Memory #1: Bread & Butter and Brioschi

Although I’m originally from Cape Cod (lucky me, I know), both sides of my family hail from Brockton, MA —one of the biggest immigration towns on the east coast in the early 1900’s. My parents moved down to the Cape after they were married and raised my brother and I there, but a lot of our childhood was spent up at my grandmother’s house in Brockton.

While my mom did everything in her power to raise me healthy and junk-food free, all her efforts went out the window (in the best way possible) when I went to Grammy’s house. Grammy—being the good grandmother that she is—always had an endless supply of forbidden snacks like Entenmann’s Powdered Donuts, cream soda, Chiclets, and my favorite, white bread (gasp!) with butter.

One thing I’ll always remember fondly is sitting outside on Grammy’s steps, eating my bread & butter, and listening to the sounds of the city—which was beyond exciting to a little girl from a sleepy seaside town. On a lucky day, I’d even be able to talk her into filling up a cap-full of Brioschi for me (which I referred to as “fizzies” and was obsessed with for some unknown reason), which I’d let slowly let dissolve on my tongue, one by one…