Eating Sicilian Cookies with My Family

“Ci vuole tempo, pazienza e passione (it takes time, patience and passion),” said my mother. She proudly explained to her cousins the mix required to bake. My parents returned to Italy after a five-year absence, and with them they brought my mom’s homemade Sicilian cookies. Everyone at the table was pleased that she managed to pack and transport the delicate edible “surprises” that she made in the early mornings.

She primarily made them for my sister’s baby shower, but then decided to pack up the traditional almond and hazelnut cookies, for her relatives in Milano and her sisters who are both waitng for her arrival in Sicily.

Her first cousins and their children sat around the table in awe of the little “gifts.” I find it a bit ironic that they enjoy her cookies when they have access to the ingredients and bakery shops that create the sweets. Thier reaction to me means my mother is an excellent baker.

My mother and father brought me the best gift of all — my older brother. His last visit was 16 years ago. He hardly remembered some of our distant cousins that were no bigger than a newly planted tree stalk the last time he visited Milano. But nonetheless, the Caprino’s, each one with fuller lips than the other, carried on just fine around Nuccia’s dinner table.

During dinner Nuccia discovered that she and my father are distant cousins.

“E sangue che ti tira (its blood that pulls you),” she said to me as she kindly squeezed my chin.

She always looks after me, and treats me just as good as her own children even though I am only related to her husband, Mario, through my mom. But now we know why she instinctively takes care of me.