When Food Is Love

“What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.” 

― Mother Teresa

As a child, I would sit at the table in my Grandma Eva's tiny kitchen, watching her roll out pasta dough, enough to cover the whole table. Flour dusted her hands and arms as she handed me a small ball of dough to shape and play with. Watching her make ravioli was like watching a sculptor at work. She was confident and her hands nimble as she labored over the pasta dough, the recipe coming straight from her head. I especially loved the old rolling pin with little ravioli shaped squares cut into the wood. Grandma Eva would give me a taste of the filling as she layered it on the dough, spinach, garlic, Parmesan cheese, and other ingredients. She would then gently press on the top layer of dough and roll the layers of dough and filling into perfect little pillows with that special rolling pin. When they were done, she laid the ravioli carefully into boxes with wax paper between each layer and put them in the freezer. There they waited until she was ready to prepare Christmas dinner for her eight children and their families.

On summer days Grandma Eva made egg salad sandwiches on white bread and packed them up with chips and 7-Up for a day at the beach. There were always coins for an ice cream sandwich too. And more spare change for a treat from Nicolini's snack truck before we left the beach. Nicolini's funky old truck had brightly colored pin wheels along the top to catch the wind. It was jam packed with all the candy a child could desire, so hard to choose just one thing. When we'd made our choice, we would walk to my great grandmother's house, Grandma Eva's mother "Nannie." We would sit around the kitchen table and my grandma would let us kids drink coffee loaded with milk and sugar while she and her mother and sisters shared family gossip in Italian. When we were tired of the grown up talk, my cousin and I would go outside and play among the lobster traps in Nannie's yard or climb the fig tree and eat the ripe, warm fruit.

When your grandmother is Italian, you are never hungry. Of the many ways my Grandma Eva expressed her love for her children and grandchildren, feeding us was one of her favorites. Whether she was feeding us saltine crackers with butter for a quick snack, homemade turkey and rice soup, "Green Spaghetti" (long before we Americans knew what pesto was), or her sweet delicate cream puffs, my grandma's food was always served with a generous helping of love. She even knew how to make you feel loved with a store bought Popsicle or the stash of Twinkies she kept in the dining room cupboard. 

My grandma is 98 years old now. She no longer cooks, but you can still find her sitting at the table in her tiny kitchen. And when I go to visit, I still don't leave hungry. My Aunt Lorraine makes sure of that. She lives with my grandma and has absorbed much of her wisdom about food and love. Just last Thursday evening, Lorraine handed me a plate of her homemade enchiladas and a glass of Pinot Griggio when I dropped by for a visit. My grandma taught Lorraine to serve up love and comfort with a meal. And she has learned well!

My Grandma Eva lives at home because my Aunt Lorraine loves and cares for her. I don't think Lorraine imagined her future this way when she was growing up. She simply found herself on this path as the days and years unfolded. It is hard work. She runs a home day care and takes care of my grandma. She feels anxious and tired a lot, and who could blame her. But Lorraine says her mother is her best friend and it shows. She keeps my grandmother's life purposeful. Nearly blind, my grandma can still peel garlic, fold clothes, and hold babies. Lorraine takes her for drives and they fantasize about which beach house they would like to live in. They play the lottery together and imagine what they would do with the money. They gossip about celebrities, they worry over family members, they go to the nursery and pick out new flowers for their beautiful yard. And of course they spend time in the kitchen, Lorraine cooking all the foods my grandma taught her to make, plus some recipes of her own.

This Fall I hope to spend another afternoon in my grandmother's kitchen, watching my aunt Lorraine roll out the ravioli with that old rolling pin, tasting the filling, maybe helping my grandma peel garlic. I want to witness this slow, labor intensive, time honored  process again. I hope to be able to channel some of my Grandma Eva and Aunt Lorraine's love of cooking into my own meal preparations. Too often I rush through the process of putting food on the table, hastily preparing a last minute meal. My grandma and my aunt know in their bones that preparing food and feeding your family is an act of love, a daily practice to engage in with thoughtfulness and care. I know that their love always sustains me long after the meal is over.