Strega Nona

Complete with enough carbs to make Mr. Atkins roll over in his grave, my favorite fairy tale is Strega Nona. Here is the wikipedia.com short-version:

The story begins with Strega Nona who is seeking help from someone in both outdoor and indoor chores. The first to respond to her advertisement is tall, dimwitted Big Anthony.
Strega Nona assigns Big Anthony to various chores around her house, but she also warns him not to touch her magic pasta pot, an enchanted pot that produces pasta at the command of a spell. In the middle of one of his chores, Anthony spies on Strega Nona conjuring pasta from the pasta pot. He also watches as she commands the pot to stop producing pasta. Anthony does not observe Strega Nona blow three kisses after commanding the pasta pot to stop producing pasta.
When Strega Nona spends a day to visit her friend Strega Amelia, Big Anthony uses the opportunity to spread the news of the pasta pot and serve everyone pasta. However, because he did not know how to properly stop the pasta pot from producing pasta, the pasta continued to flow, flooding the town with pasta.
Fortunately, Strega Nona returns from her visit and commands the pasta pot to stop producing pasta, blowing three kisses after issuing her command. Big Anthony ends up having to eat all of the pasta that flooded the town as punishment for disobeying Strega Nona.

Strega is the Italian word for witch, and Nona equates to grandmother. So the title means "Grandmother Witch." Doesn't everybody's gramma have something that she makes as her specialty? **wink, wink**

I also like Little Rabbit Foo-Foo, particularly doing silly voices while reading it to my kids. Or I did when they were little.