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INGREDIENTS

For the batter:

1 cup whole milk

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

2 teaspoons active dry yeast

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 large egg, beaten

Splash of cold water

For frying:

1 quart vegetable oil

For drenching:

2 cups granulated sugar, to sprinkle on the hot zeps out of the fryer

How to Fry the Zeps

Heat the milk in a pot, whisk in the sugar and yeast, and set aside. Sift the flour and salt in a large bowl. Make a well, place the egg and a splash of cold water in the well, and whisk until blended. Add the milk, sugar, and yeast into the bowl until a lumpy dough emerges. Stop whisking. Smooth dough makes for lead zeps. Put a largemopeenover the bowl and set it in a sunny window to rise in the heat. You want the dough to rise high enough to fill the bowl to overflowing (leave it for about an hour as it rises).

Heat the oil in a large pot until it’s roiling at 375°F. Have a cookie sheet covered in paper towels close by. Using a two-spoon technique, make a mound of dough about the size of a tennis ball and drop it into the hot oil. Continue until you have six balls of dough in the hot oil. Gently turn the zeps with tongs until they are golden brown. Remove the zeps with a slotted spoon from the oil and place on the cookie sheet. Repeat the same until all the dough has been fried. Douse the warm zeps in granulated sugar.Note from Lil: South of Naples, they prefer powdered sugar, but I never liked it. The granulated sugar looks like diamond dust, and you know I love a diamond.

The kids return to the front pew and take their seats.

Aunt Lil kept an immaculate home. She told me she didn’t need to travel because she had the world at her fingertips inside her palazzo. However, she enjoyed her annual vacation to Florida and her bus trips to see Broadway shows in New York City. She never missed Bernadette Peters in a show because she was a first cousin once removed to Bernadette and her sister Donna DeSeta. Aunt Lil was so proud of them and her theatrical connections.

Aunt Lil was certainly beautiful enough to have been in show business, but she told me that she was too shy to sing in public. She had a glorious singing voice, as those of you who attend this parish know. She sang in the church choir for thirty-six years. Shesaid singing in the choir loft freed her because she knew no one was looking at her. High above us sinners, she could let it rip. No one could top her solo of “On Eagle’s Wings.” She got many a parishioner through their grief with that hymn. They couldn’t see her, but they heard her, and through her voice, she lifted their spirits.

Aunt Lil was the top Avon saleslady in the state of New Jersey in 1977. She worked for Avon until 2005. We were the beneficiaries of her sales samples. Connie and I fought over the Pearls and Lace cologne and the Sweet Honesty soaps. Years later, when Aunt Lil admitted that she wore Elizabeth Taylor’s White Diamonds, she explained it like this: “I was a Liz Taylor fan all my life. If Avon would’ve made a deal with Liz, I would have worn anything with her name on it. Until they do? White Diamonds all the way.”

Aunt Lil was a proud Italian American; she reminded us of her roots whenever the topic came up. She brought Connie and me to see the revival of the musicalNine, based on the Fellini movie8½. She made us watch the filmThe Agony and the Ecstasyevery Easter, introducing us to a fictional Michelangelo by way of Charlton Heston. She thought Heston was a “dish,” so that might have had something to do with her devotion to the movie. Her love for Michelangelo got into our DNA. Though shewas a Beatles, Steely Dan, Doobie Brothers, and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band fan, in recent years, Aunt Lil played Frank Sinatra records on a loop. She told me it was the best way to remember her parents, whom she missed terribly.

Her favorite song was “Fly Me to the Moon,” and now, she has.

How lucky we were that Uncle Louie married Aunt Lil. He married up and the Capodimontes and Barattas of North Boulevard knew it. This day would be too sad to bear if I didn’t believe that Uncle Louie was waiting for her on the other side. They had the real deal: a lifelong love affair. No perfection, just loyalty. When I asked her the secret to her happy marriage, she said, “Don’t ask questions.”

In her honor, today at three o’clock, I would like all of you to turn on Channel 7, that’s ABC on your dial, forGeneral Hospital. You do not have to watch it because Aunt Lil will be; just leave it on and go about your business. You see, she believed that heaven was the place where you finally get everything you want. I see her there, curled up on a celestial couch, with Uncle Louie. They’re watching her favorite story on a loop without commercial interruption. Nearby, there’s a bowl of jumbo salted cashews, a tall cold glass of Tab with a lemon slice, and a bowl of Gibble’s Bar-B-Qpotato chips. The key to happiness is to know your bliss. Aunt Lil knew it, and now she has it for all eternity.

I return to the pew. My mother reaches over to pat my hand as my father nods his approval. I may not have been with Aunt Lil for her passing over, but now I hope she knows how I felt about her. She must. That’s the promise of eternity. Her life is part of our family history, like the diamonds, like the zeppole, like the marble.

Tea Sandwiches and Sympathy

Aunt Lil was popular. The lake side of the boulevard is lined with parked cars belonging to the guests of the funeral luncheon. The brown grass on the front lawn is giving way to tufts of green. The buds on the trees are the palest green; small shoots push through the bare gray branches. The air still holds the sting of a cold winter; the overhead clouds have the patina of tarnished silver.

My parents’ home fills quickly with family, friends, and the entire roster of the Sodality membership from church. The ladies made the spread of casseroles, tea sandwiches, cakes, and cookie towers, displayed on the dining room table on my mother’s shimmering silver serving dishes, which she, Connie, and I had spent the previous evening polishing.

The coolers on the porch overflow with ice and canned drinks, including cans of birch beer and Red Bull. Aunt Lil’s passing is the end of an era, as cousins from as far away as Pennsylvania and Connecticut made the drive to honor her. Easter is a couple weeks away. We gave up Aunt Lil during Lent, a sacrifice we’ll feel for the rest ofour lives. In a matter of months, we lost Aunt Lil and Uncle Louie, both of whom were at the family table for Easter dinner only one year ago.

Father Belaynesh has another funeral in Bradley Beach. On his way out the door, he expresses his condolences for a final time to my mom and dad. He shakes the hand of every guest on his way to the front door before departing. The Holy Roman Church remains in the people business, which gives me hope on this cold spring day. The Sodality ladies make sure that Father leaves with a Tupperware drum full of tricolor cookies (his favorite) for the ride.