person of tradition and habit. So when I hear prayers I learned in childhood, I am still moved by them.
Jack gets up and reads the story of Ruth from the Old Testament, which always gets to me because it’s about a woman who leads her family, which is what Nonna did for us. Iva Lou reads the second scripture and cries all the way through it. It’s the passage about Mary the mother giving her son over to die. (Father Drake must have chosen the weepies for this service.) Nellie Goodloe, a Presbyterian, muffles her sobs with a handkerchief, though I can’t be sure if she’s missing my grandmother or crying about the disastrous first reading of
The Sound of Music.
We’ll never know.
Father Drake keeps the mass mercifully short—the less kneeling/standing/sitting combos the Protestants have to endure, the better. Father says the final prayer and recesses, stopping to embrace Jack and me. The congregation follows him out. They make their way downstairs to the meeting room, where we said mass for years before the top of the building was added to form an actual church.
I take a moment alone at the altar with Nonna’s picture. There’s a bouquet of flowers: delicate white roses and yellow daisies in a crystal vase. The card says, “All our love and sympathy, the Bakagese family.” Pearl Grimes was just a girl when she met Nonna twenty years ago, but she didn’t forget Nonna, and she never forgets me, and that makes me cry a few more tears.
“Come on, honey,” Jack says from the back of the church. He holds my hand as we go downstairs. The meeting room is fragrant with rich coffee and sweet butterscotch pie. Our friends gather around us and express their sympathies.
FLEETA’S BUTTERSCOTCH PIE
Makes 8 servings
CRUST
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
6–7 tablespoons cold water
2 / 3
cup Crisco
PIE FILLING AND MERINGUE
½
to
¾
cup brown sugar
2½
tablespoons cornstarch
a pinch of salt
1 cup milk
1 cup cream
3 egg yolks (save egg whites for meringue)
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 / 3 cup sugar
For crust: Sift together flour and salt, then stir in the water. Cut in Crisco with a pastry blender or blending fork until pieces are the size of small peas. To make pastry extra tender and flaky, divide Crisco in half. Cut in first half until mixture looks like cornmeal. Then cut in remaining half until pieces are the size of peas.
OR
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Put all crust ingredients in a food processor and blend until mixed. Roll out the dough into a circle big enough to line a 9-inch pie pan. Place dough in pan and bake for 12–15 minutes. Makes 2 pie crusts and can be frozen (unbaked) for later use.
For the filling and meringue: In a bowl, mix brown sugar, cornstarch, and salt together until well blended. Transfer to a saucepan. Add milk and cream, stirring constantly over medium heat. Add egg yolks and cook until thickened. Add butter and vanilla, stir in, and pour into baked pie crust. Beat egg whites until almost stiff. Add 1 / 3 cup sugar and beat until stiff. Spread on pie and place in oven preheated to 325 degrees. Bake for 10–15 minutes until meringue is browned.
The buffet is loaded with more of Fleeta’s blue-ribbon dishes. There are trays of delicate “ham and biscuits” (tiny sandwiches made with thin-sliced ham, mustard, and flaky, fresh biscuits), hot serving dishes of scalloped-potato squares, crystal bowls of fresh fruit salad, individual Jell-O molds with whipped cream, peanut-butter cookies, and a wire basket overflowing with Catherine Rumschlag’s butter rolls from the Bread and Chicken House. I don’t know how Fleeta does it—when it comes to events, she has almost a psychic ability about how much food to make and who to call to fill in the holes. Jack and I get in line for the buffet behind Father Drake.
“Here.” Fleeta
Jack gets up and reads the story of Ruth from the Old Testament, which always gets to me because it’s about a woman who leads her family, which is what Nonna did for us. Iva Lou reads the second scripture and cries all the way through it. It’s the passage about Mary the mother giving her son over to die. (Father Drake must have chosen the weepies for this service.) Nellie Goodloe, a Presbyterian, muffles her sobs with a handkerchief, though I can’t be sure if she’s missing my grandmother or crying about the disastrous first reading of
The Sound of Music.
We’ll never know.
Father Drake keeps the mass mercifully short—the less kneeling/standing/sitting combos the Protestants have to endure, the better. Father says the final prayer and recesses, stopping to embrace Jack and me. The congregation follows him out. They make their way downstairs to the meeting room, where we said mass for years before the top of the building was added to form an actual church.
I take a moment alone at the altar with Nonna’s picture. There’s a bouquet of flowers: delicate white roses and yellow daisies in a crystal vase. The card says, “All our love and sympathy, the Bakagese family.” Pearl Grimes was just a girl when she met Nonna twenty years ago, but she didn’t forget Nonna, and she never forgets me, and that makes me cry a few more tears.
“Come on, honey,” Jack says from the back of the church. He holds my hand as we go downstairs. The meeting room is fragrant with rich coffee and sweet butterscotch pie. Our friends gather around us and express their sympathies.
FLEETA’S BUTTERSCOTCH PIE
Makes 8 servings
CRUST
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
6–7 tablespoons cold water
2 / 3
cup Crisco
PIE FILLING AND MERINGUE
½
to
¾
cup brown sugar
2½
tablespoons cornstarch
a pinch of salt
1 cup milk
1 cup cream
3 egg yolks (save egg whites for meringue)
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 / 3 cup sugar
For crust: Sift together flour and salt, then stir in the water. Cut in Crisco with a pastry blender or blending fork until pieces are the size of small peas. To make pastry extra tender and flaky, divide Crisco in half. Cut in first half until mixture looks like cornmeal. Then cut in remaining half until pieces are the size of peas.
OR
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Put all crust ingredients in a food processor and blend until mixed. Roll out the dough into a circle big enough to line a 9-inch pie pan. Place dough in pan and bake for 12–15 minutes. Makes 2 pie crusts and can be frozen (unbaked) for later use.
For the filling and meringue: In a bowl, mix brown sugar, cornstarch, and salt together until well blended. Transfer to a saucepan. Add milk and cream, stirring constantly over medium heat. Add egg yolks and cook until thickened. Add butter and vanilla, stir in, and pour into baked pie crust. Beat egg whites until almost stiff. Add 1 / 3 cup sugar and beat until stiff. Spread on pie and place in oven preheated to 325 degrees. Bake for 10–15 minutes until meringue is browned.
The buffet is loaded with more of Fleeta’s blue-ribbon dishes. There are trays of delicate “ham and biscuits” (tiny sandwiches made with thin-sliced ham, mustard, and flaky, fresh biscuits), hot serving dishes of scalloped-potato squares, crystal bowls of fresh fruit salad, individual Jell-O molds with whipped cream, peanut-butter cookies, and a wire basket overflowing with Catherine Rumschlag’s butter rolls from the Bread and Chicken House. I don’t know how Fleeta does it—when it comes to events, she has almost a psychic ability about how much food to make and who to call to fill in the holes. Jack and I get in line for the buffet behind Father Drake.
“Here.” Fleeta
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