001. Weekend at Nonna's

At first, you were sad to miss out on the festivities, but then you remembered- you’re spending the weekend at Nonna’s

Your parents rush you and your sister out the door, not wanting to be any later than they already are for the wedding you are not invited to. At first, you were sad to miss out on the festivities, but then you remembered - you're spending the weekend at Nonna’s.

You pack the essentials- some books, your favourite Barbie, pencils and crayons. You heard a kid at school last week talk about how his grandparents have a computer, Nonna and Nonno still have a rotary phone. But that never bothered you; you are about to have a weekend full of unlimited basic cable cartoons and 3 course meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

When you arrive, Nonna greets you with a smile and a “ciao bella mia,” and she embraces you and your sister. She is sporting a floral printed smock apron she made 40 years ago with the leftover fabric from the factory where she used to work.

You smell something good, and you start to hear something coming from the kitchen; it is the bubbling of the red tomato sauce that sits on the stove. On the table, you see homemade chicken cutlets, salad fresh from the garden, Nonno’s prosciutto, which he sliced thin on his industrial grade meat slicer, and an assortment of cheese. Caciocavallo is your favourite. You send your sister to the garage to fetch two crisp cans of Canada Dry ginger ale or Fresca, a perfect pairing for this fine dining experience.

Mom never lets you have pop, but the rules don’t apply at Nonna's. At Nonna’s, you are shielded from punishment by the simple phrase - “lascia sta’” (let it be), uttered sternly by Nonna, directed towards those pesky parental authority figures.

Nonno sits in his usual seat at the head of the table, pouring himself a glass of his homemade red wine. He whispers to you to dip your finger in the glass so you can taste the fruit of last summers labour. Like the young sommelier you are, you smack your lips and express your approval by letting out an “ahhhhh”.

You may be full, but there is always room for dessert- i cannoli, la torta di ricotta, and Comare’s Mustaccioli cookies are the icing on the metaphorical cake. Hunched over his now empty plate, Nonno sits cutting an apple from his garden with his Swiss army knife. He peels it perfectly as to make one long ribbon from the peel. When you ask him how he learned how to do it so well, he recounts stories about working on the farm as a child where he would eat apples fresh from the tree as a snack to sustain himself throughout the long days of work. You take the apple slice from his rough hands and savour the taste as you imagine he did when he was young.

Stumbling away from the table, you make your way to the couch to nurse your food coma. As you prepare to take your afternoon nap, Nonno tells your sister to change the channel from Spongebob to “Italia show”. As your sister punches in the numbers on the remote control. You hope there will be a kids’ show like Winx Club or Melevisone. You're met with disappointment; it’s TG1.

As you doze off, you start thinking that maybe Nonno will take you and your cousins to the mall tomorrow, where he will let you guys ride the carousel as often as you want. You look forward to plopping the shiny silver quarters in the candy machine to buy gum balls or Reeses Pieces. Nonno will make you promise that you won’t tell Nonna, who is at home preparing the next Michelin star meal- you requested cicatelli (cicatell’ )

When you awake from your nap, you're alone in the living room, you search the house for anyone. You spot Nonna and Nonno in the garden. They are having a lively discussion about why the zucchini plants are sprouting later than usual. Nonna suggests that Nonno may have made an error in his watering schedule this year. Nonno waves his hand to signify to Nonna that she doesn’t know what she is talking about, but deep down inside, he knows she is right. Your sister, covered in dirt from her own gardening project, asks Nonno if she can help him. Nonna looks on in horror.

Her clothes are full of dirt, and the rip in her pants caused by the rake Nonno gave to her is a major point of concern for Nonna. “Ma, tu sei sporca!” (You're dirty!), Nonna calls out at your sister. Nonno chuckles to himself as he encourages your sister to “va’ zappa” (hoe the garden) together.

Eventually, Nonna takes on the mission of repairing your sister’s pants. She takes you to the basement where her sewing machine sits on an old wooden table, surrounded but spools of thread and scrap fabric. She clicks on the bright desk lamp from circa 1970 (like most things in the house, it’s vintage). You watch as she inspects the rip and thinks about her plan of attack. Before you know it, her wooden ciabatta hits the peddle of the machine with just the right touch; the machine awakens. As the needle goes in and out of the pink fabric, you watch as her wrinkled hands guide the fabric through the machine. The precision, the confidence, the skill- is there anything Nonna can’t fix?

She hums a tune to herself as she completes the last row, cuts the thread and inspects her work proudly. You ask Nonna how she learned to sew, and as she recounts the story, she shares of the time she bought a bra at the market when she was a teenager in Italy. Instead of wearing it, she cut it apart and made a sewing pattern to make plenty of bras for her and her sisters.

As a kid, you watch characters with superpowers save the day on TV. Still, it wouldn’t be till you were older that you would appreciate how despite Nonna and Nonno growing up with very little, their creativity and resourcefulness was a superpower in its own right.

Nonna instructs you to check on the coffee she left on the stove. You walk into the kitchen and find the familiar silver Bialetti mocha pot hissing on the stove- this is the soundtrack of your childhood.

The grandfather clock that ticks away in the room no one has ever sat in. The ringing of the corded rotary phone used to share good news, bad news, and the occasional long distance phone call to Nonna’s sister in Avellino.

Maybe it’s the striking of a match, followed by the clicking of the gas stove as Nonna begins to cook. It is the sound homemade biscotti make when they are placed on the China tray for her friend, as they share news of someone’s engagement or recent passing. It could be the pulsing of the sewing machine as Nonna makes her latest creation come to life.

It is the familiar voice of Maria De Filippi on C’e Posta Per Te or the opening credits of Un Posto al Sole. Maybe it’s the distant sound of nelmelodico playing on Nonno’s Panasonic radio that he so proudly tells you he bought on sale from Consumers Distributing in 1979. It’s Nonno’s deep voice when you ask him why he doesn’t buy a new one, and he responds with, “funziona ancora meglio and the new one’s always ‘breakah’ ”.

It could be the sound that echos from the garage as Nonno sits in his overalls and wife-beater as he tinkers with his latest invention. It’s the shuffling of his muddy shoes as he enters the porch from a day of work tending to his tomato plants and fig trees or his snores as he takes an afternoon rest in his favourite chair. It’s the conversations taking place between Nonna and Nonno’s friends who switch between Italian, English and Italiese. It’s the sound of clinking cutlery and loud laughter over a Sunday dinner as your family gathers around a table too small to hold everyone. It is the bubbling of the red tomato sauce that sits on the stove.

Before you know it, you're getting older. You move away for school or work, and your weekends look a little different. Nonna’s cookbooks are replaced with textbooks, Nonno’s wine cellar is replaced by bars with your friends, and the Sunday dinner table appears less crowded. When you find yourself stressed with the responsibilities of adulthood, you start to play that soundtrack back in your head.

Over the years, the TV becomes louder, Nonno moves slower, and Nonna starts to forget she left that pot of red tomato sauce on the stove; it is only then that you realize how much you miss weekends at Nonna’s.