Ravioli

Story ID:	822
Written by:	toni giarnese
Story type:	Family Memories
Location:	new hartford usa
Year:	2006

Ravioli

Grandma spread the whitest of linen over the tables on the sun porch and smoothed the nests of wrinkles until they lay flat. She set the rolling pin, flour canister and a jelly jar within reach. Then she donned her apron and worried the wispy gray strands on the nape of her neck into the black hairnet.
“Guardi.”
Grandma made a “well” of flour in the center of a large wooden board and, in the middle, cracked the eggs. She beat the eggs ever so gently, blending the inside wall of flour as she went. Soon dough was ready, the creamy ricotta had drained. The scent of freshly chopped mint and grated nutmeg hung in the air. Grandma moved in and out of the kitchen, gathering a few utensils, a fork for crimping and a bowl of water. It was ravioli day.
I watched as Grandma smoothed the dough into a circle, comic blue veins dancing across her hands. With pronounced thrusts of the rolling pin, she created an unplowed field, a large thin rectangle of dough ready to receive the ricotta mixture. Her deft movements left rows of milky mounds which she skillfully covered with a fold of the dough. With brisk moves of the knife, she cut the mounds apart. As she worked, she hummed and Caruso crooned, the faint echo of his wedding canzone coming from the Victrola. Then it was my turn. My job was to seal and crimp. Grandma watched as I inverted the jelly jar over each mound and twisted it a few half turns. Then I pressed the tines of the fork in the edges all the way around until the ravioli made fast. We worked together like that for hours, sealed in quiet. Washed in velvet light, the porch cooled as the late day sun laid its face on the window sill. The afternoon’s work lay around us, each ravioli the size of a mouse’s ear.

I loved being on the sun porch with Grandma. I worked at her elbow, I pressed against her side, I leaned into her thigh. The shape of her lay like a promise between us. I don’t recall if we talked much during those long afternoons. All I remember is that she hugged me tight and called me “Bella”.