For instance, we’re both emotional people, easily moved to tears be they of joy, sadness, empathy or just feeling. But I wasn’t always like that. Where I used to roll my teenage eyes at her habit of tearing up during sappy TV commercials, I’m now notorious for the same thing, and if it involves a dog well then you can just forget it. I also have a similar style of diction, especially when I lose my patience. When I say, “let me tell you something” I can hear myself in one ear and her in the other. We like the same perfume, we gravitate towards the same types of people, but most significantly of all, we take the same approach to food.
Everything I know and everything I feel about food and eating is somehow inspired by her. Beginning with the no thank you portions of my childhood, I was taught to always be grateful for the food put in front of me, and to put your best dish forward for guests. Likely a function of being the oldest of seven kids, she will always buy too much, especially for parties, as it's "better to have too much than not enough", a philosophy I've adopted that runs up my credit card bill but leaves me at peace, even if I am eating leftovers for a week. I sweat at the thought of running out of food in front of company.
For my mom, eating is one of life's greatest pleasures. It's most often simple, like the Italian sandwiches she buys for weekend lunches from the refreshingly brusque, perpetually cranky woman at our favorite meat market, who I love visiting when I'm home even though she's never nice to me. Their prosciutto is a thing of beauty. Good, simple meals are some of the best, especially when shared with loved ones.
She also believes wholeheartedly in the occasional all out splurge, which I do my part to encourage. I was raised to believe that if you're gonna eat, if you're gonna spend, you might as well do it big, because the experience is well worth it. Splurging most often coincides with celebrations, but I also come from a family that looks for reasons to celebrate, so there you go.
And she's rubbed off on me in simpler ways, like my habit of stopping to read the menu in the window of every restaurant I pass by, which my boyfriend and friends graciously indulge. This drove me cah-raaaazy when I was little, but here I am, lingering, perusing, just like her. And I have the same maddening reluctance to commit to one restaurant over another when traveling, nagged with fear that I could've had something better. It is torture, and I am trying to chill out.
Other rules of Judy's to live by...I never eat breakfast but I adore brunch, I will happily spend good money for good food but nothing irks me more than overpriced mediocrity, there is always a reason for Champagne, there is also usually a reason for cocktails, order scallops if they're on the menu, cook often and have fun with it, and know that feeding myself well is a simple key to a high quality of life.
One of the only rules I haven't picked up is clean while you cook, but I'm only 24, so I have some time. Overall though, I've learned quite a bit from her influence. Our experience with food shapes our narrative, I think, more than we recognize. I examine my habits and the story they form, and realize how many of them are touched by food. As a necessity, it's woven quietly into the fabric of day to day living, but it has so much impact on our happiness, our memories, ourselves.
I'm lucky to have been raised to embrace food unabashedly and to take great enjoyment in the simplest of provisions. Along with curly hair and big lips, I will most certainly pass this down to my daughter some day, and I hope she's as grateful for it as I am.
Everything I know and everything I feel about food and eating is somehow inspired by her. Beginning with the no thank you portions of my childhood, I was taught to always be grateful for the food put in front of me, and to put your best dish forward for guests. Likely a function of being the oldest of seven kids, she will always buy too much, especially for parties, as it's "better to have too much than not enough", a philosophy I've adopted that runs up my credit card bill but leaves me at peace, even if I am eating leftovers for a week. I sweat at the thought of running out of food in front of company.
For my mom, eating is one of life's greatest pleasures. It's most often simple, like the Italian sandwiches she buys for weekend lunches from the refreshingly brusque, perpetually cranky woman at our favorite meat market, who I love visiting when I'm home even though she's never nice to me. Their prosciutto is a thing of beauty. Good, simple meals are some of the best, especially when shared with loved ones.
She also believes wholeheartedly in the occasional all out splurge, which I do my part to encourage. I was raised to believe that if you're gonna eat, if you're gonna spend, you might as well do it big, because the experience is well worth it. Splurging most often coincides with celebrations, but I also come from a family that looks for reasons to celebrate, so there you go.
And she's rubbed off on me in simpler ways, like my habit of stopping to read the menu in the window of every restaurant I pass by, which my boyfriend and friends graciously indulge. This drove me cah-raaaazy when I was little, but here I am, lingering, perusing, just like her. And I have the same maddening reluctance to commit to one restaurant over another when traveling, nagged with fear that I could've had something better. It is torture, and I am trying to chill out.
Other rules of Judy's to live by...I never eat breakfast but I adore brunch, I will happily spend good money for good food but nothing irks me more than overpriced mediocrity, there is always a reason for Champagne, there is also usually a reason for cocktails, order scallops if they're on the menu, cook often and have fun with it, and know that feeding myself well is a simple key to a high quality of life.
One of the only rules I haven't picked up is clean while you cook, but I'm only 24, so I have some time. Overall though, I've learned quite a bit from her influence. Our experience with food shapes our narrative, I think, more than we recognize. I examine my habits and the story they form, and realize how many of them are touched by food. As a necessity, it's woven quietly into the fabric of day to day living, but it has so much impact on our happiness, our memories, ourselves.
I'm lucky to have been raised to embrace food unabashedly and to take great enjoyment in the simplest of provisions. Along with curly hair and big lips, I will most certainly pass this down to my daughter some day, and I hope she's as grateful for it as I am.
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