Food, Family, and Memory

Saturday Morning Smackdown

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.

Half Raisin, Half Grape

grapes Monday, mid morning, I found my five year old Sara, in the kitchen,
Curious, standing on her stool at the island counter,
Fiddling with the 24 table grapes on the plate,
The ones that were part of our experiment,
The ones that would answer all of our questions.

I admit, my questions:

How long does it take to make a raisin from a grape?
I don’t know daddy…
Will our raisins taste better than the ones out of the box?
I don’t know daddy…
Over time, what the heck goes on inside of a grape anyway?
And how? And why? And so on…

“Hey Sara Bear, how many grapes on that plate?”
I was tempted to start grouping them for her.

“I don’t know daddy, do you want me to count them?”

“Good Idea!”

Napa Tuna Times

Perhaps it was the slant of late afternoon sunlight filtering through the vine-laced pergola, gracing the plank of organic crudités. Maybe it was the large grape leaves serving as blotters and platters for the abundant array of fresh foods presented that perfect June day.

Of course, it also had to be the occasion. It was 1984. Northern California was still new to Manhattanite me. We were celebrating the opening of my girlfriend Jessel’s Gallery, birthed in an abandoned granary building on Atlas Peak Road down the hill from the Silverado Country Club in Napa. Diane Jessel, an artist, author, impresario, was a patron of other female artists, and had a gallery full of gifted gals’ tantalizing take away ceramics, California impressionist canvases, and funny, functional, folk art pieces.

But I had NEVER seen a tuna salad quite like that one...

Eating Flowers

from-our-garden Alessandra, a neighbor of ours in Umbria, is a wonderful cook.

That’s a redundant statement, as virtually everyone in Umbria cooks well. Wait, let me qualify that — virtually every woman in Umbria is a wonderful cook. Boys were urged by their mothers to do other things — careers and such — whereas the girls fashioned ravioli with their nimble fingers before they learned to walk.

Anyway, Alessandra once served us an appetizer of various flora — zucchini flowers, sage and basil leaves — that were dipped in the lightest, most elegant batter I have ever tasted and then flash fried. They were appetizing indeed. When I pressed her for the batter recipe, she said, “It’s simple to remember — everything is one.”

As I struggled to comprehend this Zen concept, she scribbled the recipe on a napkin, which I still have.

Oatmeal Cookies

The thing I remember most about baking oatmeal cookies when I was 8 years old was that the bottoms always burned. Even if you faithfully followed the recipe on the back of the Quaker Oats box to a tee, which I absolutely did, when you pulled the sheet out of the oven, slid your spatula under that first lightly browned mound and peered hopefully at its underside, all you got was burned.

Over the years, I tried greasing the pan and not greasing the pan. I used the milk, I didn’t use the milk, I sifted and then I didn’t. I lowered the oven temperature, baked them on the bottom rack, the upper rack, a shorter time, a longer time. But no matter what I did or didn’t do, the outcome was the same: rear ends black as coal. There was just no justice. And you know what they say: No justice, no oatmeal cookie.

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Food, Family and Memory