Maria Cucina
Food: Salt
Salt, perhaps the most common kitchen seasoning, may also have the most interesting backstory.
Food: Sharing a Meal
Sharing a meal with loved ones employs all of our senses in a way that few other experiences do.
Food: Zama
But what I really love is when she starts talking about the cooking she would do with her mother back home. The way they would can everything from the fall harvest, eating only what was in season from their gardens all summer, and the hard times too when her family would send her as a child to get to the front of the long line to be rationed out a loaf of bread. She taught me how to make her mother’s famous “Zama”, which is chicken noodle soup to you and me.
Food: Serving and Sitting
At each seat at the dinner table, he carefully set out placemats, napkins, cups, silverware, bibs, and sippy cups (for the littles). He was attentive to detail – folding each napkin precisely with creased centers and aligning every piece of silverware in proper placement.
Food: Sacrifices
In 2011, our 13-month-old son had an anaphylactic reaction to milk. Further testing would determine that he was severely allergic to all nuts, dairy, and eggs. I recall walking out of the appointment overwhelmed and discouraged. Food, the means by which we provide physical sustenance for our bodies, just became one of the greatest dangers to my child’s life.
Ashes and Pretzels
Did you know that the Catholic Church was instrumental in the creation of the popular salty, twisty snack we now call the pretzel?
Love Language: Bring the Food and Bring the Love
I have no doubt my son inherited this love language from my maternal grandmother who showed her love by baking for others.
Guess Who?
I would run around the house counting how many people we had in the house, and would then run and count how many place settings were on the table, to make sure there was enough for everyone. The numbers didn’t match; there was one extra plate at the table.