Food, Family and Memory

My mother made perfect lox, onions, and eggs.  Except it isn’t really lox, onion, and eggs, it's nova scotia, onions, and eggs. 

And nova scotia’s best when it comes from a deli department, loose or fresh-sliced, instead of a package at the grocery store.

Read recipe...

I was barely six years old and on an early summer vacation with my sister, Tanya and my Mother, a woman way a head of her time. The three of us were off on another adventure this time to the small town of Sorrento, Italy. Our father loved to travel but never outside the United States after he immigrated from Albania during the first World War to escape the atrocities in his village.

He indulged our mother's wanderlust and desire to show us the world with enthusiasm. That summer, our adventuresome mother picked the spectacular hotel Bellevue Syrene perched on a sheer cliff hundreds of feet above the ocean. The converted palace was surrounded by formal gardens in full bloom and the ocean side terrace dripped with blue Wisteria. It was dinner that evening that awoke my love of food and changed the course of my life.

The dining room was a formal affair like things used to be fifty years ago. As we three approached the entrance guarded by the Maitre D', he pulled back the heavy velvet drapes exposing the jewel box like dining room. As he led us to our table the azure blue color of the Gulf of Naples view from the floor to ceiling windows was so clear we could see Capri.

My mother prepared us breakfast every day of the week because she was not about to send us off to school on an empty stomach. Yet the only day I really remember eating breakfast was on Saturday. Not because she cooked an elaborate spread, but because we were left to fend for ourselves. It was the one morning my parents slept in – probably only to about 8 or 9, but it seemed like all morning and it was a thrill to be without parental supervision in the dining room. My siblings and I weren’t what you’d call “skilled” in the culinary arts, but we were quite capable of pouring a bowl cereal…and that’s where the trouble started.

These were the days before whole grains, when cereal was “crack” for kids, so filled with sugar one bowl probably exceeded your daily nutritional requirements for carbohydrates. There was no fiber to be found and we LOVED it. While in grammar school, we were allowed to “request” our favorite brand, but my mother had a strict food budget, so we never knew what we were actually going to find in the cupboard. If your choice was on sale, then it was your lucky week and the world was your oyster.

It's autumn and that means....

Max's Fresh Raspberry + Pear Bundt Cake with Buttercream Frosting

This cake was the result of what I didn't have.  I wanted to make a cake for my son's birthday, but it was late in the afternoon and I didn't have time to drive to the store.  So I decided to just wing it in the kitchen, which always leads to the new and unexpected.  Plus, the birthday son isn't a stickler about his birthday cake and in truth doesn't even like sweets.  This gave me permission to experiment. 

So I guess I should call this Max's Fresh Raspberry and Pear Cake.  I'm honoring him. This cake is dense, moist, filed with hunks of fruit, and in my estimation, delicious.  I'm fairly certain that it's also not on any diet plans. I serve it topped with Buttercream frosting, the kind that you make from a SINGLE BOX of powdered sugar (recipe on the back of the blue box -- you add to the powered sugar a cube of butter, a 1/4 cup of whole milk and a teaspoon of vanilla.  Beat with the blender.  Works every time). 

Let us begin....