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glasses of ice, carrot sticks, grated cheese. Everything else was Mama's domain, and you only came near if she allowed you to.

An Italian dinner almost always consists of some form of pasta. Mama's favorite was plain spaghetti, but sometimes she'd make ziti, elbows, gnocchi, or some triangular thing that I never got the name of. Always for special occasions, it would be spaghetti that she

would make fresh that day. I remember coming in and looking at these long bands of pale, thin dough lying on the table. Sometimes, she'd let me turn the crank on the little machine that parsed the band into long strains of noodle. It was wonderfully hard work, and if you weren't doing it to her satisfaction, she'd yell at you and sometimes replace you. The meatballs were homemade (but if you didn't roll them right, she'd yell at you) as was the sauce all made from scratch.

However, there were no meatballs at the Christmas Eve dinner. Christmas Eve dinner was strictly a no meat zone in an Italian household. Mama never ate meat on Fridays even when she was old enough to be allowed to. It was a tradition she was very strict about. She'd make perch, shrimp, cooked cabbage, spaghet'd'olio (which is to say noodles with oil instead of sauce), and spaghetti with tuna and tomato sauce. Back in her more exotic days, when her husband was still alive, she would make eel, squid, and serve wine that they had pressed in the garage. I've heard so many stories about these things, but sadly they were before my time.

The game room was alive with people. The men would be sitting around the table, watching football and talking. Being a bit of a feminist and an idealist, it rankled me that they got to sit there and talk while I had to set the table. Mind, I did not object to setting the table, per se, but the inequality of it all. My brother did not have to do it. The only reason they made me was because of my sex. It still ticks me off, but they're old fashioned people. So, I'd hang out in the kitchen and only do what I was specifically told to do my own quiet act of defiance. They would not let me watch football, but damn if I was going to be compliant.

The seating at the long table was hierarchical. Mama would always sit at the head of the table with Grams to her right. Usually the youngest child at the time would sit to Mama's left, then that child's family following along that side of the table. For the most part, you always wanted to be with the fun aunts. You didn't want to sit too close to

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