Six.

I remember my grandmother roasting a goose and then dressing gnocci with the drippings and parmigiano cheese. I was 13 when she made this for lunch one day and I remember the smell and the flavour of that meal as it it were yesterday. It is the standard that I have held all other meals to since. The goose was one that she had raised herself and she rolled the gnocci while it was roasting in the oven. She grated the cheese, which she always kept at room temperature and never in the fridge, just before we ate. Each flavour in the meal presented itself proudly and then stepped back to allow another one to take centre stage. There was no confusion, no jumble of spices. Everything she put in that meal was grown or raised by her and she didn't smother anything or try to make it something it wasn't. The meal was simple, fresh and outstanding.

For years as a young adult I always ordered gnocci if I went to a restaurant that served them but I no longer do. I have never found any that have even come close to my grandmother's and they only remind me that I will never taste anything like that meal again. My mom's are soft, light and delicious; she serves them with roasted rabbit stew. In the summer she makes gnocci with butternut squash instead of potatoes and serves them with pesto. But they are different. I make them often but they are different again, each person's gnocci are unique to them, and I know one day I will pine for my mother's as much as I pine for my grandmother's today.

Five.

How can you tell an Italian lives somewhere? There are always geraniums, a fig tree and at least a few tomato plants.


When friends decided to get rid of this fountain we thought it would fit in our garden perfectly. It doesn't quite mask the sound of Commercial Drive traffic and delivery trucks backing up - beep, beep, beep - but it does offer the illusion of serenity in the city.



3 Little Eggs


Matt and I found this nest abandoned one day when we were working on the river. Matt said he'd noticed it empty months ago so we knew we weren't stealing someone's home when we decided to take it. I painted three small rocks to put in it and it lays cradled in our flowering currant tree.

Now if only the crows would leave the painted rocks alone.

Four.

My grandmother planted begonias around a pond in her yard every year. She liked that they flowered all summer long and bloomed in the shade. So in the Spring I plant begonias and red geraniums by the front door. Every time I glance at them as I walk in or out of the front door, I think of her.

Three.

I love napkins. And tablecloths. I can’t help it, I love all table linens ironed and matching and sitting clean and ready for duty on a table. The right tablecloth makes me want to pull out my best dishes and glasses, set the table prettily and create something suitable to serve for dinner.

Last night at dinner my mom laid the table with a tablecloth and napkins my grandmother had embroidered. I exclaimed when I saw them and running my fingers over the cloth lightly told her again how beautiful I thought they were. Those are your genes at work, she said, laughing. Her tablecloths are always printed or embroidered with brightly coloured flowers.

My favourite linens are the ones I remember from my childhood. Napkins and napkin holders with little clasps my mom made and embroidered each of our names onto, a set of white napkins printed with tiny yellow flowers she fashioned into a tablecloth by binding them with detailed crochet work, heavy cotton linens. I have one of her old, worn tablecloths and use it to wrap the lettuce in after I’ve washed it.

I still use tablecloths and cloth napkins at home. And I still like ironing them and all my tea towels while I am watching TV in the evening. There’s something about that stack of linens piling up sharply folded and smelling of clean and steam that satisfies me. When the pile is done I bring it downstairs to the kitchen so I can put everything away in the linen drawer first thing in the morning. Then I’m ready for bed.

Two.

Today is my mom’s birthday and for some reason I am brought to mind the day when she was cleaning up after breakfast in my grandmother’s kitchen. I could hear them putting things away and talking about the involved garbage disposal and recycling system the city demanded. Then I heard my grandmother say the cafetiera was on the wrong shelf.
“But it’s always on this shelf”
“No it’s not. It belongs here”
“OK mamma, I’ll put it there”
There was a purposeful show of tolerance in my mom’s voice that I had heard before. Silence followed for a while and then a quiet scrape and immediately afterward my mother walked quickly out of the kitchen and into the bedroom to dress for the day.

When I asked her later what happened she told me that she moved the cafetiera, even though she had seen it on the other shelf, had always seen it on the other shelf every time she had come to visit. She moved it to the other shelf and as soon as she turned her back to continue drying dishes, her mother, still unsatisfied, leaned over and slid it an almost imperceptible amount to the left.

“She can’t let me do anything without correcting it a little”.
“Uh huh” I responded, smiling. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It was a bit of a revelation to see my mother in the same position I had been in so many times and I was enjoying seeing her in the other role.
“What”? Mom asked, “I’m not like that”!
“Of course not, and I’m not either”.
I thought about all the times I tried to get my husband to see why my system in the kitchen was so important. Or why it mattered so much that the laundry was done in a certain way.

I finally got why I loved order so much.

A couple of days ago my mom and I picked up my sister for some sushi. While we waited for Lisa to get her purse I could see my mom looking at a calla lily and fern arrangement my sister had put together. “Those don’t belong there” I heard her say to herself. She removed two thirds of the fern leaves from the arrangement and then shifted the lilies around a little. Stepping back she reviewed her work with a little grunt of satisfaction and then walked to the kitchen to throw away the stems she had removed.

"Uh huh" I thought again, "you're not like that at all".

Happy Birthday Mamma!

One.

My grandmother died almost three years ago now, but I still think about her all the time. I don’t talk about her a lot, the reality being that I only saw her a handful of times. She lived in Italy and I live in Canada.

When my parents immigrated in 1965 it was still prohibitively expensive to make phone calls to Europe, let alone visit. After 8 years we returned as a family for a summer, and then she came to Vancouver twice, with my grandfather. But after he died she didn’t want to travel alone. We went back again when my mother remarried to meet my stepfather's family who lived close by, in the mountains. After that I didn’t see her for over 20 years. In 2006 my mother and I made a trip together and I was able to sit down as an adult and talk with my grandmother for the first time. That was the last time I saw her.

So it may seem from my limited exposure to her that she would have had a very slight influence on my life. Luckily, the opposite is true. From the time I can remember, my mother, stunned by homesickness and an inability to understand this new country and its ways, soothed us, and herself, with stories of food prepared the same way for generations, life on a multi-generational farm, and her mother. While bathing us or cleaning up after dinner she painted a vivid portrait of my grandmother’s character, and what it was like growing up poor in post-war Italy. Over the years, my mother’s own experiences gave her further insight into her mother’s decisions and choices, and the portrait she drew for us developed further. Throughout my childhood and young adulthood my mother poured into my ears a detailed history to compliment the genes she placed in my body.

The trip I took with her in 2006 was an attempt to satisfy my burgeoning questions about destiny and obligation. I had rebelled wildly in my early 20’s, so was confused to find myself in my late 30’s growing into a person I didn’t understand but recognized only too well. By chasing the strong and demanding blood-thread that ran through my body back past my teenage years to my mother, and back again (restlessly tapping through a continental flight) to my grandmother’s kitchen table, I began to learn about myself.

I find myself wanting to live up to the women who came before me and to connect with them in a significant way every single day. I know my grandmother lives within me. I recognize her in how I arrange my dishes and how I refuse to grate the cheese until the pasta is cooking. I hope to learn even more about who she was. I hope to take this intangible thing that binds my mother, my grandmother and me together, and to bring it into the light.