NORTHWOOD — Clara Intagliata went to Bunco with a full tray of her Layered Pistachio Pudding Dessert.

She came home with a trace of green on the pan, along with swipes of cream cheese and whipped cream, and some crumbled Pecan Sandies.

The no-bake dessert was a bona fidehit.

Her Bunco group, which shares desserts when they meet for the dice game, loved it, Intagliata said.

“They ate it all,” she said.

“I don’t know where I got the recipe, and I’ve been making it for years. The kids like it,” said Intagliata, who has four children and eight grandchildren.

The cookies are key to the dessert, she said. Buy the Keebler brand; Intagliata also prefers Cool Whip and not generic.

The pistachio dessert doesn’t take long to whip up, but Intagliata said it needs time to refrigerate. She suggested making it the night before you want to serve it.

“It has to be refrigerated for awhile, at least three hours,” she said.

“I really do like to cook, just about anything: Spaghetti, meatloaf, desserts.”

Growing up in the south end of Toledo, Intagliata didn’t spend much time in the kitchen. She is a graduate of Notre Dame Academy.

“I really learned to cook because I had to, because we got married and I had four kids,” said Intagliata, who wed when she was 17 years old.

“I graduated in June, got married in July. He was 21,” she said. “My mother was 30 when she got married. She said that was too old to get married. But when I said I was getting married, she said that was too young.”

Her husband Jim’s favorite meal was Sicilian spaghetti.

“It cooks all day, and it’s got spareribs and Italian sausage and meatballs, and homemade bread.”

Jim died in September of COVID-19. They were married 59 years.

They were careful, Intagliata said, and vaccinated. But Jim had some other medical issues and the virus took its toll quickly after he contracted it, she said.

Intagliata never got the virus.

“I’m doing better about talking about it,” she said about Jim’s death. “I am a firm believer in the shots, and please, please be careful.”

She is dealing with her own health issues: Intagliata has stage four lung cancer,

“I’m doing very well with it,” she said. “I am stable. I am on an immunetherapy drug. … I’m taking it a day at a time.

She was diagnosed two years ago.

She has a lot of family support. Her daughter lives two doors down and the grandchildren are frequent visitors.

Intagliata also adores her work family in Walbridge, where she is clerk of council. She prepares the agendas, ordinances and minutes, and sets up meetings.

“I love it, the people and the camaraderie here,” she said.

Intagliata is a retired customer service manager for the Blade, where she worked for 21 years.

“I was home for not quite a year, and I was bored,” she said. “There was ad in the paper for the (Walbridge) job and I said ‘I can do that job.’ … I don’t have to drive that far, I don’t have to pay for parking and I can do everything you want. And they said, ‘you’re hired.’”

Intagliata, who is 77, said she’s grateful for the part-time job.

“It gets me out of bed. It gets me with people. It would be real easy to pull the covers over my head, and I can’t do that.”