About

About the blog

This is a space for sharing recipes and anecdotes connected to my Italian-American grandmother.  For many years, she reigned as cook, baker, and matriarch at family meals.  She is now 101 years old.  She stopped cooking in her 90s, around the time when she started forgetting the difference between “cloves” and “cloves of garlic.”  As someone who lives with dementia, she remembers a lot from the distant past (like the blueberry muffins I blog about), but is often a bit hazy in recalling more recent information (like the name of her youngest great-grandchild).

My Noni is a first generation American, whose parents emigrated from northern Italy.  Her cooking and baking were clearly Italian-American.  She made many traditional dishes that she learned from her mother and mother-in-law, but made a lot of typical American fare as well.  This blog will include Italian recipes as handed down to me by her (and my subsequent adaptations of them), as well as examples of classic American cooking.  All this to say that this is not the place for the most authentic Italian recipes you’ve ever seen.  It may, however, be the place for Italian-American recipes that are reasonably healthy, delicious, and possible to make with easily-obtainable ingredients.

About me

I live with my family in Northampton, Massachusetts, where I am a teacher, artist, and at-times writer.  Our charming-to-us 1950s ranch reminds me of my grandparents’ house, though we continue to update it to suit our 21st-century needs.  When our original 1950s kitchen reached a point of disrepair that we could no longer ignore, we renovated it a few years back.  It’s designed now with more work space and new appliances, but is still a similar size and layout to my Noni’s kitchen.

I grew up as a picky eater, but have become an adult who generally enjoys eating, and is willing to try most foods.  A few exceptions are bell peppers, chili peppers, and paprika, due to food allergies that I developed in early adulthood.  When traveling in Germany, I learned to say “Ich habe eine Allergie gegen die Paprika.”  People in my family have lived in Spain and India, and we’ve devised our own pepper-free adaptations of dishes from those cuisines.

Food allergies made me a label-reader who is very aware of the long ingredient lists in many convenience foods.  In shopping and cooking for my family, I try to avoid processed foods and high fructose corn syrup.  We eat meat, but not every day.  I avoid cooking pork, beef, or other mammals, though my husband cooks them (and I eat them) on special occasions.

I enjoy reading about food and trying new recipes, in addition to those left by my Noni.  The way we eat is influenced by folks like Michael Pollen, Mark Bittman, and time we’ve spent at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health.  We do live in a blue dot in a blue state, and our habits reflect this.  Ultimately, the work of this blog may be to bridge the food culture of my grandmother with the one I’ve established in my own home.

Thanks for joining me here.