Josie's Recipe Collection

The Story

It all began at 216 Fourth Ave, the home of my maternal grandparents.  My grandfather came from Italy when he was just 17 years old, arriving through Ellis Island.  He married my grandmother Lucy.  My mother is the oldest of four girls and two boys.  My mother’s youngest brother was killed in an accident when he was just a little boy.

Mother was born in 1914 and married in 1944.  I am Karen her oldest daughter, the inheritor and editor of this lovely cookbook.  The recipes she collected are a journey and testimonial of my mother’s life, the friends she made along the way and with whom she shared her life.

Her sister Mary was her soul mate and other self.  Sometimes it was difficult to tell them apart.  Julia, a much younger sister was not much of a culinary arts person herself, unlike Mary and my mother who inherited their mother’s panache in the kitchen.  But Julia was an artist and her splendid paintings were her contribution to the legacy of the sisterhood.

For some reason there are no recipes from her sister Dorothy the baby sister.  But Grandma Lucy would love knowing that Aunt Dot’s grandsons currently make and sell great pizza in the Mohawk Valley, even if it is not an old family recipe.  Oddly enough there are no family recipes in here for pizza (Aunt Mary’s was the best) or Grandma’s thick tomato pie.  These were everyday recipes that they made from scratch and didn’t need to write down.

There were neighbors of my grandmother who lived on Fourth Ave, Mrs. Harvey and Alta Coombs who have recipes as part of this collection. As well as my sister Lucy, who is her grandma’s name sake.  Vicki is the wife of my oldest brother.  A recipe from Lena’s kitchen appears.  She was married to my mother’s brother.

My father’s sister Angie was a marvelous cook and baker; a few of her masterpieces are a part of this collection.  She appears as Angie, Aunt Angie and Angie Sassone, one in the same.  Antoinette and Rita were married to my father’s brothers.  Nana is my paternal grandmother.

When I was 8 or 9 years old, my mother went to driving school; there was no stopping her now. She was out and about in the neighborhood.  She took sewing lessons.  She loved to read and collect recipes.  “I like food”, she’d say.

When her children were older, my mother worked as a cook in the school cafeteria.  She was also a housekeeper for the Bennison’s, both the father the elder Mr. Bennison and Mr. Bennison’s son and family.

Mary Lore (Cross is her married name) was her school friend and life long girlfriend.  They died within days of each other in 2002.  Her girlfriends, cousins and indeed second cousins-there was Carm Bono, Pauline and Julia Frank, Mary Carboni, Mary Valent, Mary Sylvester, Mamie Oriole and Josie and Rose Barberio, they were friends and shared a special sisterhood.  This book is a tribute to their lives.  These women and homemakers of the 1940’s-60’s who raised baby boomer children.  They were stay at home moms that made life pour out of their kitchens.

This is not a beginner’s cookbook.  The cook needs to be able to visualize the finished product and jump right into the recipe like a dancer in a chorus line.  These women were artists and they created a life with food for special occasions, holidays and everyday dinners.

*******

Special Acknowledgement: Editors Note

The “rebirth” of this edition of recipes would not likely have come about without the urgings of my daughter Kimmy Ann.  This cookbook for years existed as two tattered three- ring volumes on the bottom shelf of a cabinet in my mother’s living room.  Kim saw it as a tribute to her Grandmother’s life.

Many years ago my mother started to place pieces of masking tape on items in her household that she wanted family and friends to inherit.  This practice became somewhat of a joke.  After returning from studying in Italy my daughter said to me have Grandma put a piece of tape on her cookbooks for you. She felt that the food she ate in Italy in the small towns was much like the food she was raised on as a young girl in New York.  My daughter felt that the recipes needed to be handed down to the next generation.

Her grandmother was so thrilled that Kim actually got to travel to Italy, a dream she herself was never able to fulfill.  Kim sent her Grammie, as she on rare occasion would affectionately speak of her, a postcard from Italy