Loving Married Life in Cleveland

In a time when things are unknown, our faith and our church have helped preserve some normalcy for us.  We were blessed that through the closures, Our Lady of Mount Carmel would show Mass every morning and every Sunday online.   The first Mass after the church opened was the Vet's Club Memorial Day Mass.  It was so beautiful to be back in church.  To see people nd be able to pray together.  The little things mean so much right now.   Our next joint "normal" experience with church was the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.  While we did not have a normal festival we had an amazing Mass outside and the beautiful procession.  My husband carried out the statue of Mary as he does every year, the young boys stepped up to carry the statues through the streets given that so many older men were not available this year.  It was amazing to see those young men stepping in to the roles of their grandparents.   At this time in life there are few thing...

New Kitchen! So finally the kitchen was done enough to use it!  Anyone who knows Ronnie or I understands how important a kitchen is for us.  So here are some of our first items! So we were not able to do traditional Easter- meaning we were alone and I did not get to see my family.  This made me so sad!  But I wanted to make some things that were family tradition. I started with the Fiaune.  Still not sure how to spell it.  I use the dough recipe from Mrs. Rimedio and then did my filling.  This year I did Spinach, ricotta, and Kalamata olives.  It was so yummy! The other specialty that we make each year is my grandma Mazzi's spaghetti pie.  It is a pound of angel hair or spaghetti, a dozen eggs, parmesan cheese, pepper and you make it almost like a quiche baked.  Our one neighbor had us over for dinner on Easter Saturday and so we brought both of these over.  Everyone enjoyed it and it brought a bit of happiness to me that I was able...

Stuff opens up! So finally in Ohio stuff opens up!  Ronnie get called in to work to help clean, but finds out lunch is not opening up yet.  But the upstairs patio will be open and maybe he will get called to work those nights.  We are happy with that, he needs out of the house.  At some point the quarantine takes a mental toll.  We finally go out to dinner for the first time- patio at Clifton Wine Bar.  As we are at dinner, Downtown is being burned, broken and destroyed.  We are getting text message from friends, we see the riot police fly down Clifton towards downtown, curfews are intituted downtown.  It is a bad day in Cleveland.    Throughout the night, Ronnie gets notification and sees that the Red is destroyed.  Now this is one of the few times I will get political in this blog: I do not get it.  Why destroy innocent people's lives because you are mad at the police.  These people have nothing to do with the situation....

Quarantine Life So in mid march life changed for everyone, my husband and I saw much change in out daily lives.  While corona virus started to attach China, Italy and the world we started to see our own changes. My husband was officially laid off as a day time bartender at Red the Steakhouse in Downtown Cleveland in Mid March, I was continuing to work everyday as an "essential Worker" at a nursing home.  Like many others we were scared of the unknown. I received information through work and trade organizations but let's be honest no one really knew what was going on yet.   I knew it was a potentially deadly disease for the residents we took care of each day with compromised immune systems living in a congregate environment  My husband was distressed not know anything about his job and dealing with an unemployment system not ready to handle this new influx of people being laid off with new rules.   Then we got our stimulus, I got "hero pay" at work.  Our fin...

Limoncello Before lockdown started we attended the Limoncello making class through NOIA out at Club Molisani.  We not only had fun,.. we also made some amazing Limoncello. We love activities like this because we learn something fun, but also get to spend time together and sometimes with other couples making it a fun afternoon.   Out at Club Molisani we had one of the staff from Etna teach us his family recipe for Limoncello.  We started by peel the lemons, soaking them in everclear, then we took it home and watch it for 4-6 weeks.  I think we left ours for 8 weeks.  I would definitely recommend the longer time.  The lemon peels ended up very brittle and all the lemon flavor was infused in the Everclear.   Once we hit the time, we added the water and sugar mixture- that we made in our electric skillet since we still did not have a kitchen.  We shared with some neighbors and they claim it was the best Limoncello they ever had. After the presentation...

Southern Cafe Supporting local and the neighborhood are pretty much the theme of almost everything I write.  Well on this day we tried Southern Cafe down the street from us.  It is a small, hole, the wall, that seems to do a great take out business.  We were only one of 2 tables in the restaurant that night. The food...amazing!  The menu is well crafted.  It is hard to decide what to get, but hey I was a Southern Restaurant so I had to try the fried chicken dinner.  It was cooked perfectly, not greasy but very crunchy.  The breading was well flavored.  As sides I got the specialty corn and mac and cheese.  Ronnie got swiss steak with the specialty potatoes and collard greens. Sat, Dec 7, 2019 Wed, Dec 4, 2019 Wed, Dec ...