Grand Magazine - September/October 2008 - (Page 58)

all in the family Pasta, By Liz HugHes WiLey future Handing down a (delicious) legacy present and spending weekends at the factory since he was little, when it was still located in North Beach, San Francisco’s Italian heart. Over the years, he’s swept floors, made deliveries, taken orders, helped with shipments and done the banking— not only learning the practical side of the family business but also assimilating its heart and soul and history. And the history is complex and international. Alex’s great-grandfather, Sandy’s father-in-law, Edoardo Morettoni (who chose a more familiar spelling of his first name for his company) and his wife, Marcella, a talented chef, fled post-World-War-II Italy with their two young daughters and moved to Venezuela, where they were restaurateurs in the Italian community in Caracas. Twenty years later they relocated to San Francisco and opened a restaurant; when Edoardo could no longer find a supplier for local, fresh pasta, he started the factory. And, in true European patriarchal tradition, Edoardo summoned his son-in-law (Sandy is married to Guiliana Morettoni) to join him in the business, a career very different from the electronics background in which Sandy had been trained. The factory is small; it takes surprisingly few S “My grandparents live the good life: good food, friends, a bottle of wine.” andor HaLasz adjusts his suspenders and leans over the pale, uncut swaths of pasta dough trailing out of the laminator in wide ribbons. At age 16, as a refugee fleeing his homeland in the October 1956 Hungarian Revolution, Sandy never dreamed that he would be here, in San Francisco, the owner of Eduardo’s, an Italian pasta factory. Or that his 18-year-old grandson, Alex Cruz, would be standing nearby, watching in awe as Sandy judges, from a single touch, that the soon-to-be fettuccine needs a couple more passes through the machine. “It’s cool to watch Grandpa handle the pasta,” says Alex. “He can touch it and know if it’s dry enough, the right thickness and weight.” A handful of experienced staff, some of whom have been with the company from its beginnings 30 years ago, hold sticks draped with freshly cut fettuccine, grab a few off, twist the strands in a figure eight and place them on drying racks, ready to go into the new dryer that Sandy built with the help of both his grandsons—Alex and his mechanically talented older brother, Chris. Alex, a student at San Francisco State College, hopes someday to carry on the legacy of Eduardo’s after Sandy retires. Alex has been 58 GRAND SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2008

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Grand Magazine - September/October 2008

Grand Magazine- September/October 2008 Grand View:�Priceless Contents Isn't it Grand?: Picture Perfect Winners!: GRANDparent of the Year Grand Central Toddler Town:�Grand-proofing Ask Grand:�Two Tired Tips on Teens: The Bar Mitzvah Trips Just So We Know:�BPA Not Our BFF Full House-Full Heart-Full Time:�Confessions of a Backyard Grand Grandbloggers: It Takes a Village Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? Family + Food = Fun On the Cover: Nora Roberts A Fine Romance Everything Was Fine Until You Showed Up Happy Big Sister Day Looking Grand:�Elementary, My Dear All in the Family:�Pasta, Present and Future Reunions:�Doubleheader Inspirations:�Grandpa's Violin Grand Bazaar More to the Story Grand Finale:�Long Ago Under the Sun

Grand Magazine - September/October 2008

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