At St. Leo's, nourishing a tasty tradition

A church kneads, stirs and rolls its way toward dinner for 2,000

By Mary Gail Hare | Sun Reporter

November 4, 2007

At St. Leo's, Christopher Mazzulli stirs a vat of red sauce that will join 14,000 homemade pasta squares and 8,000 meatballs. The city church's biannual spaghetti and ravioli dinner is tonight. (Sun photo by Christopher T. Assaf / November 3, 2007)

At St. Leo's Roman Catholic Church in Little Italy, parishioners call Lucy Pompa the matriarch of meatballs, ravioli and the thick red sauce she calls gravy.

She presided yesterday over an assembly line of volunteers, joining them in making about 6,000 meatballs that will be added to hundreds of gallons of spicy tomato sauce for the church's biannual spaghetti and ravioli supper today.

Pompa, 88, and several other women had earlier kneaded homemade dough into 14,000 pasta squares and stuffed them with ricotta cheese.

She will be back in the church hall before noon today to oversee supper for a few thousand.

"Luce," as most call her, knows her pasta but has no illusions about her title and stature.

"It's because I am the oldest, they got to respect me," she said as she shaped a handful of spiced beef and pork into a perfect meatball. "And, half us here are related."

By "us here," she said, she meant not only the volunteers, but the entire neighborhood.

"I like being here with these people," she said. "We are all good friends and good workers for our church."

If tradition holds, about 2,000 diners will gather today for a fundraising feast that is steeped in family traditions, cooked with closely guarded ingredients and made from a century of devotion to a church that is the heart of a neighborhood.

None of the volunteers was certain about what year the dinners began.

"I have been cooking at them since I was in elementary school," said Philomena Abruzzese, 80, who after two hours had to sit down on the job. "My legs get tired, but my arms don't stop."

Some dug into the savory meat with an ice-cream scoop to ensure an even meatball. Even an 8-year-old knew the main rule of meatball making.

"No cracks," said Leo Lavezza, standing at a table opposite his 6-year-old brother Anthony.

"It will fall apart if there's cracks," said Leo, who then added to Anthony: "Squish that one and do it over."

The volunteers are mostly seniors, and they never seem to stop working, talking and joking.

"The older people, they believe in working until the end," said the Rev. Michael Salerno, St. Leo's pastor. "They don't want breaks."

Joe Lavezza, father of the youngest volunteers and chairman of the event for the past 10 years, said he has an army of octogenarians he can call on.

"They have bad legs and backs, but no matter what, they come to help," he said.

Even volunteers who have left the parish come back to cook and, of course, return for supper.

"I bring all six grandchildren, so the dinner costs me a fortune," said Nancy Menefee, 75.

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At St. Leo's, nourishing a tasty tradition

A church kneads, stirs and rolls its way toward dinner for 2,000

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