Ciao Italia

There's a place in the northern part of town that I love to visit. It's a store, and for me going there is like visiting a cave of wonders.

It's a true old Italian grocery, filled with sights and sounds and smells that take me back to my childhood. Hand-made gnocci and imported penne fill aisle one. The cantucinni cookies my Aunt Rose used to slide me under the kitchen table are in aisle two, next to the 15 varieties of espresso, the ameretti, marinated anchovies, toothpaste tubes of tomato paste and half-gallon jugs of extra virgin olive oil. On aisle three we find an abundance of riches: large tubs of almond paste, creamy toblerone, bulk pignole and ceci beans, jordan almonds, fresh loaves of crusty bread, homemade bread crumbs.

Finally, aisle four. AH, aisle four. Here we encounter the backbones of Italian cuisine: the butcher and the cheesemonger. Sausages stuffed with fennel; deep red meats, rich with creamy veins of marbling; slabs of white, flaky bacala; tins of fresh-made ricotta, whey dripping down the sides; enormous hanging rounds of provelone and parmesean; salumi glistening red and sweet under the florescent lights; prosciutto cut to order by the pound (three types: U.S, Canadian and imported Italian) ... it's all there.

Old men in suit coats, felt hats and black canes resting quietly beside them, sit at little tables, sipping espresso and speaking as much with gesturing hands as with accented voices. Cannoli line up insider display cases, dotted with candied orange rind and rolled in chocolate chips. A tower of bimbi, rich in shining foil wrapping, sit next to the cookies-by-the-pound, awaiting Easter.

And the smells. There really are no words to describe the smell of tens of years of cooking sauce and fresh grated parm and roasting meats and drying herbs and All Things Good. The smell clings to my clothes when I leave, and invariably on the ride home I find myself burying my face in my sleeve to catch one last whiff of heaven.

Once, not long after my grandfather's passing and the sale of the family home, I walked in with my husband. As is my custom I paused just over the threshold to take a deep breath, feeling my muscles relax into the familiarity, and my husband, as is HIS custom, said his ritual phrase: "Smells just like Grandma's house." And it did, the smells of my childhood, the smells of my family, many years past, history soaked into the walls and floor of the house on Holley St. And I knew at that moment that phase of life was over, never to be revisited, and that this moment just inside the grocery store doorway was as close as I would ever get again. And surrounded by the hustle and bustle, standing underneath an old and somewhat faded Italian flag, I took in a deep breath of the past and wept.