Dad cooks for us every night.

Chicken, broccoli, and ziti, chicken parm, string beans, steak, rice, mashed potatoes, home fries, clam chowder, and my personal favorite, spaghetti and meatballs.

These are just some of the recipes he can whip together in an hour or two.

The smells and tastes that will always stay with me.

Let's talk about my favorite and his specialty:

Homemade sauce.

Or gravy, whatever you call it.

He chops up the onions, garlic, basil, and lets the sauce cook all day to perfection.

The aroma fills the entire house and reassures me that I am home and that I am safe.

The smells and tastes that will always stay with me.

Honestly, though. How lucky am I do have a home-cooked meal every night with my mom and dad?

People usually think that the mothers cook the food but my dad does.

Mom still knows how to cook, he just likes doing it.

He even makes the spaghetti from scratch.

He uses this cheap little plastic pasta maker, but it still does the trick.

You wouldn't know that it was falling apart when you're spiraling the noodles in your fork.

A real Italian household.

The smells and tastes that will always stay with me.

The meatballs aren't as good as Nana's, but none will ever be!

He rolls the meat into balls and throws them into the sauce to cook for hours on hours.

He could most definitely make them in an hour, but he wants the smells to travel throughout the house and for the food to cook to perfection.

Finally, the food is done!

We all sit down at the table and eat.

Thank you, Dad.

These are the smells and tastes that will always stay with me.