A 'brief' history...Part 1

Part 1: Food, my first love affair.

I have a love affair with food and I always have. My family regularly ate dinner together at a table in a dinning room so I grew up knowing that food was something meant for sitting down and enjoying.

My mother, being the wife of a meat and potatoes guy who detested vegetables and expected dinner when he got home from work, diligently prepared yummy family meals. Looking back though, I realize they lacked variety. To her credit, the couple dozen main dishes in her repertoire were executed magnificently. In my late teens I moved in with my grandmother of Italian heritage. It was in her household that I learned eating good food was in my blood. For a kid who grew up in the nineties when packaged and processed food was in its prime, her cupboards were quite the bore. I learned that yummy chocolate chip cookies had to made using flour and sugar and butter, not taken from a plastic tray wrapped in a blue package. I came to appreciate the artful craft of opening the fridge grabbing what's on hand and turning it into a magnificent meal for two. This ability is particularly skillful if one hasn't been to the grocery store recently. Another of my grandmother's talents is presenting food. I swear it could taste, smell and feel like dirt (which it never has of course) and you'd still want to eat every bite just because she makes everything look so good. 

When I went off to college I got a taste for variety. There were so many options in the school cafeteria and even more in the ethnic neighborhoods that surrounded my college campus. Now I could enjoy all kinds of food. Four years later I went off to live on my own a thousand miles away from the kitchens of my parents or my grandmother. I was sent with a gift wrapped neatly in a brown paper bag whose contents would eventually help me discover my love affair with food.

A spatula, a wooden spoon, a timer, and some measuring cups. Everything I needed to start baking in my own kitchen (minus the bowl and the oven) was in that bag. And baking was what I did because it satisfied my tremendous sweet tooth. There was a also a recipe book of family favorites my grandmother had compiled.  I slowly began working through the book. Eventually I craved variety and turned to the Internet in search of recipes for things I had tried in college or wanted to try. I noticed that the friends I had made in this new place seemed to enjoy coming over to my house, despite its remoteness, on the nights I planned to make dinner. I didn't mind since few recipes are designed for one and when you're new to cooking you stick to the recipe. This was when I learned that food is a tool for bringing people together. I took pride in the ability to nourish a group of friends even if I was only a novice home cook.