The Talisman of Happiness
The woman who resided in the beautiful 1800’s Greek Revival was a petite size 2. Her tastes for fashion included solid tailored classics. Her closets, yes closets, brimmed with silks, tweeds and linen from Lord & Taylor, Oscar de la Renta, and Givenchy; many with price tags still attached. I felt like one of Cinderella’s wicked step sisters trying to force my foot into a 6.5 Italian leather boot. Oh how I wished that day this woman’s measurements were in alignment with mine, alas, my pocketbook was thankful this wasn’t the case.
My pocketbook’s relief was short-lived. Off from the kitchen I discovered something I prize more than clothes – cookbooks. This collection would make any home cook or seasoned chef salivate. Whoever chose the cookbooks had a special place in their heart for Italian and French cuisine, I do too. Just over a year ago I was living in Naples, Italy. At the time I was working on a children’s book series that introduced kids to female chefs from past centuries history had forgotten. The day the realtor showed us the rental overlooking the Mediterranean, I noticed a domed pizza oven in the neighbor’s back yard. The realtor noted my interests and confirmed what I hoped, the next door neighbor was a fantastic cook. The rental agreement was signed moments later under a fragrant lemon tree. Over the course of a year in Italy, my neighbor Maria would bring countless platters of eggplant parmesan, broccolini swimming in garlic and lemon, fried sardines and her delicious focaccia pizza. It was all washed down with Maria’s famous limoncello made from the trees in the backyard we shared. I asked Maria one day if Italy had a female cookbook author that was a staple in Italian households. She said “Si, Ada Boni”.
It turned out Ada, born in 1883 was from Rome. She was a chef, magazine editor and cookbook author. She was someone I’d never heard of, but as I would learn, she had something in common with America’s Irma S. Rombauer who famously wrote The Joy of Cooking. Both Ada and Irma penned cookbooks bestowed to countless brides-to-be of a certain generation. I was told by a few different Neapolitans that grandmothers passed on cooking verbally, not by writing down specific recipes, so it was a welcome revelation when Ada Boni decided to give regional Italian cooking structure and permanence on bookshelves.
Several months later after Maria introduced me to Ada, while I was walking in an alley off Dante’s Plaza I stumbled on a copy out in the wild, displayed in an antique bookstore’s window. Il Talismano della Felicità, The Talisman of Happiness.
Fast forward one year later, standing 4200 miles away from where I’d first heard of Ada Boni, and before my eyes, standing in a kitchen in Richmond, MA was one of her cookbooks, Italian Regional Cooking. I brought the cookbook home, and now the cookbook I discovered in Naples has a companion.
The word talisman is said to be an object inscribed on something meant to bring luck or disperse magical powers. For me, discovering not one but two of Ada’s books in second hand circumstances oceans apart feels serendipitous. It bridges two worlds I’ve inhabited, the Berkshires and Naples, Italy. And to think in my bungalow’s kitchen in Western Massachusetts I have the recipes to bring tastes of Italy back into my life without needing a passport – if that’s not a talisman, I don’t know what is.
