Regular readers know that I am an avid home cook and food writer -- but they may not know that I came to my calling late in life. I spent little time in the kitchen during my childhood and taught myself to cook from cookbooks, and with some tips from my sister, out of sheer necessity in my 20s (basically, I needed to eat). When I read memoirs from other food writers or hear their stories of learning to cook at a young age from a loving, patient grandmother, I can't relate. Although I grew up in a large Italian family that loved to eat, we did so neither reverentially nor adventurously. Family dinners were simply what happened at six o'clock every evening, rather than a celebration of food or culture.
With five children and a full-time job, my mother viewed cooking as a chore, another task that needed doing each busy day. For her, baking a cake meant opening a box of Duncan Hines, and the microwave was her go-to tool in the kitchen. Understandably, special meals were reserved for holidays.
Yet my father adored food.
Again, he did not love food adventurously. A good steak, steamed lobster with lots of butter and anything that sported a heavy cream sauce were among his all-time favorites. But food played a starring role in his life. Whenever he told stories about places or people, they were ultimately about food – the food served at a memorable event, a special dish from a favorite restaurant, his teenaged job termination based on his preference for dipping into the restaurant's ice cream freezer rather than the dishwater.
