Bereft and brown breadless in the city!
Double Vision with Charlie Adley
In my tiny freezer I’ve a large brown pan and a sourdough loaf from Griffin's Bakery, which closed its doors for the last time a few weeks ago. The longer the loaves sit there, the drier and less bouncy they become, but driven by a sad desire for delayed gratification, they sit there still. My reaction is not so much about the bread, but my attachment to Griffin’s. Fans of David Chase’s masterpiece, The Sopranos, will understand when I say I’m coming over all Bobby Baccalieri.
Created by actor Steve Schirripa, Robert Baccalieri Jr., was a shy, comparatively gentle mobster, who was at his happiest playing with model trains.
Bobby had several nicknames, (’Baccalà’, ’Calzone on Legs’ and ’Burger Boy), all celebrating the way his waistline crossed several time zones.
When his wife Karen died in a car crash, Bobby focused on looking after his two young children, Sophia and Bobby III.
Unfortunately, Karen’s death caught the attention of Mob Boss Tony Soprano’s Machiavellian sister, Janice, who used all her malign talents to inveigle her way into Bobby’s home.
Karen’s last baked ziti sat like a holy relic in Bobby’s freezer. He saw it as a vital final sensory link to his wife. Driven demented by Bobby’s refusal to embrace her as his new saviour, Janice cooked up a vile scheme, which involved abusing Bobby’s kids’ grief with an ouija board.
Bobby arrived home to find his children terrified, while Janice played a manipulative blinder, telling Bobby that she’d heard them talk about Karen’s ghost earlier, but worried she’d be overstepping her bounds if she intervened.
Faced with his freaked out kids, Bobby finally caved in to Janice’s pleas to move on from Karen, allowing her to cook his wife's last ziti.
To read Charlie’s column in full, please see this week’s Galway City Tribune.
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