Nonnie's Bake Shop

My earliest memories of time at my grandmother's house are of all of us in the kitchen. While my mother is an excellent cook, my grandmother (Rose) and great-grandmother (Irene or "Nonnie") were the baker's in the family. My great-grandmother had many recipes that couldn't ever be written, only watched. This intrigued me and we all spent countless hours in the kitchen together. Making homemade pastas and sauces, cakes and cookies, and singing along to MTV... half in Italian, half in broken English!

My very first job as a teenager was in a local grocery store chain bakery. This only fueled my passion for baking. I was able to make the strawberry shortcake birthday cakes for Nonnie there for her annual birthday bash. We started celebrated her birthdays, with our EXTREMELY large Italian family, at her 80th birthday, you know... we though it could be her last. We continued this tradition for 27 years!!! (Most of my life) Nonnie was 107 years old when she left for heaven to oversee all of us.

She stills lives through me in my kitchen. The recipe box that I see everytime I step to my oven... The foot tapping to the music... The flour and sugar containers that were on the counter in their kitchen... and all the love mixed into every little thing that comes out of my kitchen.

Thanks Nonnie... For being so strong and loving and for looking down on me! I hope I can make you proud!!!