My Coffee Break Made Good

Eugene Smith, 1918-1978.
Dreamstreet, 1956
Black & White Photo
American Photojournalist

I had a dream about my Nonna the other night, and whenever I have a dream about my grandmother, I know she’s telling me it’s time to make another of her recipes; I can see her shaking her wooden spoon at me, saying, “Kay-Kay,” (my nick-name from childhood) “you love all those sweetie-sweets so much, you should make something that isn’t. Tell, me, Kay-Kay, why don’t you have any of my little biscotti? Huh? Why does everything have to be so complicated? Tell me.”

I could even smell my grandmother as I awoke, all sweet fennel, parsley, and mozzarella from the ravioli she’d woken at dawn to prepare for the day’s eating, her twinkling little eyes, earnestly imploring me, Why, Kay-Kay, Why?

Finding no appropriate answer, I had no other choice than to honor the dead in the only way I could figure possible—by giving her exactly what she wanted, her favorite little biscotti, which was one of the only sweets I ever saw my grandmother enjoy on a regular basis. Sitting in her little kitchen, dunking her little biscotti into a little cup of afternoon coffee, grinning from ear to ear as she say, “We’ve got some more work to do.” Meaning of course, that we had either more cooking or more cleaning to do. In true hard-working Italian form, my grandmother absolutely hardly ever took a “break.” To her, sitting down without moving her feet was the definition of a break-which usually only lasted as long as her biscotti.

So, my Nonna, here are your little biscotti, both ways, just the way you like them.

ALMOND BISCOTTI, TWO WAYS

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These biscotti were so successful, they even passed the “dunk test.” No crumbling here!