EASTER SECRETS AND BREAD

Easter Sunday arrives this week.

Soon it will be time for me to make the Easter Bread, sweet and light, wrapped as a braided rope with painted Easter eggs baked within the folds of the dough. It is a tradition that I began before my children were born, a recipe cut out of an old Good Housekeeping magazine, and duplicated many times over. It took me years to perfect it; and when I did, it was something I couldn’t wait to show my children how to make. I still have the receipe, yellowed with age and splattered with food coloring.

The stores are already in full swing, stocking the shelves with chocolate bunnies and yellow peeps, bags of yellow, green and pink grass, and every size Easter basket you can imagine. It gives rise to some great memories.

The department stores trot out little boy suits, complete with vest and jacket. White lacy little girl Easter dresses and bonnets stand tall on racks, row after row of innocent femininity. It seems like that is the only time little girls can still be dressed as such; there are no low rise jeans or clingy tops for wanna be Lolitas to be seen.

I looked forward to these days, when my kids were little and still let me dress them. The boys would wear matching sweaters and the girls frilly or flowery dresses. Patten leather shoes and white socks, we were a picture right out of a JC Penny catalogue. Of course, we couldn’t afford anything from JC Penny back then; it was all hand me down outfits from Easter’s past, cast offs from in-laws and near by consignment shops. I didn’t care; they looked beautiful.

As my family grew and the funds got even tighter, I wanted to make sure the focus was where it was supposed to be. Church was always a must back then, and the food after Mass on Easter Sunday was simple but traditional. The Easter Bread in all its glory would be waiting there for us on the kitchen table, browned and crusty, yet sweet and moist. There was always a big pot of tomato sauce bubbling on the stove, the house nearly groaning with smells of garlic and basil. Meatball and sausage on the side, I had learned to make the sauce myself, and it annoyed the hell out of the Italian in laws who had refused to show me their recipes. It was a “family secret” and apparently I wasn’t family enough. Garlic and rosemary crusted lamb and roasted potatoes with a vegetable on the side completed the feast that I prepared the same way, every year.

Food has a way of drawing families together; and it can just as easily keep them apart. I vowed that I wouldn’t let that aspect of my life interfere with the memories and traditions I wanted to pass on to my children. So I created my own.

I had already taught myself how to cook the Italian dishes I liked and that my children had devoured. The Food Network was a newborn concept and was not the power house teacher of ideas it is today. I learned watching a cooking show on public television. My mentor and teacher was Biba Caggiano, a restaurateur and chef out of Sacremento, California, and the Italian mother-in-law I wished I had been blessed with.

Italian Easter Bread was one of the crowning glories of the season, and the in-laws were dead set against showing the recipe to an Irish girl. My youngest daughter would beg her aunt and grandmother for them to show her how to make it, but they would never do it. I realized years later it was because I was in the room. I could never understand why they were so protective; don’t family traditions become traditions by passing them on? With age brings wisdom, and I realized it was all about power and control, a sad fact that I accepted as their weaknesses very early on.

So I vowed to make sure my children knew the value of family recipes and sameness; the safety of routine and reliability. To embrace a tradition and carry it forward, passing it to the next generation without price or restriction. Sharing is the best gift of all.

These many years later my little boys and girls are grown men and women. They come home every holiday when they can and break bread together, anticipating the arrival of the Easter bread in all its glory, waiting for them on the kitchen table.

I've cut all ties with the in-laws and all their "traditions" many years ago, and have married into a family that couldn't be more opposite. They are what I had longed for and thought didn't exist. They are the meaning of family.

Instant messaging and email are the modern conveniences of staying in touch. I had emailed my youngest daughter to share a heart warming moment I had experienced earlier with her brother.

“He wants me to show his girlfriend how to make Easter Bread” I typed in, realizing the seriousness of what I had just written.

“She’s a keeper’ he had laughed, and wanted us to bond. What better way, I thought, than sharing our recipes and love of traditions as a way to welcome her into the family.

“WHAT?” she messaged back in big bold letters. “You can’t show her the recipe! It’s a family secret!”

The words sat there silently on my monitor screen as I let the moment pass and for her to realize what she had just written. It had the desired effect.

“Oh my God” she wrote quickly. “How could I have said that!” and then went on to ask that I wait for her to come to visit and leaving her own home in New York City, leaving the safety of her own kitchen and recipes that have traveled with her.

“Yes” I wrote back with a smile.

“We will teach her together.”

Sharing is the best gift of all.

Happy Easter.