Too Many Cooks by Joanne Pence Page A

speaking as she allowed herself to sulk over Angie’s not listening to her big-sisterly advice.
    â€œYou ought to spend more time with Mrs. Calamatti,” Bianca announced, after the chopped spinach had cooked, her ill temper now gone. She added three eggs and a cup of ricotta to the spinach and mixed it in with the meat.
    Angie stopped pushing the rolling pin and stared at her sister. “That’s just what I want to do! She’s a dear lady, but I’d hate to follow her into dumpsters looking for things to scavenge.” Deciding the dough had been rolled thin enough, Angie began adding pinches of thyme, marjoram, and rosemary to the meat dish. “God, this is a lot of work. I hope the Knights of Columbus appreciate it.”
    â€œIt’s only because they’ll appreciate it that Ioffered to cook it—or offered that we cook it. Anyway, Mrs. Calamatti’s lonely. Did you add salt?”
    â€œNot yet. Here’s the pepper. She’s got lots of family, but she prefers to live alone. And now her house looks like a garage sale about to happen. Where’s the Romano?”
    â€œUh-oh, I forgot to grate it. Poor lady.”
    Angie took the mixture off the stove and put it in a bowl. She grated cup of cheese and added it. “Ready?” she asked. Bianca nodded.
    They dumped the meat filling onto the flattened dough that covered Angie’s table top, spread it evenly, and then slowly and carefully unfolded the other piece of rolled dough on top. Angie picked up their grandmother’s ravioli marking pin—a long wooden roller, hollow, with wooden strips that formed squares. Pressing down firmly and evenly, she rolled the pin over the dough to seal the dough layers together and enclose the filling. Then she stepped back to admire her handiwork. The tabletop looked like a computer grid.
    Bianca poured them each a cup of coffee. Sitting on opposite sides of the table, the coffee at their sides, they picked up fluted-edged pastry wheels and began to cut the ravioli apart following the lines Angie had made with the marking pin.
    â€œMaybe you’d be better off working in Henry’s restaurant instead of on the radio,” Bianca offered, carefully separating the ravioli squares she’d cut.
    â€œI’d never do that.” Angie made a face. “Henry’s restaurant is no better than McDonald’s. LaTour’s wouldn’t have any customers at all if it weren’t for radio listeners taken in by Henry’s schmooze.”
    â€œHe can’t be that bad.”
    â€œYes, he can. Radio’s better. Someday, I might even be able to say a word or two on the air.”
    â€œAngie, did you ever think of trying to find yourself a nice dentist to settle down with? Someone like my Dominic? Remember, Joey Marcuccio’s always had his eye on you.”
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    Angie had her eye on the masterful arrangement of canapés and finger foods on the buffet table. It would have been a meal to fit any posh party, if not for the photograph of Karl Wielund with a black cloth draped over its silver frame.
    Karl’s chef and his assistant manager, Mark Dustman and Eileen Powell, had thought of everything, including valet parking. Wielund’s was on upper Grant Avenue, on the once-Italian, northern side of Broadway. The purely Italian flavor of the area took its first hit in the 1950s when it became a center for beatniks like Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Allen Ginsberg. They’d come and gone, but the restaurants and coffee shops lingered still, in all their high-priced funky splendor. Wielund’s, right on Grant, fit like a fish in water.
    Angie and Paavo had been among the first to arrive, but soon about thirty people filled the open area, drinking white wine and eating. Their conversation was loud and often punctuated by laughter. Angie took in the boisterous crowd with amazement. These so-called mourners might next pull out party hats and