Nonna's Cooking
Coming from an Italian family, I grew up on Long Island. Every holiday our family would have the table overflowing with Nonna's famous pastas, lasagnas and custom homemade strombolis and calzones. Her cooking was so good it made every meal special. I never learned to cook because I never had to, Nonna simply took care of everything, I always had enough to eat, even when we had the neighborhood kids over for dinner we would still have left-overs! I remember “Mangia Mangia!” she would always say, you were always too skinny in her eyes! Things changed though when I was accepted into the University of Michigan.
After I settled in at my new dorm, I was excited to finally be out of the house, I loved home but my parents were very protective and I needed some breathing space. There was one big difference about living in a dorm though, and I hadn't realized just how big of a problem it would become. I was starving! I mean I could barely use a microwave! There is only so long you can eat just microwavable ramen noodles! I never thought I would have to cook meals for myself. The first few months at school were great though, I made loads of new friends, and my grades were good, but I still had to do something about my diet. I was living off Starbucks coffee and cheap microwavable food from the dollar store. So one night I called my Nonna, she was so happy to hear from me, she asked all the usual things how is school, what are your friends like, are you sleeping OK and of course are you eating enough! I told her about my situation, and about how much I missed her meals. She was ecstatic to hear my question “Can you teach me how to cook like you?”. So that's what she did, we talked for hours that night and she gave me all the tips and instructions I could possibly write down, the recipes seemed so complicated, but I was determined! After weeks of trying and failing, I burnt the noodles, I forgot ingredients and I messed up a lot, but slowly I got better. It started to taste better each time, I was motivated and I promised my Nonna I would learn her recipes. Soon my roommates were asking me to cook almost every night, I started remembering the recipes by heart and I could cook them with much less effort. I was starting to love to cook! We started having our friends come over and eat with us, it was great and I really felt I had accomplished something. My Nonna was so proud, maybe when I'm her age I can provide those same mind blowing meals she always did. Let's just say I wasn't ever hungry again after those few weeks!
