Worry about the calories on some other day. Today, allow yourself the slight indulgence of a trip to Pennsylvania’s Amish country.

Italy represents that symbiotic relationship between the land and humankind at the most profound level. 

It’s not a meatball at all. It’s a story. It’s a method. It is a profile in heritage. It is pride.

Italian life… meanders around your heart until you and your heart are ready to commit to its pace…

Yes, this is a blog about food, but more precisely about how food and memory combine to illuminate moments of joy and sorrow, communion and separation, family and friendship - all parts of the foundation that makes us who we are. There is a universality in food that allows our respective humanities to bump into each other. I truly believe these bumps will propel us forward to a place where we plainly see our union. Our cultural histories express themselves in food and ultimately become deliciously entwined. Those who loved us or cared for us fed us - whether we had too little or plenty. Yet food is not only about sustenance, it is also about pleasure and connection.

Garlic has a singular love/hate relationship with Italians.

I could write about hundreds of recipes that revolve around eggs, and perhaps I eventually will, but since Thom and I like to focus on food as it relates to memory, the recipe I will start with is one for Zucchini Squares. My Nana (the above mentioned grandmother) made Zucchini Squares for us for years. I don’t know where the recipe came from, but I assume she either clipped it from the newspaper as we did before the internet, or got it from the back of the box of Bisquick she used to make them.

With the slightest bit of extra effort, you can make a sauce that is a million times more delicious and fresh tasting. So just put down that jar of anything to watery masquerading as ragù or anything named after the Italian word for “you’re welcome”. You’re better than that.