Everyone knows at least one tall story about something that supposedly induces labor. Spicy food is a really popular one. Raspberry leaf tea is another. And more than one woman has whispered to me about the labor-inducing powers of sex.
So needless to say I was a little skeptical when someone informed me that the baked ziti at Sam’s Restaurant and Pizzeria in Brooklyn is legendary for sending women to the delivery room. However, I was nine-months pregnant at the time, and the woman who told me said it so matter-of-factly, it was as if she was telling me the sky was blue.
I told my mom about the ziti rumor at Sam’s and she was intrigued. So intrigued in fact, that we ate there the night before my due date. The waiter, Louie, looked at me and my burgeoning belly and said “What can I get you’s.” I said the baked ziti and waited for him to wink or give me some sort of sign that I had come to the right place. But instead he said nothing. So my mom pressed him and he confessed, admitting that dozens of women have had the ziti and claim to have gone into labor shortly after. He even told us how he was born in the apartment upstairs “before your time,” and that his mom had the ziti, too.
Louie, the waiter at Sam's, was born in the apartment upstairs.
What I remember about the baked ziti at Sam’s was that it was delicious. I also remember being incredibly full afterwards. But I will mostly remember how contractions started in the early morning hours following dinner. Was it the ziti? Or was it just my due date? Well, I know what Louie would say. He keeps the secret of his ziti under wraps, but with a little prodding Louie is the first to confess it’s magical powers .
The baked ziti at Sam's before...
Days later, when we were home with our baby, my mom insisted we go back to Sam’s to tell Louie the good news. He couldn’t believe it, and yet he could…
These last two years I’ve chalked up the ziti at Sam’s and my going into labor the next day as a mere coincidence. That was until my good friend Melissa went to Sam’s the night before her due date, had the baked ziti and also went into labor in the early morning hours on her due date. Was it the ziti? Well, we know what Louie would say…
The baked ziti after...