Marie Taylor, Ink

She was a woman of many circles, rounded and full, her body firm and warm. Standing no more than five feet high, a distance matched by her circumference, she was a modern Venus of Willendorf with her large breasts and mounded stomach that tapered down to her dainty feet. She was the daughter of Italian immigrants, part of a family known for its stout members, and as the females of that clan could attest, no amount or duration of dieting could alter their forms.

Children loved to sit on her lap and be engulfed in her softness and warmth. Brash boys watched her full hips rolling beneath her dress when she walked; they too longed to feel her full flesh around them.

Pretty of face and fierce of disposition, Olivia, for that was her name, had fallen, as a mere girl, like a ripe peach, for the charms of a smiling Italian boy with merry eyes and roving hands. Pregnant at 14 and married as quickly as her older sister’s dress could be hemmed, Olivia and the boy-husband moved in with her parents. 

The unexpected first child, a girl, was soon followed by a second, a boy, and intimacy was complete as far as Olivia was concerned. But her early error was never forgotten, particularly among the older aunts and cousins, who would, in whispered asides, repeat her shameful misstep as a morality tale to their daughters.

Olivia accepted her fall from grace as a permanent penance, making it her lifelong responsibility to be a living example of what can happen to an innocent girl who listened to a good-looking, fast-talking man.

 “My mother never told me how somebody can get pregnant and I don’t want that to happen to you,” she declared to her young niece with a bosom-heaving sigh, and then solemnly handed her a booklet describing the sexual act in arcane medical terms with accompanying black and white illustrations, which did little to educate, but a lot to alarm, the virgin that I used to be.

To offset her role as sexual educator, my Aunt Olivia sought perfection in other areas. She was famous in the community as a superb baker. Towering above numerous local competitors, she was particularly known for her miniature cream horns, a flaky crescent-shaped delicacy filled with whipped cream.

These elite cookies were highly sought after for weddings, baptisms and other special occasions, and Aunt Olivia kept the recipe and preparation of these dainties a closely guarded secret to all but a very select few.

When I was 15, she gave me the only present I ever received from her, a set of circular cookie cutters, twelve tiny tart tins, and a private lesson on how to make her cream horns. After swearing me to secrecy, she wrote out the list of ingredients and provided in-person, step-by-step, instruction in her tiny kitchen.

While preparing the whipped cream, she shared one of her basic baking maxim. “Don’t share your recipes with anybody,” she cautioned, “but if you do, leave out one ingredient. You don’t want their cookies to taste as good as yours.” I was awed by the Machiavellian turn of her mind (but after all she was Italian) but in later years I would wonder if that rule had also applied to the cream horns.