A conversation with my sister, Patty
One of the things I look forward to every Christmas holiday season is a visit with my sister. Patty lives in Port St. Lucie, Florida, and with me living in Massachusetts we don’t get to visit often. But, I make an annual pilgrimage to Florida to see my mom for the holidays, and Patty lives nearby, so we get to visit as well. A good portion of our visit is spent in Mom’s kitchen (yes, the original “somebody’s mother’s” kitchen).
Holidays at Mom’s are always about tradition, and a lot of that tradition centers around food and drink. Over the years, as Mom has gotten older she has turned more and more of the holiday cooking over to Patty and I, and as we cook we catch up. At first our talk is about the usual, work and health and family, but as we cook we talk about the process, about new things we’ve tried, about an old recipe we’d recently rediscovered. “Remember Grandma’s dunking cookies? I found that recipe and tried it again, and….”
“It didn’t come out as good as it usually does,” we said in unison, laughing at Grandma’s favorite old line. Every time Grandma made something she’d claim it didn’t come out as good as usual. The family joke was that no one has ever tasted how good it “usually” came out.
Patty is a social worker by profession, but she is also a pretty good cook and baker. Her culinary tastes are eclectic; she loves trying different cuisines and techniques; lately she’s been experimenting with Indian and Thai, she tells me, and is really intrigued by the layering of spices that bring out subtleties she is learning to appreciate. “A lot of the spices are similar to what I’ve always used in Italian cooking, but the way they toast them or layer them really changes the flavors.”
Back in April I had asked Patty if she would agree to interview for my blog via Skype.. She didn’t know what she could offer, but when we spoke the talk was fun and easy. Here are some excerpts and a favorite recipe:
My “interviews” are more like conversations, I explained. Nothing serious, just be you.
As a way of introduction, I asked Patty if she were at a cocktail party full of strangers how she would introduce herself.
“I don’t know, I probably wouldn’t. I’m pretty shy in settings like that. But, I guess I would say that I’m a therapist. I come from a fairly large Italian family; very Italian family, with too many men,” she laughs.
“Great,” I chuckle back. “The things that define you are work, being Italian and too many men in your life.”
“Exactly. Too many men.”
“ Thanks, I guess I know where I stand now,” I laugh. “So, my first question is: what should somebody know about you before they try a recipe of yours?”
“Hmmm. What should they know? I guess they should know that I’m not really good at measuring. That it’s really just a “guest-imate”. When I’m baking it’s different, but cooking it’s a pinch of this, a little dash of that…but that’s how I learned growing up.
“I remember when Joann (our sister-in-law) learned the old Italian recipes from Grandma,” Patty explains, “Grandma never measured anything. As they made the recipe Joann had a dish ready, and as Grandma added ingredients Jo would put the dish under her hand before each ingredient so she could measure it. It sometimes took two or three times making the dish before Jo would have a complete recipe.”
“What was the last meal you cooked for a special guest?” I ask.
“Um… I don’t know. Ummm…” Then she say, “Oh yeah. A pork chop. (laughing) It was really a bland meal.”
“Ice cream or cake?” I ask. I like non-sequiturs; questions out of the blue.
“Ice cream on cake” she doesn’t hesitate. “I mean, really.”
“Fair enough. Who was a cooking inspiration for you?”
“I liked the way our grandmother’s cooked,” Patty explains. “Both were very hands on, I mean nothing seemed to be from a recipe for them; they just seemed…it was so natural. And very traditional” she adds. “I really liked that. And if you followed both you got to see that their cooking was different because of the regions they grew up in were different. That’s probably my first inspiration.”
“Do you make any of their recipes now?”
“I make some of Grandma’s Christmas cookies every year, but other than that, I probably cook more of Mom’s recipes. Of course, she learned from them, so in a way, I guess…” she explains.
“Are you a baker, or a cook?”
“Definitely a cook,” she says, going on to explain, “I suck at baking. I love to bake, but I suck at it.”
“Really?” This surprises me because at Christmas Patty’s cookies are a “must have”.
“What five items are always in your refrigerator?”
“That’s hard,” she says, her eyes looking up as she ponders, then starts, “I guess there’s always cheese, always milk….five?” she asks. “Five?”
“Five.”
“Well there’s always bacon. Always bacon,” she repeats to emphasize. (I was surprised bacon wasn’t the number one item. I know my sister.)
“Where to you find your recipes and inspirations?”
“I do a lot of Pinterest,” she says. “And, I guess cooking shows, cookbooks…”
“How many cookbooks do you have?”
“About a dozen,” she says hesitantly. “I end up looking things up on the internet anyway, so I don’t really buy cookbooks.”
“If somebody wanted to impress you, what meal would they make you?”
Her answer comes quickly: “Breakfast.” Then she adds, “I love breakfast. Anything. Pancakes…I mean anything. Breakfast.”
“You’re a cheap date,” I say.
Patty laughs. “Yeah,” then adds: “Now if they want to add lobster to it…that would impress me. A lobster benedict…”
“What’s your favorite holiday food?” I love this question. So many people’s memories of holidays revolve around food.
“Wow.” Patty says. The question catches her imagination. “That’s interesting. What’s my favorite…” Then she perks up, “Okay,” but explains, “This is gonna sound weird, but my favorite holiday meal is Christmas morning, after the big seafood meal on Christmas Eve, when we take out the shrimp and calamari from dinner and we all kinda have Christmas Eve dinner for breakfast again. That’s my favorite. I look forward to that.”
“Yeah, I can kinda see that,” I say. “That is kinda a family thing I would think is pretty unique to our family. Calamari for breakfast…”
“What’s was the last fast food restaurant you ate at?”
“Hmmm.” Then she repeats, “The last fast food restaurant… I don’t know…” Then she says slowly, “Probably Taco Bell. I’m not a fast food fan. But probably Mexican food. Taco Bell.”
“What’s your favorite pizza?”
“My favorite pizza….” She ponders before answering, “Probably broccoli or artichoke… I love vegetables on pizza. Add olives and I’m happy.”
“Olives,” I say. “No. I like a broccoli, spinach and artichoke pizza, but the olives break the deal.” I go on to explain, “Especially in a restaurant. Because they’re gonna use those cheap canned black olives rather than, like a good kalamata olive…. No. No olives.”
“Really? If I have good olives it’s okay?”
“Yes. But they have to be good olives,” I stand my ground.
“What’s your most used kitchen appliance?”
“Outside of my coffee maker, right?” she laughs. “That would probably be my KitchenAid.”
“Stand mixer, I assume,” I answer. I have come to understand that when most cooks say ‘KitchenAid’ they are referring to their stand mixer, just like when they say ‘Cuisine Art’ they are most often referring to their food processor.
“Describe you favorite ice cream sundae.”
Ice cream is special in our family, and when Patty starts to explain I know exactly where her mind is going.
“We used to go to this ice cream place in Dania (Florida).”
“Um hmm. Jackson’s,” I chime in.
“They made their own ice cream, and I remember their chocolate chip had these great big chocolate chunks rather than regular chips.” Then pulling it all together she says, “I’d have Jackson’s chocolate chip ice cream with caramel topping, whipped cream and sprinkles. Lots of sprinkles.”
“The rainbow sprinkles, or the brown sprinkles?” I ask.
She takes a minute before her voice hesitantly says, “Chocolate sprinkles. The rainbow ones are just sugar.”
“They’re both basically sugar,” I say. “They’re probably both the exact same thing, only the color is different.”
“Noooo,” she’s emphatic. About the sprinkles. “They’re chocolate flavored.” Then she says, “Please tell me they’re chocolate flavored. I mean, they’re brown.”
When we stop laughing about the sprinkles I ask: “What’s your guilty food pleasure?”
“What is my guilty pleasure?” But it doesn’t take her long to finish. “Uh… peanut butter,” she says. “Peanut butter right out of a jar. Just by the spoonful.” She chuckles ss she explains, “I mean, I don’t remember the last time I ever put peanut butter on bread, but I have found myself with a spoonful of peanut butter in my mouth as I’m looking in the fridge for something to make for dinner.”
“I can get that,” say. “Might be a family thing. Forget the bread. Give me a spoon.”
“You are having a dinner party. You can invite three people. People you know, celebrities, people from history. Alive or dead. Who do you invite? Why? And what do you cook?”
This question takes some thinking and Patty asks if she can ponder it and get back to me. It’s a week later when I receive an email.
“Barbara Walters (she’s interesting, and has met so many people), Gandhi (I mean, really just to talk to Gandhi!) and Matt Damon. (Come on; he’s Matt Damon!). And my menu would be:
Tomato Caprese Skewers
Navy Bean Humus with Diced Roasted Red Peppers with pita chips, broccoli fleuerettes and carrot coins
Dinner would be Farfalle Pasta with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Mushrooms in Spinach Pesto with Walnuts
Dessert: Fresh fruit parfaits with Cannoli Cream and Amaretto”
Patty shared her recipe for the Spinach Pesto she’d make for Matt (and the other two guests. But mostly for Matt.)
RECIPE:
SPINACH PESTO
(Remember the measurements aren’t exact)
1 lb bag of washed Baby Spinach
¼ Cup Fresh Basil
½ Cup Grated Parmesan Reggiano Cheese
3 – 4 Cloves Garlic, minced finely
½ Cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil (add slowly, mixture should be a smooth paste, not too liquid)
Place the first four ingredients in a food processor and pulse to combine. Slowly drizzled EVOO until desired consistency. When adding to the pasta save a little of the pasta water to loosen the pesto.