’s house.
“Where the hell are you, Francis Anthony Mozzarelli?”
She sat on Terelli’s hill and thought about her long-lost friend.
“Where the hell are you, Terelli Lombardi?”
Every time she paid a visit to S. S. Kresge, she lifted something new to add to the old suitcase she had stashed under the girls’ bed. A polka-dotted blouse. A pencil skirt. A bundle of fancy cotton underwear. She lifted things for her baby too. A bib. A corduroy jacket and matching pants. She stole him a silver rattle from Rowe~Manse.
She watched her sister Connie’s belly grow.
She wanted to punch it.
Deflate that fucking dough.
She cooked for her family.
She spoon-fed and bathed her mamma.
To relax and release some steam, she wheeled herself over to the Jewel Box Theater for a little balcony sinning.
Then she ran the carriage over to Saint Anthony’s and confessed.
She made glorious meals for Father Michael with Mrs. Concannon.
She sold her meatballs.
She counted her money.
“I’ve almost got enough for the two of us to run away,” she whispered in William’s ear while pushing him around the orphanage one early spring day.
She asked the sisters if she could take him to a photo studio so she could have his picture taken.
“Why?”
“So you will always remember him after he leaves.”
“What do you mean?”
“The next time I come, I’m taking my baby home with me.”
Belladonna Marie Donato’s Eight-Layer Cannoli Cake
If you ever need to thank a gangster,
if you ever need to butter up a bunch of nuns,
if you ever need to cast any kind of culinary spell over anyone,
make this astonishing Italian castle of a cake!
For the cake batter:
5 cups all-purpose flour
5 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1½ cups unsalted butter, softened
3 cups sugar
6 large eggs
2 tablespoons fresh orange zest
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
2½ cups milk
For the frosting:
20 ounces fresh full-fat ricotta cheese
16 ounces mascarpone cheese (cream cheese can be substituted)
6 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 teaspoons fresh orange juice
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg
½ teaspoon salt
20 ounces small chocolate chips
1.Preheat oven to 350. Butter and flour-dust four nine-inch round baking pans.
2.In large bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and salt together. Think about the first time you fell in love.
3.In another bowl, mix butter and sugar together until fluffy. Think about the first time you had sex.
4.Beat one egg at a time into the butter and sugar. Then beat in vanilla extract, almond extract, and fresh orange zest. Then alternate beating in dry ingredients and milk, a cup or so at a time. Reminisce about all the lovers you have had in your life. All the happiness you shared with each and every one of them.
5.Fill pie pans and bake at 350 degrees for approximately 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. (Lining the cake pans with parchment paper will aid in removal.) Imagine a beautiful sea waving in all of your precious memories.
6.Cool completely. Then remove, gently, cakes from pans and let continue cooling on wire racks. Brew a pot of coffee. Have a cup with a drop or two of vanilla added, nibble on a few chocolate chips while waiting.
7.Using a dry cheesecloth or a fine strainer, drain ricotta and mascarpone cheese. Think about the future. Give yourself permission to chase your dreams. List them.
8.In a large mixing bowl, beat together the ricotta and mascarpone (make sure they’re cold). Beat in the powdered sugar, vanilla extract, almond extract, orange juice, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Be sure and count your blessings while measuring the ingredients.
9.Carefully cut each of your cooled cakes in half with a serrated knife. Say a prayer each time. Be sure and call upon the holy hands of your Cooking Spirit to help when you do.
10.Place one sliced cake on a cake stand. Frost and sprinkle with chocolate chips. Repeat until all layers are assembled. Once assembled, frost top and sides. Apply a layer of chocolate chips around the sides of the cake. Imagine all your dreams coming true while you are doing this.
11.You can use any extra frosting for decorative piping around the top. Be sure and let someone you love lick the spatula.
12.Buon appetito! Mangiare bene! Stare bene! Delizioso!