My First Food Memory

Almost every Sunday morning as a kid I would wake up to the smell of garlic wafting through the house. The aroma tickling my nostrils was an indication that it was time to get up, get dressed and get a piece of bread. This has always been the best alarm clock I have ever known.

My mom prepared tomato sauce early in the morning with the intent of getting us to church for 10:30 mass. She started cooking around 8 in the morning. Occasionally after the garlic, the sizzle of either meatballs or short ribs would skip through the house. Eventually the tomatoes would hit the saucepan and then assault on the sauce would begin. When my mom wasn’t looking, I (and my siblings too) would grab a piece of bread and dip it into the sauce. This was the Sunday morning breakfast of champions! My mom would convince me to have cereal and milk or something else but I was content to have pieces of saucy bread for breakfast.

Then my mom, my siblings and I would head off to church. The idea was that mass would be done around noon. At that point my dad would start boiling the water for the pasta so that by the time we came home, we could eat Sunday lunch. Or at least by the time we got home we could make the big decision of which pasta (shape) we wanted. Every week we rotated…so the decision could be made before church or whenever we got home depending on whose week it was to decide on the pasta.

Honestly the weekends were always about food in some way. On Saturdays my dad would take a drive up to little Italy in the Bronx. He would go for some hardware or supplies he needed for work. On his way back into the city, he’d pass by Arthur Avenue and get some warm rustic bread, a fresh mozzarella and a number of other delicacies. We would wait in anticipation of his arrival with the yummy and delicious mozzarella that dripped fresh milk onto the warm bread. At times my excitement for seeing the mozzarella far surpassed the excitement I should have had for my dad’s return (sorry pop!).

Occasionally my dad would bring home a big piece of prosciutto that we would cut and put in a mozzarella and tomato sandwich (all with the warm bread!). Or he would bring home spicy olives and I would pick my way through the container. It was a glorious feast!

This is what always comes to mind when I think of my first food memory – food during the weekend as a kid. And to this day there still is nothing as satisfying as that lovely mozzarella from the Bronx and a nice piece of bread to accompany it…or a piece of bread dipped in sauce.