ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
Betoota Heights grandmother Maria Rossi, 88, embraced the spotlight at a recent family dinner. The catalyst? Her grandson’s casual remark that British chef Jamie Oliver’s Pasta alla Norma, plucked from Oliver’s “Jamie Cooks Italy,” outshone her cherished family recipe.
Family members alternated between chuckles and disbelief as Nonna Maria theatrically clutched her chest, emitting a sigh so laden with drama that even the Mediterranean breeze paused to listen.
“Madonna mia!” she said, her eyes gleaming with mischief and feigned distress, as if she had just stepped onto the stage of a commedia dell’arte production.
But as her family looked on, Nonna couldn’t help but interject in Italian: “Le ricette di Jamie Oliver sono tutte scemenze! Non si paragonano alla nostra tradizione! Fanculo a quell’idiota balbettante! Possa lui bruciarlo all’inferno.”
Her grandson Cenzo told The Advocate he followed his Nonna into the next room and tried to cheer her up, telling her that he was joking but it soon became apparent that there are some things that you shouldn’t joke about.
“She kept telling me to ask Jamie for desert,” he laughed.
“Then she went and lay down on the couch and told me she was dead. An arrow to her heart. Oh, she’s so funny.”
More to come.
