Bumping into God in the Kitchen: Savory Stories of Food, Family, and Faith

bumping into

god

in the

kitchen Savory Stories of Food, Family, and Faith

Fr. Dominic Grassi

Contents Acknowledgments Introduction

xi xiii

Antipasto

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Quick Pickled Peppers Mom’s Egg Balls My Own Sausage and Peppers My Own Tomato-and-Bread Salad Sunday Pasta Common Senses Dandelion Wine Comfort Food Pizza Day The Guest List The “Ordeal of Food” The Importance of Leftovers

4 6 8 10 13 19 24 29 34 38 43 48

F i r s t C o u rse Jerry’s “Award-Winning” Bread 56 My Own (Cheating) Tomato Sauce with Neck Bones 58 Mom’s Pizza Pie 61 vii

viii Contents

9 10 11 12 13 14

Spirit Week To Feed the Hungry Table Manners An Unforgettable Meal The Truth about Eggplant Adaptations

67 72 77 82 87 92

S e c o n d P l a te

15 16 17 18 19 20

My Own Italian Stuffed Pork Chops My Own Garlic Roasted Potatoes Lola’s Chicken Vesuvio My Own Veal Marsala Mom’s Fava Beans Graced by Gumbo Thanksgiving Chickpeas From the Old to the New Cooks, Not Chefs Occupational Hazards Hot Dogs on the Stove

100 102 104 107 110 113 119 123 128 133 138

D es s e r t My Own Lemon Ice Dessert My Own Macedonia My Own Mock Spumoni You-Don’t-Have-to-Do-It-All Dessert

148 150 152 154

Contents ix

21 22 23 24 25 26

The Honor Guard Seduced in Tuscany A Village Celebration The Art of Grocery Shopping An Italian Kitchen Reflections from the Eternal City

155 161 167 173 179 184

Afterword

189

24

The Art of G r o cery Shopping

G

oing grocery shopping should feel not like a burden or a chore, but more like that first step in extending our love, and therefore God’s love, to others.

I learned this lesson from shopping with my mom.

When she was a child, food was never plentiful in her home, a poor household in a small village. As a young girl, she developed Mediterranean anemia and went to live on a farm, where she was exposed to a whole new world of fresh eggs, off-the-vine vegetables, rabbit, pork, and so much more. She learned to appreciate what food could do to strengthen the body, and she also learned the marvelous recipes of the countryside, prepared in the Contadina style of southern Italy, with its subtle use of everyday foodstuffs and its philosophy of sharing abundance with others.

173

174 Dessert

It was her luck to come to America and ultimately marry a man with a grocery store. During the war years, however, the store was not a moneymaking venture.

Many commodities were rationed then, and some profit could be made by selling these on the black market, but Dad refused to do that. So Mom was careful in what she brought home from the store to feed her family, especially when that family grew to four ­always-­hungry sons. She never wanted customers or other family members to think our family was literally eating up the profits. At the same time, she could never be seen shopping in a store owned by the competition, such as A&P. Her Friday-­afternoon shopping was done quickly and carefully and, I am sure, with no little frustration on her part. The worst-case scenario had me running up the alley to the little corner store where hardly anyone shopped to pick up a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk. When Mom learned that stores such as Goldblatt’s often carried bulk items, she would purchase them and store them away, and no one would be the wiser for it.

After Dad retired, he and Mom would go shopping together at the formerly despised competition. Now Mom had to wait for Dad to decide if whatever she needed was a good price. He would pick out cheaper cuts of meats than she would have preferred. It took her a while to train

The Art of Grocery Shopping 175

him to think differently. Eventually he understood that unless she had what she needed she could not effectively feed the family, now grown to include ­daughters-in-law and grandchildren, at Sunday pasta. We kids would make it easier by bringing the dessert or taking everyone out for ice cream after the dishes were done.

As Dad slowed down, one of us would take Mom shopping. But she was always in a rush, because she had to get home quickly to take care of him. In his mellowed old age he would watch us unpack all the bags with a sense of pride that he could still be the provider for his family.

After Dad died and before Mom sold the house, Sunday pasta was still a family tradition. By now, my two Scandinavian ­sisters-in-law had become excellent Italian cooks and would help Mom with the meal. One of my brothers or I would come to her house during the week for a visit, and we’d ask Mom if she needed to go to the store. She would always preface her affirmative response by asking if it wasn’t any bother to take her and assuring us that she needed only a few items. And off we’d go. The few items inevitably became six or eight bags. She always needed to stock up—especially in the winter, in case we couldn’t make it to her house to take her shopping. But it became clear to me that late in her life she could finally enjoy buying what she wanted and as much of it as she

176 Dessert

wanted, and in that way she would always have enough to cook—not for herself, but to share with others.

Our shopping styles weren’t necessarily compatible.

I liked to shop methodically, up and down each aisle, checking everything out, making sure I didn’t forget anything and doing a little bit of impulse buying at the same time. Mom, on the other hand, was a recipe shopper.

She knew what she needed for the meals she was planning to fix and would shop meal by meal, which meant a lot of backtracking and walking around today’s large supermarkets. Sometimes we would hit the same department, such as canned vegetables, three or four times. She would end her shopping with a list of non-meal-­related items that we would split up and hunt down separately.

This sort of backtracking and wandering around led to a lot of impulse buying on her part, which she thoroughly enjoyed. Even then, she was shrewd enough to buy, even on sale, only those items she would use.

Our shopping trips continued for a while when she moved into a newly built senior residence. It was odd to smell the aromas of her home cooking wafting down the hallway of what looked like a swank hotel. She always made enough to share with the new friends she made there, so there was still shopping for us to do. As she grew older, she cooked less. More and more, we would

The Art of Grocery Shopping 177

go down to the dining room for lunch or dinner. I can’t count the number of times she introduced me to the other residents as her priest son and the baby of the family—a 250-pound, gray-­bearded baby.

My brother’s families kept the tradition of Sunday pasta going, and we promised we would continue it after Mom died. But grandchildren now have children of their own, and people work on Sundays, and Dad and Mom, the glue that held us together, are gone. So our getting together is much less frequent and strangely more special, even as I look back on how joyful all those Sundays with the folks were. Sometimes, truth be told, we’ll gather on a Sunday for an all-American barbecue, without a rigatoni or a mostaccioli in sight.

Mom’s relationship to food and cooking has left us with a rich inheritance. One of the greatest joys of my life is sharing a meal with friends and family, from the catching up over antipasto to the storytelling and reminiscing over dessert. And now I find myself shopping with wild abandon, as Mom finally was able to do. I have found that shopping is the beginning of a long and beautiful ritual of sharing. Nowhere in this process can there be any holding back or scrimping. From the shopping to the preparation, I feel anticipation for what is to come and profound happiness in making it all happen.

178 Dessert

So you’d better watch out for me if you see me in a grocery store. And it would be smart to get out of my way.

I’m a man on a mission.

$12.95 U.S.

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kitchen

ISBN-10: 0-8294-1618-8 ISBN-13: 978-0-8294-1618-3

in the

Fr. Dominic Grassi, a lifelong Chicagoan, was ordained in 1973 and has been a pastor, a teacher, a counselor, a coach, a retreat and vocation director, an inspirational speaker, an editor, and a writer. His books include Bumping into God, Bumping into God Again, and Still Called by Name (Loyola Press).

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Within these pages, Grassi shares special memories of hot fudge sundaes, homemade pizza, chickpeas, Italian wedding soup, and many other dishes—always reminding the reader of the precious gift we receive when we share food in fellowship. Knowing that reading about food can make a person hungry, Grassi also serves up sixteen of his favorite recipes, from antipasto to dessert. The cuisine? Italian, of course. “After all,” Grassi proudly writes, “it was an Italian who invented the fork.”

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ot every author can tastefully combine topics like God’s unconditional love and tomato sauce, but Fr. Dominic Grassi has managed to do so with aplomb.

All of his literary, culinary, and pastoral talents are on display in this collection of entertaining and inspiring stories centered on food and the gifts of God’s amazing grace.

bumping

You’re invited to the table

Grassi

Religion/Catholic

bumping into

god

in the

kitchen Savory Stories of Food, Family, and Faith

Fr. Dominic Grassi