While my marinara differs from Clemenza’s and most traditional Italian recipes, it has evolved over the last twenty years into a flavor that is woven into the proverbial fabric of my kitchen. I like the sweetness that the onions and carrots give to the acidic tomatoes and wine. I have made this sauce without the wine just to meet comments that my sauce tasted less delicious.
I have always loved gingerbread cookies and over the past twenty years have tried several different recipes for my Christmas cookie bags. This is a lovingly adapted recipe from the now defunct Gourmet Magazine. It is the best that I have stumbled upon in terms of the balance of the spices and the degree of fluffiness. It is also a very forgiving dough…so you can mess up and re-roll it several times which is great for toddlers.
These are not the meatballs of my childhood. But these are the meatballs of my son’s childhood. And that is the whole point of this food blog…to preserve the flavors of my son’s childhood so that he can replicate them in the future so that these flavored memories are not lost.
Chicken and dumplings are a southern staple. I have heard fairy tales of my grandmother’s famed chicken and dumplings that were as light as air since I was a child. Of course, no one ever wrote the recipe down or taught the next generation to make the angelic dumplings. So, here I am almost seventy years later trying to recreate the flavors of my mother’s childhood.
