My grandfather came to the United
States from Biella which is in the Piedmont region of Italy. He was
a chef who worked in the Catskills in the summer, and Miami Beach in
the winter. He came alone, and then sent for my grandmother and their
two sons. My mother was the first one to be born in the US. That was
April of 1901. My grandparents finally had a family with ten children.
They lived in New York.
When my mother met my father, she
was working as a floor clerk for the old Waldorf Astoria. While there
she met Eamon de Valera who gifted her with a gold compact, a gift that
I inherited and still possess. At the time, de Valera was raising money
for Irish independence, but, he went on to be the President of Ireland
until his 91st year. I was born in Manhattan, brought up on Staten Island
and the Bronx. I moved to Florida, where I now live, in the 1970's.
My mother and father divorced and
she became a career woman, so she was not much of a cook. She worked
for John-Frederics, the hat designer and for Schapparelli Parfums, and
finally for House of Hollywood, a company that became Sally Hansen.
When I was young she would send me to the butcher. She would stress
that I get a cleaned and eviscerated chicken or turkey. Yet every year
at Thanksgiving, she would forget to take out the bag with the gizzards
in it, and she'd cook the bird, bag and all. It became a family joke.
She always forgot to take it out.
I learned how to cook from my aunt
'Bina.' Albina married an Italian from south Italy. She learned to make
sauce from her mother-in-law and when we grew up she taught us. I think
I turned out to be a good cook. My daughter also likes to cook, as do
many of my cousins. I guess it's an inherited talent that we got from
my grandfather.
My favorite of the recipes I learned,
is Bolognese sauce. I call it Bolognese because it is loaded with meat.
A true Bolognese is meat with some tomato. I've never been a real fan
of marinara sauce which is basically tomato with some meat.
The food of the Piedmont area is
very French. It is heavily wine based, with alfredo sauces. Garlic,
of course. No tomatoes. Perhaps that's why I don't love marinara sauce.
get
to know Helen
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