Growing up in an all Italian family, cooking was always a central part of daily life. So much emphasis was placed on every meal. Nothing was just plain and simple, even breakfast had to be somewhat special. There there were two days a week that had to be kept aside. Wednesdays and Sundays were reserved for the big Italian meal. Especially Sundays. Around 2:00 in the afternoon, everyone had to start getting ready for dinner. No matter where you were, what you were doing, it all stopped and you came home.
I remember my grandmother starting to cook for the Sunday meal around 8:00 in the morning Back in the 1960’s there wasnt alot of canned items, so, for the tomato sauce, it was fresh tomatoes from the garden, crushed and stained. It was almost always home made pasta. I remember my grandmother drying the fresh pasta on an irony board. Everything was fresh. Herbs from the garden, vegetables from the garden, about the only thing that we didnt grow or have ourselves was the meat. But I do remember one of my uncles who raised lambs. He butchered them, hung them in the garage so we could have veal!
The typical Sunday meal consisted of this:
Soup
Crisp garden salad, oil and vinegar only
Pasta dish, (Ravioli, Lasagna, Spaghetti, etc) along with gravy meat
Gravy meat was Sausage, Meatball, Beef Braciole, PigSkin (agodina)
Lots of Italian Bread
Antipasto
Beef Roast with Potatos (no gravy)
Italian Ice and Espresso for dessert
Now when the family got together for holiday, there were 15 or 20 people coming for the meal.
We would generally setup a ping pong table or put one or two 4×8 pieces of plywood over a pool table or some other means of support.
The meals were basically the same as I described above, but for Holidays, the following were always added
Eggplant Parmigiana
Fritto di verdure Misto (Italian Fried Vegetables)
Fritto di Misto (fried fish, scallops, octopus, calamari, shrimp)
Second pasta dish
Second roast, normally Pork
So, it was easy to see growing up, food was such an important part of daily life.
I still remember as a little boy, sitting in a chair watching my grandmother cooking. She would spend hours every day preparing for each meal of the day. It was her life, her love. Nothing made her happier then to see everyone eating all the food that she prepared and put on the table.
I know that this affair with food fueled my interest in cooking. As early as 15 years old, I would always like to try to make a meal in the kitchen. Tried to imitate what my grandmother did., but that was impossible! Over the years, I developed my own style of cooking.
I am the type of cook, who may look at a recipe, but doesn’t follow it. I like to get the general idea of how a given food dish is made, but from there, I let my imagination and taste buds take over and then I follow that path.
I remember when I graduated from High School (1968) , I wanted to become a chef. At that time, the only cooking shows were Julia Child and Graham Kerr (The Galloping Gourmet) and I was always watching them. But my father said no, he was an IBM person for years and had it set in stone that his sons were going to also become IBMers.
I did work for IBM for 35 years, but I have always maintained my love for cooking and food. I do about 95% of the cooking in our house,
and I also do about 100% of the mess in the kitchen and about 5% of the cleanup!
My son graduated from the French Culinary Institute at the top of his class and spent almost a year in Italy as a cooking instructor. I never did become that chef, but I have sort of lived out my fantasy through my son’s experiences.
All of the recipes that I am including here are my own recipes. I may have looked up some basics of a particular recipe, but then I do a lot of improvising.
Exception:
French Onion Soup – Julia Child recipe, but I did make a number of alterations
medallions, do not crowed, if necessary do in batches
