I never met my wife’s grandmother.
Rita Fazzini left this mortal coil before I had the chance to meet her. But her memory lives on in our house on one of the best days of the year.
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, plain and simple. It’s the perfect mix of things that I really enjoy -family, food, and football – without the fanfare or hype of Christmas. Not to mention, it’s on an autumn weekday. So, no work. Food. Football. What’s not to love?
It’s also a holiday filled with tradition and nostalgia. The Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys play home games on every Thanksgiving Day, there’s a turkey in the oven, old memories in our head making room for new ones, and a stack of advertisements on the kitchen table heralding Black Friday.
But there’s always room for new traditions. One of my favorite new ones is Grandmom Fazzini’s stuffing. Thanksgiving is the one day a year where we dust off this infamous stuffing recipe, at least in our house, and make a temporary work of culinary art in some glassware.
Thing is, I like stuffing. All kinds actually. Stove Top, my mom’s, my wife’s, the local diner’s. But this particular stuffing is different to me. Maybe because we only make it once a year. Maybe it’s because I’m hungry and it tastes so freaking good. Maybe because it’s one of the few tangible things this gregarious Italian woman that I never met, left behind.
Or maybe, it’s because it gives me hope that something as simple as a stuffing recipe will live through my kids’lives, and when they’re grown and hosting their own Thanksgiving feasts, it will remind them of their childhood as they feel the warm rush of nostalgia running through their veins, and they start making room in their heads for new memories of their own.
So if you want to see what nostalgia tastes like, try this stuffing recipe. Happy Thanksgiving!
Ingredients needed
10 slicies of day old bread
1 medium onion chopped onions
1 stick butter or margarine
3 branches of celery chopped
2 eggs
1 tablespooon poultry season
1 cup locatelle (or romano) cheese
How to make it
Soak bread in water or chicken broth
Wring out excess liquid
Saute onion, celery stick of butter, and seasoning until celery and onions are tender
Pour over bread
Add reamining ingredients and mix well
Stuff in turkey or cook in casserole dish at 350 degrees
