My first real food memories where in my grandmother’s kitchen. Three days before Christmas I’d stay over her house while she cooked a 12-course feast for our Holy Super that took place on Christmas Eve. It was a Polish tradition called a <a href=”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigilia” target=”_blank”>Wigilia</a>. For days she made cabbage soup, pirogies, sautéed potatoes, borscht, stuffed cabbage and a host of other simple, completely vegetarian dishes. They were vegetarian because the tradition was that the food at your wigilia was based on the food your ancestors could provide from their farms, so, I guess my ancestors were vegetable farmers. The cabbage rolls, traditionally stuffed with a mixture of ground beef or pork with rice, were instead stuffed with whole buckwheat and rice.

I loved being my grandmothers kitchen assistant, doing simple tasks like rolling out dough, adding ingredients to a pot and stirring things while they sizzled and simmered away, filling her entire house with the fragrance of pungent onions and garlic. For Easter I would help her make sweet coconut “eggs” covered with dark chocolate. And on many occasions when we’d be invited over for a roast-beef dinner, I’d be in the kitchen helping her out. When I became taller than the stove, she taught me how to make my favorite breakfast that she’d always make for me: French Toast. I was so tickled that I could actually make something myself, something I loved to eat. And of course I started to alter that simple recipe to my liking. I added a bit more vanilla extract to the egg and milk mixture, and decided to put some cinnamon in there, too.

I didn’t do a lot of cooking as I progressed through my teenage years,  but then at 20 I moved to New York City. So many amazing restaurants…that I couldn’t afford to eat in. So, I started to cook. Simple things, like casseroles that my mom had made. A year later I met my husband, Sean, who soon after introduced me to his two good friends, Ralph and Ken, duo-pianists that he managed and who toured the world. The first time they invited me over for dinner to their apartment on Park Avenue, it was the day before Halloween, so Ken served a wonderful chicken curry baked in a whole pumpkin! I had never seen anything like it. It was so creative and such imaginative presentation. But the pumpkin wasn’t just for show, we also ate it. Ken carved pieces off that were served with the curry. Ralph’s specialty was dessert, and he made some of the most ambitious things I’ve ever seen at the time.

By Cooking