Pane Fritta

From the time I can remember as a child, we lived with my mother's mother, my grandmother Gennuso, in her home on Liberty Street in Fredonia, N.Y. Every Saturday morning, she would set out her large stainless steel bread pan and fill it with rising dough. Not only did she make several loaves each Saturday, but she also made a pizza or two, and the highlight for us kids, was the pane fritta. After the dough had risen, she would break off small pieces of it, flatten them out, and quickly fry them in lard, turning them when browned. This took only minutes, and she'd take them out, sprinkle them with sugar, and one of the best 'doughnuts' ever was eagerly devoured by the four of us kids, and whatever adults happened to be lucky enough to be around.

Later she would form the loaves, let them rise, bake them, and when hot out of the oven, knife a thick, thick slice for each of us, drizzle olive oil atop it, sprinkle black pepper over all, and another mouthwatering treat for us...not to mention, of course, the pizza slices we helped ourselves to throughout the day. (To this day, I love room temperature pizza.)

My grandmother, Josephine Gennuso.

Now that my grandmother days are here, I find myself recalling with great fondness and poignancy my days with her. I find myself doing many of the things she did, now with my own grandchildren.

I have Iris each Wednesday, and now Elsa also, during the morning. So last Wednesday, anticipating them coming, I thought about Pane Fritta.

...dough rising...

When my first grandchild, Morgan was old enough to bake and cook I made us matching aprons. When Macy was born, I made her a matching apron as well. Iris, during our cooking times, would wear one of these aprons, but just the other week, thought perhaps we needed matching aprons of our own.

So, I set out to make Iris, Elsa and me these aprons.

...and we set out to make pane fritta...

To make it a bit more special, we flattened the dough, and then cut out shapes prior to setting in the canola oil (not lard).

I must say, we got so caught up in the sprinkling, cooling and eating (along with a cup of tea) I failed to even think about taking pictures of the finished product. It didn't last very long anyway.

While the girls were waiting for the pane fritta to cool, they dragged out their kitchen to the kitchen, and proceeded to 'cook' up a storm.

I guess it was a bit much for Elsa, as she is sitting down on the job.

I am grateful to my grandmother for all the wonderful memories, the skills, and the innate love of and for good food that she instilled in me.

Wonders Never Cease

I ask myself, why am I not weaving these days? It is not that I don't love to weave, nor that I really don't want to weave, because I do. However, I sense still a heaviness of spirit connected, I think, to the fiasco of the cabin basement, which I still am unable to use. My laments and middle of the night thoughts are that I've made one colossal mistake that will only take much more time and money to correct. I know I've gone overboard with worry and that I just need this time to step away and 'let it go' and come spring, deal with it. Actually, it isn't as bad as this may sound, really needing only to correct/replace the heating unit (is this a small thing?), and I have a tendency to take worry and doom to the nth degree. I think it is my Sicilian grandmothers coming through.


So, while not weaving, I am in fact enjoying other things. Those 5# coffee bags...

with the help of some lovely printed Duct Tape, have become tote bags.

yes, to tote wine, or produce, or coffee once again...

And enjoying other things!!

On Wednesdays I take Iris and that always brings with it some newly innocent and delightful forms of play.

She wanted to do a 'collection' despite it being on the warm winter side where soft snow and slush dominated the yard and surrounding woods...
she found many, many treasures, which we decided were worthy of an inside display on lovely linen cloth (which happened to be an Ikea find called Iris).

It really is heart warming to be with a little one so open to nature and all its wonders, so alive in her findings that she squealed in delight at the tiny grape leaves littering the snow. She collected dried weed flowers, pine cones, seed pods, pine needles both golden and green...and she was filled, as was I.

Her imagination is huge and creative. She asked, while in the bathroom, if she could take the small plastic zip bag of Burt's Bees products and look at them. I said sure. She then took them into the living room, and as she was spreading them out, she almost immediately saw the tubes and small bottles as people. She assigned me two, and took two herself, gave them names, and proceeded to spread them out. She collected other items, made pools, chairs, tables, etc. Thinking she'd find it fun, I drew faces on the tubes and bottles, and she was simply delighted.

Here is the 'family' put to sleep for the night.
Just as we were deep in play, Grandpa came home, and before changing into the boots he wore to the woods, came inside for a little while. He was recruited to join in the play.

...and here is grandpa in charge of moving the mother and father around, getting them tea and crumpets in his high mother's voice. Then off in a more manly way, to his chain saw and the woods.

There is much to delight in and I am so appreciative, in this age of little ones wearing heals and striking sexy poses, that this little girl is still lost in the wonder of nature and simple things.

HEARTS AND FLOWERS

Ah, Valentine's Day, the day for love and hearts and flowers.

An ancient technique developed, by among others, the Mayans...woven paper hearts.
I decided to resurrect this ancient art this season, and pulled out a couple of old wall paper books I've kept over the years. With pretty patterns and some patience, I, as usual, was so caught up in the making, I just kept making...and making...and making. Now I need to give my hearts away.

They were quite lovely as they stood, but I thought stamping them might give them an even more vintage look.

This one is made from paper I water colored first, wove, then stamped.

It got to be rather addictive.

And then....the old, fallen apart rug I designated for re-use into potholders. It came to me after I'd made several, that I could embellish them with felted flowers.

...and then some blatantly heartish pot-holders.

Then it was on to the Valentine Card/Books for Iris and Elsa.

Sometimes it is difficult to find the perks in growing old. It is relatively easy to recognize all that is tarnished, all the small indignities that, to others might go unnoticed, but to the one growing into 'old age' reflect not just back from the mirror, but from life itself. I think, though, the purpose of 'old age', the redemption of growing older, is quite simply, grandchildren.

With this in my heart, I set out to make small valentine books for Iris and Elsa.

Elsa's depicts, on every page, the love of an animal hiding under a heart.

And for Iris, who I often tease by saying something like, I love you with all....my tummy? Several pages of 'misplaced' love hiding underneath hearts.

The culmination comes with the love in Nonnie's heart.

...with all my heart...

KNEADING FRIENDS

I'm sure that it is impossible to count, or even estimate, how many loaves of bread I have made in my life. I've been baking bread most of my adult life, perhaps weekly, or surely averaged out to that. One might think that this could reach near-state of boredom, but each time I begin the process, I do it with a genuine enthusiasm and excitement. So when two friends asked to have a bread baking 'lesson', I eagerly agreed. In advance I prepared a container of my sour dough starter for them to use, replenish and take home. I believe both of these ladies are already bread bakers, but I guess they were intrigued with my sour dough bread. Anyway, it sure was a fun morning. I had a baguette rising, ready to bake when they arrived, so they could see the end process, as they were going to take home their kneaded and rising bread to complete for their evening meals.

I have never, not ever, gotten tired of the smell of bread baking in the oven. And as we began and proceeded through the mixing and kneading, we were surrounded with the warm, wafting aroma of crusty bread baking.


Bowls and baking ingredients at the ready!

Sour dough starter (which is nothing more then flour and water that has fermented), water, a scant bit of yeast for a burst, organic flours, both 7 grain and unbleached bread flours, and salt. Simple and ancient are these ingredients, nothing fancy goes in to making these crusty, earthy breads.

One must enjoy kneading for this bread, because it is best kneaded for 8-12 minutes.
Kneading friends....a great way to have the minutes fly by if you happen to get tired of it.

...a fleck of flour on the chin enhances the morning...

...ready for the bowl and hours of rising...
This bread can rise at room temperature all day, then can be divided into 3 sections. One can form all three sections into loaves....

and let rise for a couple of hours. Or, form only one or two, and refrigerate the rest of the dough for another time. I've refrigerated for several days, taking some out when needed.

Crusty, crunchy, aromatic, delicious sporting plenty of (gas) holes on the inside.

It was truly a wonderful way to spend a snowy Monday morning. When the bowls were covered and waiting to get to their own homes, we ended the morning eating the freshly baked baguette, cheese, olives and pepperoni (darn, too early for wine).

REPURPOSING (Have I gone too far???)

I don't consider myself a pack rat, but perhaps I come close in some ways. I happen to make a lot of cheesecakes, and about two years ago, it occurred to me that the foil that wrapped the Organic Valley cream cheese should be good for something. So, hoping it would come to me, I began thoroughly washing and drying, then storing these wrappers. Every once in a while they would cross my mind, or I would come upon a huge quantity of them in my craft closet, and I would wonder what they might become.

As I was making another cheesecake for the Kickapoo Reserve Winter Festival auction a few weeks ago, I wanted it to be displayed nicely. To that end, I fashioned and decorated a box for the cheesecake and then lined it with cream cheese foil sheets. As I was doing that I thought, I bet they would make nice flowers to place on top. And so the cream cheese foil flowers were born:

...a vase on my table...

another view

...and a close up...

So now I need to start saving papers again, as I have made many a bunch of flowers, and as each one takes multi-layers of foil, I have run out. I doubt it will take me two years again, but I will continue my collection.

Another aspect of my reluctance to throw anything remotely usable out is a rag rug that I purchased at auction perhaps 35 years ago. It was 34" by 26 ft., believe it or not. Now as a rug weaver, I know the work that went into such a long, long rug. It wasn't always easy for me to find a spot that would accommodate it, but I have used it in one place or another for all these years. As it was beginning to wear, and we needed a long rug in the basement, I released it for use there, with some trepidation. It has been used there for perhaps 5 years, until we recently had a stainless steel liner put into our chimney in order to stoke up our old wood stove. The stove has been sitting unused in the basement since the turn of the centuryY2K scare. When we had the liner installed, we were told the rug had to be moved as it was too close to the stove.

A few days later I saw Freddie dragging and trailing this rug to the pile destined for the dump. I yelled out the door, NO! I will use that for something. He just shrugged and looked a bit unbelieving.

After a week or so, I dragged it back inside, and loaded it up into the washing machine. It did not weather the cleaning very well, and pretty much fell apart.

I did not let that deter me, however, and I went over it very lovingly and slowly, cutting it into pieces I thought I could do something with.

These are the first two rugs that came out of the large rug, and they are about 3" x4", and 3' x3", and they will take up floor space in Iris' new doll house.

Now these remnants are enough to make hundreds of doll house rugs, and I wasn't about to do that, so I needed another idea.

Pot holders, one dyed and some not dyed. I have not yet decided if I am going to dye anymore, but it is a possibility, although I do like the more natural ones a lot.

These pot holders were relatively easy to make. However I did break about 4-5 needles on my sewing machine while putting the binding on. After much scrutiny and thought, I realized that the weft was packed so tightly in some spots, the needle just would not penetrate. Whether this is from the original weaver's work, or years of wear, or both, I'm not sure. I will have to find a way around this problem if I hope to sew up any more items from the rest of this rug.

Now to find a use for the black Cafe Altura 4# coffee bags which are collecting on my fabric shelf!

KIDS DAYS

Awaken on a lovely day and the thermometer reads 30 degrees below zero...seems arctic-like to me. Went to the basement and stoked up our old Kickapoo Boxer Wood stove to help heat the house. The jury is out on whether it is helping, though we've only had it stoking for 5 days. We hope it helps, after dragging all that wood to the basement, and of course, after Freddie cuts it all.

The grandkids here this weekend. Grandpa bought a new game, and these two have proved to be intense and good engineers, building any number of 'bridges' that allowed a marble to travel to the end. They sure enjoyed this.

Grandpa 'supervises' though they are way ahead of him.

They spent lots and lots of thought and time on this. Their dad would be proud.

And the other day, before this densely cold spell, these two little ones had their own 'snow ball' fight right in the living room. They loved it.

Hopefully the temperature will rise enough for some major sledding down the hills surrounding the farm.


AND SO IT HAPPENED:

Grandpa had plowed a long swathe for the kids to sled down, and despite my fears about the slickness and outlandish speed, they all seemed to have a great time and emerged unscathed.




It was a long way down, twists and turns and catching air, but it was then a long way up and Grandpa did not mind the job of hauling the kids and their snow discs back up the hill on the toboggan.



Andy and Iris came and slid down the tractor path.


...a pile of grandpa and kids...

yes, it was cold, a mere 7 degrees, but it sure was fun...


And to end the day, cousins sipping hot cocoa in fancy cups and eating crumpets, too.