It's Copacetic Everything's Jake: Cooking....

My sister Lisa gave me a new cookbook in early April, she gave me lots of books in early April. One was a crafting book, a few English\Irish crimes, two books on cupcakes and sooooo many more (she works in publishing ... books are her life). I thanked her for them all and told her how much they helped me get through one of the worst times in my life. But they didn't because I never opened one of them.... well that's a lie I opened all of them but I never read a line, or saw a cupcake, because I was dying, not literally but mentally. Well, hello, April to August ....I am alive and kicking and I found this at the bottom of my pile of unopened bon appetit magazines the other night! This is the Italian Cookbook Lisa gave me in April.... at first I couldn't figure out where it came from and then I remembered Lisa's book therapy.....Dare I say .... Oh My God!

I just sat there and flipped through the pages for an hour and put little book marks on things I want to try or ideas certain things gave me. This book is brilliant and it stunned me that I couldn't even look at it in April and now I can't put it down. I called her and thanked her, she reminded me that I already had in April, and then I confessed I had never opened it.

My love of cooking began long ago in a galaxy far, far, away.... I was eight years old and my mom was very, very pregnant with my brother Carl. She asked me if I would cook dinner one night because she could not negotiate around her belly. She walked me through the steps of "tuna casserole" and I felt like a master chef. My father proclaimed "this was the best tuna casserole my mother had ever made" and the eight year old me believed him.... mother explained I did it and oh how he praised me. Don't ever underestimate what words can mean to an eight year old. It's powerful stuff.....

At the age of 23 I was married and living in Sicily. (Not the smartest thing I've ever done, but I've made some bigger mistakes in my 48 years.) My first husband was in the Navy and so I moved to Sicily to be with him. Honestly looking back there was a lot of good, but so much bad too. If I close my eyes I can still smell Sicily. Roasted artichokes on charcoal, foods that smelled so good. There was also the road kill .... dead dogs that nobody came and moved ... they just stayed there until they finally dissolved. There were certain parts of the road you just learned to hold your breath when you drove through. In Sicily our closest friends were another American and his Sicilian wife. She was just as inspirational as the tuna casserole of my childhood. This girl could cook. She taught me to mix tomato with garlic and olive oil, salt and red pepper flakes, and just the right amount of cream to make the most amazing pink sauce. When ever I would ask how much of something she would say "till it's this color" my notes were full of things like "add enough cream until it is the color of, and then I would name a color. It was a great lesson to me because I don't follow a recipes most of the time I just cook and add what I think will make something taste good. I may follow a recipe once but then the next time I just do it and figure as I go. Of course this would never work with baking, because there is science involved with the amount of yeast it takes to make bread rise .... I think that is why I don't like to bake as much as cook. I remember one night we were all drunk, except for Alasandra, who didn't drink much... and we were drunk hungry, and she went into my food supply which was supplied by the American base and not the Italian market and with a can of peas an onion and some dried pasta, she made the most amazing dish I ever had. She gave me cigarettes, when I wasn't allowed to have them and I will always love her for that. That and her cooking lessons are precious to me.

For a while recently I thought I would never find the joy in cooking again... I thought that the love I had in that creative process was gone ... but I think it is even stronger now. I am so free and so happy that I think I am going beyond what I thought I was capable of. I have more confidence in myself and my abilities....I just hope I don't fall flat on my face at my first catering job...cause then I will have to eat these words...

I just made myself lunch.....I picked some of the lettuce that I grew in pots, some of my herbs and a few nasturtium and made a simple salad and dressing.