“It’s About Tradition” - Why This RI Couple Bakes Hundreds of Ricotta Cookies Each Year

“It’s About Tradition” - Why This RI Couple Bakes Hundreds of Ricotta Cookies Each Year

Rich Pezzillo and his husband Michael DeGrandpre made a lot of ricotta cookies this year — 628 to be exact. 

This week, Pezzillo shared a photo of the results of hours — and days of work in the couple’s kitchen in Warwick — and the response was enormous. 

“There’s definitely some OCD with lining them up,” laughed Pezzillo. “I’m actually not a big baker.”

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What he is big on, however, is family tradition.  

“Growing up, being in an Italian American household, making cookies has been a staple,” said Pezzillo. “I have fond memories of doing them with my mom and grandmother, frosting them while sitting at a table and making a complete mess.”

And it was when Pezzillo met and married his husband, that he decided he wanted to carry on that tradition.

“I love my brothers…but they weren’t going to be the ones to do it,” said Pezzillo. 

In the early days in the couple’s small kitchen in Washington, DC, Pezzillo said he would take photos of the cookies he made and send them to his family, asking if they looked OK.

When the couple moved to the Peerless Lofts in Providence, they upped their cookie game.

“The 2000 square foot loft just screamed more cookies,” said Pezzillo. 

 

"We're Going to Need More Cookies"

When the couple got married, and incorporated downtown businesses for a scavenger hunt as part of the wedding festivities (Pezzillo was the former head of the Downtown Neighborhood Association), suddenly there were more and more people to thank with the cookies come the holidays. 

The couple, now in a house, has the cookie-making down to a science, with Pezzillo doing the baking, and DeGrandpre doing the boxing. 

“Someone actually commented on the photo why did I need to line them all up like that,” said Pezzillo. “It’s because that’s how you frost them all!”

The process, which Pezzillo says takes about three days, is probably about twice the time it could take, but Pezzillo insists on baking one tray at a time of the cookies, for quality control purposes. (He said he had tried two trays, but didn’t like the results). 

And once the cookies are frosted — due to the powdered sugar in the frosting, they take a full day to dry.

The real icing on the cookies however might just be the packaging. 

The custom boxes for the lucky recipients note the cookies came from the "DeGrandzillo Bakery” — a combination of the couple’s last names, of course. 

"We're trying to keep the essence of when our families came over -- there were so many things, with gardens and fresh wines," said Pezzillo. "As we get older, we can get more removed and lose things. It’s important to keep them going. 

Sounds like there’s a new family tradition.