Casa Bianca's Hot Fudge

I never meet my Grandmother

The Battle of the Philippines

I SAW THE FALL OF THE PHILIPPINES.

By Colonel Carlos P. Romulo.
New York: Doubleday, Dor an
& Company, Inc. 1942. 323 pp. $3.
Reviewed by HENRY C. WOLFE

Some excerpts from the stories

" In this little history of his native land Carlos P. Romulo dramatizes the national

philosophy behind the fall of the Philippines.

Colonel Romulo was General Mac-Arthur's personal aide and chief press

relations officer for the troops on Corregidor and Bataan, a Pulitzer Prize winner
in journalism. A brave soldier and an inspiring officer, he was the last man out of Bataan.

During his escape" He had to leave his wife and children behind him, and he does not yet know their fate. His seventeen-year-old son fought on with the doomed defenders.

Through its stark and beautiful chapters runs the question of the starving men of Bataan: "When is help coming from America?" No American can read this book without p r i d e . The gangrene-eaten, bomb-rocked soldiers of the Philippine foxholes stand with the noblest heroes of all time.

The Battle of the Philippines is the story of seven thousand American soldiers and seventy-five thousand Filipinos against two hundred and fifty thousand Japanese. It is the story of men and women who stayed "civilized and kind in the face of unspeakable horror."

Colonel Romulo played a heroic part in the cruelly unequal combat. After the removal to Corregidor he wrote a little news pamphlet for the soldiers and made his perilous way to the fox-holes at the front to bring news and encouragement to the fighters. He did his share of the fighting, too.

Colonel Romulo is a Pulitzer Prize winner, but his book has a beauty that arises from no conscious literary art. It lies rather in the dignity of his spirit, in the sporting generosity of his admiration for the courage and ability of his fellows, in the nobility of his emotions

The author pays tribute to General MacArthur and President Quezon. It is ironical to recall that when the reviewer returned to the United States from the Far East shortly before Pearl Harbor he met many Americans, especially in New York, who doubted the Filipino President's loyalty and belittled Filipino devotion to democracy and the United States. This was exactly the propaganda that the Japanese had imed to spread.

These Americans should read Colonel Romulo. There is no finer exponent of democracy anywhere in the world today. Tie heroic Filipino defense of freedom at Lingayan and Manila, on Bataan and Corregidor has made history. Let us hope that we shall soon redeem General MacArthur's pledge to the President of the valiant Filipinos: "We'll go back to the Philippines, Mr. President, and if necessary I'll put you back in Malacanan on the points of my bayonets."

—From the book

Death and destruction left in the wake of Japanese bombing of the Cavite Navy Yard on Dec. 10, 1941.

JANUARY 16. 1941.'^

General Romulo and Mrs. Bove

 Brigadier General Carlos P Romulo who made an unforgettable impression on the people of Montpelier when he spoke here, has written another book. "My brother Americans" in which he tell of his experiences while touring 466 cities of the United States.

Romulo made the trip at the request of General Mc Arthur in an attempt to tell America the truth about  the story of Bataan. To make the US understand what prompted 75,000 Philippines and 10,000 Americans to take up arms against a quarter of a million Japanese in a hopeless defense of the peninsula. Everywhere Romulo spoke including our little Montpelier , there was not a dry eye. The tears were for the suffering,  heroism and courage which was displayed by the Americans and their Filipino brothers at Bataan and Corregidor.

Although Romulo was received as a hero in Montpelier, he didn't speak of the visit in his book instead there was an excerpt about My Grandmother. Instead he speaks of Rutland Attorney Peter Bove and his mother.

"I arrived in Rutland around noon and was meet by a committee  headed by Peter A Bove. an Italian American lawyer and chairman of the group in charge of meeting me. He invited me to have lunch. (of course he is a Bove it is what we do best). I explained that I was very tired and asked if I could just rest in my room.

"The engagements were coming too fast and the distances too long. It had been a scorching day and I had fainted twice previously. I was learning that I had to relax if I was to keep up this pace of lecturing."

"I was trying to rest when Bove came back to my room". ' I have my car outside and you have to eat something sooner or later. Why not come out to my house for a quick little bite with my mother asked Bove" ( right quick little bite like we understood what that meant in the Bove Family).

He goes onto say in his book! "Never have I spent more peaceful hours. His mother was an elderly Italian woman who could speak little English, but we talked like old friends as she fluttered about the kitchen in the complicated and exciting business of Italian cookery while I tilted on a chair against the wall feeling I had known her all my life. It would have given a linguist horrors to have heard our conversation about Italy, the war and the United States, she speaking in Italian mixed with a little English and I in Spanish and English and a little Italian aided by a spattering of Tagalog. No matter we made Grand conversation."

"Then before luncheon, this delightful woman looked over her bounteous table (just a little bite) and we waited the words of grace".I have heard the prayers of preachers and prelates all over this earth but never a prayer more sincerely spoken." " Let us thank God we are here, she said " " in this blessed America."

I never meet my grandmother but today she is in my heart. It was here that my mother learned her incredible passion for great food and the quintessential hospitality of the Italian Table. In honor of my Grandmother and for all the Casa Bianca Junkies out there, here is something you would have never pried out of Mama Lee. I'm a bit concerned about the repercussions still!

The Casa Bianca's Hot Fudge

Makes about two quarts

16 squares Bakers Chocolate Naps

3 cups of half and half
2 1/4 lbs sugar
8 oz of unsalted butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon of Vanilla

Combine chocolate and H&H in a heavy saucepan. Cook and stir over low heat until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth and blended.

Add the sugar, butter and salt continue cooking until mixture is slightly thickened, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and the vanilla. Serve at room temperature, store in the refrigerator and reheat slowly over a double boiler.

Sorry Mom it was time!

Enjoy

Mrs. Tom