Treasured St. Joseph Day fig cookie recipe from Avo chef Nick Lama

figcookies

Step inside Avo restaurant on Magazine Street on March 18 and you’ll find a St. Joseph’s Day altar laden with traditional Sicilian treats. Among them will be fig cookies prepared the way chef Nick Lama’s family has for generations.

Like many chefs, Lama, who owns the Uptown Italian restaurant, has said he draws inspiration from foods of his family’s homeland. The restaurant’s name, “Avo,” can be translated as “grandfather” or “ancestor.”

One sometimes wonders how much of that kind of talk is hype, but, in Lama’s case, the proof came on a recent Sunday afternoon when three generations gathered around a black granite island in his grandmother’s Madisonville kitchen to make cookies for the St. Joseph’s Day altar.

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