Do-Wop Hop

I stepped off the train at my Princeton stop, briefacse in hand, with a wide smile.  I have always loved playing an important role in the lives of strangers, and to have had the opportunity to have enriched the lives of four separate people, all at once, so randomly, was a treat.  

Luigi would have loved to have been there for that one.  He would have gotten a kick out of Jean and Gerry, not to mention the young lovebirds.  They all get a kick out of him, and the stories I told only helped to strengthen the myth of Luigi Vitrone: amazing chef, lover of life, and gentleman.  I do what I can.

I hopped into my car and made my way home.  I live just outside of Princeton.  I wish I could still live in Brooklyn, but my extensive travel makes a more centralized and easily accessed place of living requisite.  Additionally, now that my two young adopted daughters and my love, Frankie, have a couple of dogs and a cat, it is important that we be able to stretch our wings.  

I still maintain one of the few penthouse apartments in lower Manhattan, but it has long since become a haven for my spoiled, sweet, debauched daughter Melanie, from my first marriage.  Melanie is in her twenties, talks like she's in her thirties, walks like she's in her teens, and acts like she's 5.  But I love her.  I'm happy when she's happy, and she's happy when she's happy.  So everybody wins?

Melanie is great, and we meet up for lunch a couple of times a week, as her fashion design school schedule allows.  

The two young loves of my life are Daria and Winny.  We adopted them at the age of seven. They are twins, and to say they had it rough is beyond an understatement.  We had in mind a baby, or a toddler at the oldest.  But these twins had just arrived at the orphanage, and when those two little angels laid their angelic eyes on Frankie and I, we nearly melted.  

It was official a few weeks later, and since that time we have watched as the girls blossomed into comfortable, mature, energetic, intelligent pre-teens.  The house in Rock Mill is a compromise.  I wanted to move back to Brooklyn, buy a couple of house, knock them down, and put up a gorgeous monstrosity of a mansion, a testament to my success in the face of moderate difficulty.  

I confided this dream to Frankie, who assured me that a much better choice would be the suburbs of D.C. where Frankie could follow dreams of political life, I could reach my varied destinations, and the girls could get a great education and live comfortably.  

In the end, I just couldn't see myself moving that far away from New York, and when Frankie and I saw the house I found in New Hersey, we both fell in love with it immediately.  We hope to grow old here together, and watch the girls mature into beautiful young women.  

When I pulled into our driveway, past our automatic gate, I nearly crashed my car straight into our meandering creek.  Who of all people, was standing in my front lawn, animately talking to Frankie, and holding in his hand a bottle of his world famous marinara sauce?  The one and only Mr. Vitrone!

Here's a video of Luigi making his famous Spiced Apple Chestnut Soup for Delaware Online.