Deep Roots

Having roasted some potatoes tonight, I started thinking about autumn and how it's the perfect time for root vegetables. It got me to thinking about my own roots.

I have always lived and loved food. Born into an Italian-American family, food was front and center from the beginning. I was the first born child to my crazy hippie parents and we lived next door to my 2nd generation Italian grandma and grandpa, who were all too willing to indulge their newest grandaughter (the first one on the same coast) - and what better way than through her stomach?
So, I ate, a lot, and often. Some early memories include grandma teaching me to slather Ritz crackers with soft butter and top the affair with a slice of pepperoni. Of course, there was the ever present box of the pre-packaged donut trilogy on the counter, and I would proceed methodically - first the powdered, then the cinnamon, and only under the most dire pangs of hunger would I devour the plain.
There were pizzas ordered with glorious grease pooling on the surface, grandma's Sunday gravy - started the night before, always with pork ribs, sometimes with meatballs - gracing lasagna, ravioli, or cavatelli. Grated cheese, pepper, heaven on a plate. Sometimes grandpa would order fish and chips on Fridays, sometimes baked schrod (which he pronounced, "shraahd"). If we were lucky, we could witness the rare occasion he would make his famous freezer-to-the-frying pan pork chops, grandma hollering in the background, "Jaaack, goddammit, I just cleaned the stove!"
"Goddamn woman, doesn't leave anyone alone", he'd grumble.


Grandpa had a huge sweet tooth. Never was the freezer without a package of Klondike bars or a tub of Newport Creamery coffee/vanilla ice cream. Never was his room, the den, devoid of a stash of chocolates and nuts on the steps next to his couch.
So many memories, so much to say. Struvoli, ribbon candy, cherry slices, and butter balls at Christmas; egg biscuits, rice and ricotta pies, Easter bread, and cheyone at Easter; fresh tomatoes with red onion and cucumbers from the garden with the tops of the basil in the summer...
Grandma would find wild mushrooms at the roots of oak trees in the fall, and pickle them so we would have them for the holidays. She would pickle the eggplant too, and sometimes even make cucumber pickles. Her pizza was cause for celebration, and if you weren't in close proximity when it came out of the oven, you were out of luck.
In my mind, my life is marked with what was eaten, when.

I had the opportunity to spend time with grandma in 2001, just around the time of September 11th. I had been through a tough breakup, and would routinely visit her (6 years a widow for the second time) in the mornings with coffee and bagels/crullers from that New England staple, Dunkin Donuts. I got a glimpse of her life like never before. I learned details I had never known. How she, at 23, lost her first husband in the second world war to an aviation accident, when she had a 2 year old in the hospital with pneumonia and was pregnant. I learned about how close she had been to her own father, who died in his early fifties. I began to somewhat understand how she had become so fearful in life of losing people. I grilled pizza for her. I grilled salmon, with garlic, which she loved even though she thought she wouldn't. I made soup, and roasted chicken, and braciole. I steamed lobster and summer sweet corn. I took her to the farm to buy eggplant and watched as she pickled it and put it in jars. I drove her to yard sales on Saturdays, and sat behind the wheel of the car as she pilfered wild mushrooms from people's yards.
Then she was diagnosed with lung mets from kidney cancer. She declined rapidly and passed away in early January 2002. I am grateful for the time I had with her, and for the love she gave to me. I am grateful for the love of food that she showed to me all of my life.
I am not a perfect grandchild or person by any stretch of anyone's wildest imagination. I have made many mistakes in my years on this earth. But I am capable of loving, and the best way I do this is through food.

One day several years ago I was talking with my sister and she remarked, "Steph, all you ever talk about is food."

For a long time I was uncomfortable with that. But I am who I am. I challenge anyone to change his or her nature. This is me. Comfortable or not (and I have never been, if you couldn't already tell)

Well, anyway, go Pats!