A time to loaf
Rob Nicolella of Peppino’s rolls out bread for a two-foot loaf. The bread is made from an old family recipe passed down through his grandparents and father.
Rob Nicolella of Peppino’s in Washington makes a two-foot loaf of bread for catering services for events such as the Immaculate Conception St. Patrick’s Day dinner. The bread takes three to four hours to make.
A regular-size loaf sits in front of a two-foot loaf freshly baked at Peppino’s. Peppino’s bakes their bigger loaves for catering events like the Immaculate Conception St. Patrick’s Day dinner.
A regular loaf of bread sits in front of the two-foot loaves that Rob Nicolella baked fresh for a catering event. The longer loaves provide 22 or 23 slices.
Parades and raucous revelry fueled by gallons of green beer, stout and Irish whiskey mark the celebration of St. Patrick’s Day across the United States and Canada, home to millions of people of Irish descent who pine for their ancestors’ Emerald Isle.
But as www.catholic.org points out, St. Patrick is right up there with St. Valentine and St. Nicholas (the forerunner of Santa Claus) when it comes to saint-related holidays, and his day happens to fall this year on a Sunday.
The Rev. William Patrick Feeney, pastor of Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church in Washington, said the days dedicated to the three venerable saints are “religious holidays that have been turned into social holidays. In Ireland, St. Patrick’s Day is a holy day of obligation, one of solemn observation.”
According to the website www.catholic.org, “Patrick was born around 385 in Scotland, probably Kilpatrick. His parents were Calpurnius and Conchessa, who were Romans living in Britain in charge of the colonies.”
Young Patrick was captured and enslaved in Ireland, where he tended sheep until he was about 20 years old. After he was reunited with his family, he studied for the priesthood, was ordained a bishop, and was sent to Ireland as a missionary to Druids and pagans.
Coinciding this year with the fifth Sunday of Lent, the Lenten observation in the Catholic Church ranks higher than the feast day of St. Patrick.
“It is a holy day, and we certainly have things to pray for,” Feeney said. “The people of Ireland have spread throughout the world and they take the spirit of St. Patrick with them.”
In that spirit, the Immaculate Conception parish throws an annual St. Patrick’s Day dinner with a menu that focuses on the American melting pot, featuring both Eastern European cabbage and noodles and Italian bread.
It’s been the scene of a major St. Patrick’s Day fundraiser for about the past 25 years. People credited Julie Uram, who died last year, with starting and fostering the event on a date when everyone from Asian-Americans to native American Zunis might want to take part. There will be Irish music by Guy Tucci, an Italian-American keyboard player.
Chairing the St. Patrick’s Day dinner is Jim Salata. “He kind of took over when Julie stepped down,” said Feeney, whose paternal grandparents are from County Sligo, Ireland, while his mother’s family comes from Tuscany in northern Italy.
“Half Irish and half Italian, the best of both worlds,” Feeney said.
“Peppino’s has done the food all this time. I think a lot of people love to buy the ticket because of Peppino’s bread,” said Joanne Coyle of East Washington, who with her husband Bob and their children were setting up the hall, decorating and ordering some of the food.
“They love the bread. They absolutely love the bread. His bread, it’s so crusty and so yeasty. It’s really good Italian bread.”
Members of the Nicolella family have been baking bread as part of their catering and restaurant establishment, Peppino’s, a fixture on South Main Street in Washington since 1985. Before that, Barbara and the late Bob Nicolella started a deli and catering business in Tylerdale in 1961.
The Nicolellas have catered each of the Immaculate Conception St. Patrick’s Day dinners since their inception, except when St. Patrick’s Day falls on a Friday. Then, the fish fry reigns supreme because St. Patrick’s Day is always during Lent regardless of Easter arriving in March or April.
Robert J. Nicolella Jr. demonstrated his technique for producing bread on a scale as large as the Immaculate Conception feast for the March 9 Washington Fire Department “Ladies Nite Out,” which benefits several charities.
“It’s really pretty simple,” Nicolella said. “It just takes time.” In a kitchen redolent of tomato sauce and 500 meatballs simmering in two huge pots where green peppers and whole onions bobbed, a wall thermometer rose to nearly 100 degrees and Rob Nicolella said it was a nearly-perfect day to bake bread because the humidity was low and the dough rose nicely.
His two-foot loaves yield 22 to 23 slices to accompany the entrees of chicken and beef, the cabbage and noodles, his green beans and salad. Cupcakes and shamrock cookies from Krency’s Bakery will round out the menu, Coyle said.
“It’s really O’Peppi’s,” quipped former Washington County commissioner Bracken Burns, a member of Immaculate Conception and an Irish-American and who has kissed the Blarney Stone near Cork, Ireland.
Larry Moore, 53, of Washington, stopped by Peppino’s kitchen on a recent Saturday to buy three loaves of bread, one for his household, one for his mom and dad and one for his wife’s aunt.
“Peppino’s is the best,” Moore said. “When they serve it to you for dinner, you can’t find any better.”
A fire devastated Peppino’s restaurant last Dec. 30, but Tony Nicolella said the family hopes to reopen for Mother’s Day.
Until then, Rob Nicolella is baking bread for catered events only.
“We were panicky there for a while, but they said no, no we’ll be there and they are,” Feeney said. “It’s not a late-night thing. By 8 o’clock, everybody’s gone. It’s a nice tradition and it seems to be something that people really look forward to.”
St. Patrick gets credit for driving the snakes out of Ireland, but he also brought a fish fry to Canonsburg.
In 2006, St. Patrick’s Day fell on a Friday, and the saint’s namesake congregation decided to commemorate him with a fish fry.
“It was our first fish fry,” the Rev. John Batykefer, pastor of St. Pat’s, said. “It was to honor St. Patrick and the fish fries grew from there. The people really loved it and they said we should have these every weekend in Lent” with the exception of Good Friday.
At the Canonsburg parish named for Ireland’s patron saint, a more modest gathering with coffee and doughnuts is likely after noon mass with an Irish hymn and this blessing at the 7:30 a.m., 10 a.m. and 12 o’clock masses:
“May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields and,
Until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.”
Penitence, Batykefer said, came from Irish monks, and the forgiveness of sins is a “spirit-filled moment. What St. Patrick would really want from all of us is to follow the Lord Jesus.”
Although St. Patrick’s pastor will be wearing the purple vestments of the Lenten liturgical season today, he said he’ll also be donning a shamrock, a symbol of the Christianity’s Holy Trinity, on his lapel.
“There’s a little bit of Irish in all of us,” Batykefer said.