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Italian wizardry in the kitchenby Brenda Klauss My mother is a great cook. My friends love being invited to her house for dinner. My best friend, whom I've known since I was 5, lives for my mother's chocolate chip cookies. Growing up, whenever she came to visit, my mother always made chocolate chip cookies for her. My mother even carried a box of her cookies on a 3 hour flight to deliver them to my friend. Two and a half years ago my mother catered my baby shower. My friends could not believe she did all the food (which was beautiful and delicious) herself. They asked her why she didn't do this for a living. My mother is the master of winging it. It's difficult for me to get a recipe from her for one of her dishes. "Well, it's a little of this, and that. I'll have to show you," she says. One memory I have of this is her meatballs. When I was first married I wanted to impress my husband with the amazing Italian meatballs my mother made and at the same time show him I inherited some of that Italian wizardry of cooking. So I called my mother. "I can't tell you," she said, "I have to show you." WHAT!? I thought. So much for making the meatballs that night. So we planned for her to come over that Saturday for my meatball cooking lesson. She added this, and that, mixed, squished it up with her hands. I was standing by, furiously taking notes. "How much do you think that is, a tablespoon of parsley mom?" "Well, yeah, it should look like this much," she said. Why is this so difficult I wondered?!! We ate meatballs that night, and they were the best! A few weeks later I decided to try meatball making solo. I found my notes, I mixed and squished and cooked them in a pan. It was a disaster! My meatballs didn't even resemble meatballs. It was a pan of ground meat. I thought to myself, Ohhhh, I have a long way to go in the field of cooking! Our next cooking lesson is going to be Neapolitans. She's going to "show" me how to make them. We're hoping to do it soon. I will be armed with my notepad. Maybe I should bring a tape recorder too!? About Brenda: Brenda is currently a stay-at-home mom with two small children. When not taking care of their needs, she attends classes that will take her to her ultimate goal of being an Occupational Therapist. She has promised that she will not be defeated by a meatball.
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