Pots and Pans Can Inspire Dreams #1

I was sitting here looking at and thinking about all kinds of pots & pans, what they can do, recipes and wines. While I was looking at an old cast iron pot and thinking about the wine my mind suddenly transported me back to when I was a little boy and watching my gramma cooking for everyone in huge pots and big frying pans.

I was being brought up in an old Sicilian neighborhood on the near north side of Chicago at that time. My grandparents had a big apartment building which also housed their super market. Their apartment was on the first floor behind the super market and we lived in one of the apartments up stairs. My grandfather used to make wine in one of the really big basements where he had his winery. I would watch as he and his friends would all be turning a huge wheel to mash the grapes and I could see the juice coming down a trough into a huge wine cask. I still remember along a long hall which was lined with a long line of wine casks stacked three high all filled with aging wine. The scent of fermenting wine was overpowering. What a site.

On Sundays, the whole family and some close friends would all be together by my grandparents and my grandma would be making tons of pasta and sauce in huge pots & pans. She would also have meatballs, Italian Sausage, sliced Braccioli and a huge platter of fresh Italian Salad. Sometimes Gramma would fry, in an old huge cast iron frying pan, a really large amount of unbattered calamari in oil and lemon and oregano. It was to die for. The adults would be in the big dining room and the kids would be in the adjoining (old) kitchen at our own table. On all the tables there would be big cakes of Romano Cheese and cheese graters all over. When we would all be sitting down my grandpa would come and pour all of us a glass of wine. He said it was healthy, good for the blood and the heart. Of course at that age we would have rather had cola instead. But he said no cola until we drank our wine. And after dinner we would have homemade Canoli or Grenita (lemon ice).

What a wonderful era that was. We were all so happy, dressed up in our Sunday best with all the people I loved and who loved each other so much with everyone laughing happily and me being able to giggle and play with all my cousins. The boys sometimes had to sit on apple crates because there weren't enough chairs for everyone who came uninvited which in those days was an honor. The apples crates were gotten form the supermarket stock room but once again, for us it was normal. That's how everything was in the old neighborhoods. Too bad I had to snap back to the present.

Us kids would go out on the side of the building and play. I will always remember My cousins and I would slide down the fender of my granpa's new Buick limo. My father wanted to kill me but my grampa would stop him and tell him, " That'sa what the car was for." he would sit and watch us play with that expensive car and just smile because it made him so happy. That is probably why I don't remember who cleaned all those tons of pots & pans, dishes, silverware, all the platters and everything else my grandma used to create this feast. Of course, we never thought of it as a feast. This was just a normal Sunday at Gramma and Grampa's.

Come and see us at http://www.houseofpans.com.