He says maybe four lines over dinner.
“The sauce is too spice…Why you make so much food...Too much cheese onna risotto, no taste...You know Heddie, you work hard now you no hafa work later.”
I just watch him. His thick hands toughened from years of carpentry make such delicate work of the noodles. With a quick flick of the wrist he scoops a fork full of spaghetti lifting the noodles in the air and letting them hang, limp and dangling over the bowl. He then begins to twirl the fork in a small circle, a perfect cylindrical tuft of tightly wound spaghetti slowly forms while the chains of his gold bracelet clink against his writs. Finished, he tosses the bite into his mouth and begins on the next scoop. I try to copy and fail. Untamed noodles fall over my fingers or slide off the fork and sauce will fly everywhere. I’m forced to resort to using the side of the bowl like a “cock-a-rooch,” a “mericani.”
Grandpa, nonno, Biagio, Bia. As Italian as they get, as far from Jersey Shore as they come..
Biagio. 1955. Detroit, MI.
Eddie and Biagio. 1991. Royal Oak, MI.