My favorite meal of the year is on Christmas Eve; being Italians that hail from Naples we eat what is known as, Festa dei sette Peci or the feast of seven fishes. If your family isn’t southern Italian most likely you’ve never heard of it. It’s one of those traditions that date back to the old country, and unfortunately is dying off, but I’m lucky enough to have grown up with this tradition. But what makes this meal special to me isn’t just the delicious seafood, and trust me if my family isn’t going to have more than 7 in there, Its one of a few times now in days that my family and I will get together and cook.
My family, I like to think is like a Oceans 11 of the kitchen. When we get together to cook we all have our specialty. My mom is the George Clooney character, the leader that puts the whole thing together. She picks up the fish from the market, which she orders weeks in advance, and starts the gravy (pasta sauce), gets the table ready for the family and has everything set up so when we start we can do everything as quickly and efficiently as possible. To say, my mom's a badass organizer is an understatement. Next, comes my mom’s right-hand man, my grandmother. She has the important job of finishing the gravy, which I can assure you is an all day event, and along with that the most important part is the pasta. Usually spaghetti, it’s a base to the meal the same way rice is used throughout Asia. Next, comes my grandfather who works on the muscles and clams and usually a white fish, and any other fish he got for a bargain at Costco or the fish market. Then comes my job, the fry guy. I’m in charge of the calamari, eel, and if we're lucky enough to get it, soft shell crab. When all of this comes together it’s an incredible spread. Friends who have been lucky enough to be invited to this meal usually marvel at how much food is there. It’s a feast in every way; I usually don’t eat the entire day to save room for the meal. This is the way my Christmas Eve has gone since I can remember, and before I was old enough to cook, I was still there in the kitchen. Watching and observing, stirring the pot while they held me up.
The Nucleus in my house wasn’t the living room it was always the kitchen. Cooking for me was an important time because it was that one time a day my family and I would get together and do something as a family. Growing up no matter what would happen during the day, my family kitchen was this warm inviting place where for at least a little bit everything at the end of the day would be okay. I learned so much in that kitchen, how my grandparents met in the Bronx. Stories about my Nonna, (great grandmother) and how she immigrated to the US from a small village in Naples. I learned how to spot good mozzarella cheese, and if you're going to buy it make sure it's in the water, and the water has to be salted otherwise it'll be tasteless. I learned that my grandfather used to sell peanuts outside the Bronx zoo, how to make pasta in the perfect Al-Dente Style, and how to crack open a crab to get the most meat out of it.
I didn’t realize how lucky I was until I got to college. Besides eating sub-par food every day, I knew I missed my family because everyday around 5:30 as if almost a Pavlovian response I would ache for the smell of my family’s kitchen, the smell of tomato sauce cooking to be turned into gravy. The smell of olive oil in a pan heating up with garlic in it, it’s these things that even as I cook in my apartment I still feel like I’m there, with my family, and no matter how much time will pass, when I have kids one day, teaching them to cook the way my family taught me, I know they all will be always there with me, and for that I'll always be thankful, thankful that they taught me how to cook.
