5:30 Dinner

I associate food with love which is pretty common for people who grew up around the table. My fondest childhood memories were spent around a dinner table in Richmond Hill, NY. Grandma worked all day long at Miller Tube Corp. Mom worked for a law firm in Manhattan,and Grandpa spent the day at home on the front stoop of 89-15 104 St. He watched the day go by, and at 2:15 made his way to Holy Child Jesus to walk me home from school. Once we got home Grandpa started dinner. Sometimes it was roasted chicken with lemon and rosemary. My mom always said she could smell the food permeating from our house once she stepped off the train, especially on days when he made the lemon chicken. My favorite was "egg pie", also known as, fritatta. The way he would saute the peppers, onions and garlic filled the house with such wonderful aroma. Next he would ad the potatoes then eggs and cheese. This dish was best made in the heavy, yellow iron fry pan. That pan now resides in my dining room shelf. It's part of our Santoro family history. My mom and Grandma would be home by 5pm and we would all sit around the dinner table at 5:30 every evening and eat. Day after day we did this. Dinner was ALWAYS at 5:30 and you better be there or it was considered disrespectful. Italian Catholics are good at making you feel guilty. After dinner Grandma would clean up the huge mess Grandpa made in the kitchen. Grandpa would get ready for work. He was a musician and played in many bars all over Brooklyn and Manhattan. Over the years many things changed in our lives. We all picked up and moved to Texas in 1991. I turned into a bratty teenager. My Mom got married to a man that tore our relationship apart. But, one thing remained constant through that entire time; dinner at 5:30.
Every night when I cook dinner. I think back to those days spent in the basement kitchen in Queens. The smells of love and the warmth of family. The importance of coming together once a day to connect and listen. Take sometime and enjoy a meal.


I made this "egg pie" on Sunday morning. You would have been proud, Poppy.