Baba

The trolley of fresh local cheeses, including the region's pride, mozzarella di bufala, is as attractive as the trolley of classic Neapolitan desserts, including pastiera napolitana (a ricotta cake with orange rind), feather-light baba, and, in mid-March, zeppola di San Giuseppe (whose feast day is March 19), a sweet bun filled with custard and black cherry.

2001, Brattleboro Remembers, edited by the Brattleboro [Vermont] Historical Society, Arcadia Publishing I walked first for my grandmother, and my mother was sorry she had missed my first steps. My Baba was so proud, my mother later told me.

My baba, Ksenia Dubinsky, tells me that my education makes her proud.

As we made eye contact, I slowly began to wonder if she was Baba. I did not know my grandmother though I'd spoken with her several times on the telephone;

Only two women, typical "babas" (peasant women) in the house from which I got my quilt and bedcloth, could be coaxed to pose;

Laura hadn't known that anyone's mother could look like that, like the babas you sometimes saw downtown, bandaged in kerchiefs and aprons, sitting toothless in stockinged feet on small verandahs, peeling potatoes or beets or just shaking their heads and grimacing.

According to some, new volunteers are becoming more difficult to recruit and there are dark suggestions that 'money is being made on the backs of the babas', the dedicated, but ageing ladies who still spend countless hours of their time preparing foodstuffs for the occasion.

"The greatest gift and honor is having you for a daughter. I've missed you so." "I've missed you too, baba."