She's still there, but now, she sits confused. Sitting on the long side of the dark wood table, with a glass of water instead of wine and two teeth missing, she wonders what day it is and what the concoction that sits before her is called.
"Pizza frittas," I repeat for the eighth time, turning to my grandma so she can best hear me. "You taught me how to make them when I was just a little girl. I'm 22 now. We make them every Christmas Eve."
Dementia is the source of this repetitiveness, this confusion and this sadness. It fully captured my grandma's memory not too long ago and with it, it took her ability to remember how much I love her and how much she loves pizza frittas.
About three years ago I took over as the full-time pizza fritta-maker. Every Dec. 24, I slip on my custom "Mangia" embroidered apron, gracefully throw flour all over the pine-colored marble countertop and fire up the fryer. I knead the pizza dough and cut all triangular-shaped sizes of what will emerge from the oil as a Merola-named Christmas Eve classic.
Ricotta, mozzarella and sugar — ham for those who request — lands on each piece of dough. It's then pressed closed and engulfed in boiling oil. Minutes later, a simple and delicious dairy-carbohydrate companionship is plated.
We're Italians, vegetables take a backseat on holidays.
At first, I took over the pizza fritta making duties because my grandma deserved to retire the responsibility. She had spent nearly fifty years cooking dinner on Christmas Eve. Although grandma can't recall, she did have a lot of laughs — and glasses of wine — each Christmas Eve she wasn't preoccupied with the dough-to-cheese ratio.
She's still here. Physically, at least. Mentally, she's slipped away from us, gradually, then suddenly.
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