My Nonna Oliva (Eva) was my mom's mother, and she was very involved in my childhood. She was born in Croce, Italy, survived the war by hiding out in a mountain convent while taking care of her much younger sister, Josephine, and then immigrated here in the '50s on the SS Cristoforo Colombo. She was definitely the cook of the family; she would make these big feasts on Christmas Eve, all seafood except for a singular steak for my father, who couldn't stand the taste of fish. It was she who taught me most of my Italian. I would get some candy if I could recite the Hail Mary in Italian, Latin, and French while growing up. She also had an amazing garden with delicious fruit, but especially the Sicilian blood oranges, which were the most perfect, succulent fruit imaginable. But she was a woman defined by the era she grew up in. War had made her tough as nails, and as someone who survived off the grace and charity of others, she was very deliberate in instilling those virtues into her grandchildren. She was by all accounts a self-made woman, a hard woman, a tough woman, and she is someone I love and miss very dearly.