I'm writing about the matriarch of the family who left this planet yesterday. She was in hospital and she died alone because of Covid. She was the feistiest person I know (apart from my daughter who I feel has inherited her spirited demeanour). She ruled the roost with strength, generosity and had no filters but we loved her nonetheless.
The first time I met her, she had a beautiful little apartment in Palermo, in the days when there were armoured tanks parked close by and she recalls watching from her apartment window when a helicopter and police came down on ropes to take out a top member of the mafia. She had no fear.
She taught me how to cook roasted capsicums and pasta with a cold tomato and basil sauce and lots of beautiful green olive oil, (from a friend, everything special in Italy comes from a friend who knows someone who makes their own olive oil, dries their own tomatoes, makes their own sauce etc, etc). I remember that as I left Sicily (it was my first trip overseas and I was so naiive), she took me to the train station, gave me a beautiful fan (it was the days when there was no aircon in trains), a big bottle of water and some food and booked me a beautiful hotel in Florence (recommended by a friend of a friend of a woman who owned a little hotel). She was an organiser and had lived through things that I will never know of.
When my late husband and I would arrive every year in the hometown in the Dolomites, she would arrive from Palermo with a suitcase that was half clothes and half food. I remember being in the kitchen as she unpacked boxes of Sicilian delicacies. There were little tarts, coated in chocolate and filled with watermelon jelly and tiny choc chips. Different shaped biscuits of hazelnut, almond, pistachio, crisp on the outside and soft and gooey in the middle. There were packets of different nougats covered in lemon, orange, pistachio flavoured chocolate that I loved. Jars of her homemade marmalade (even just before she died a friend sent her a box of the special Sicilian oranges that she used for her jam). Twice a year a friend would send her an incredible Cassata topped with candied fruits, filled with the softest ricotta, draped in a thin green marzipan shawl, presented in a gorgeous tin.
She was born in Italy but came to Australia at the age of five and lived through her mother's death in childbirth, the death of that child, and was put in an orphanage in Queensland during the depression, eating toothpaste and orange skins because she was so hungry. Then the family returned to live in Palermo. She was eighteen and knew no Italian. And yet, in all the years, I never heard her complain about her life. She had a wicked laugh, loved her cigarettes, Coke and cats.
She left Sicily when she retired but I think her heart remained there. She loved the beach, the heat, the incredible food. She was the Queen of the Tiramisu. There was always one waiting for us upon arrival. She would get creative and veer from the traditional by adding her marmalade and amaretti which I loved (although the late husband's, her brother's,I think was the best as he was heavy handed with the liquor); they were slightly competitive about it. One year she made a batch of her famed Tiramisu for some of the neighbours with home raised eggs from a friend of a friend and ended up poisoning a few people- but that's another story. She once arrived in Australia with a block of parmigiano in a sock in her shoe! She got away with it. She also was found with half her brother's ashes in her handbag at the airport and argued her way out of the fact that she needed a letter of approval to take them back to Italy. She could talk her way out of anything.
Her generosity knew no bounds. She gave and gave with no thought of reward. I can't imagine life in Auronzo without her; the smell of her Moka coffee in the morning; her steady supply of special treats when we arrived, shouting through her door
"permesso" (can I come in), catching her smoking and watching all her favourite serials, standing and leaning her elbow on the table, always with a beautiful smile. I thank you Maria for giving all the family memories that we'll treasure. RIP to a Vecellio woman of character.
Maria in Palermo on the set of the movie Crossed Swords with Errol Flynn, famed Hollywood Aussie bad boy actor, in 1954. Somehow my late husband managed to get Maria and a friend on set for some photos.
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