Easter Memories
My favorite Easter memory is NOT the candy or chocolate bunnies (eat the ears first?)…it’s my mother’s Easter bread. This is NOT the Tomasso version but the Croce recipe with lots of eggs, lemons, sprinkles and, of course, a hard-boiled egg in the middle. Day after day the bread would pile up. Then loaves would go to neighbors, teachers, the nuns and priests at Holy Family…we were not allowed a bite til Easter morning. Ahh the waiting! Now every year I get a delivery from Barbara…which I eat as soon as it arrives.
Most of my memories of Easter are around food. We had to stare at the Easter bread until Easter Sunday! Not a bite until then. Eating the bread was an art as you navigated around the sprinkles being careful not to knock any off then finally enjoying the top crust last. Now when I make Croce Easter bread it goes right from the oven, put some butter on it then down it goes! Ah, the benefits of old age! I do remember also having to stare at the easter candy on the buffet in the dining room for the same torturous waiting period, then getting to eat some on Easter but most of the chocolate going into storage for future baking. Easter dinner was great with homemade pasta of some type and usually ham. Huh, no wonder the cholesterol level was so high…