The Wines of Brooklyn

The Italian Grandpas in my neighborhood raise chickens in their yards and pigeons on their roofs. Grandpa Falco fattens and slaughters Thanksgiving turkeys in his basement where I visit the doomed birds before they go under his ax. Every fall, the Grandpas pool the grapes from their backyard arbors to produce a wine called “Guinea Red” – used to unclog toilets, eat rust off cars and quiet colicky babies. Every week, the Italian Grandmas cover every piece of furniture in their apartments with bed sheets, then cover every inch of those sheets with homemade ravioli in preparation for Sunday lunch. (These peasant women effortlessly transform their homes into ephemeral “pasta-art” installations that pre-date conceptual art by decades!)