As I sit at my desk nursing a cheap Chianti hangover through squinty swollen eyes, listening to my brain swoosh to and fro inside my skull, I find myself blurrily deep in thought.  Last night I made spaghetti aglio olio – cheap, quick, and easy.  But damn it was good, and I got to thinking why my favorite dishes were always the ones that were easiest to make and required the least ingredients.

When pondering what it means to cook well my mind takes me to the scene from the movie Castaway where Tom Hanks, after much travail, was able to make fire school using only friction and dry grass.  He then proceeds to maniacally dance around his now mammoth bonfire while grunting The Doors’ Light My Fire.  I had the same feeling when I made my first cheese omelet for my father at the tender age of 9, standing in front of the stove on a Dellwood milk crate that he had brought home from work.  I had created food, amazed that by using only simple commodities like butter, eggs, and cheese I was able to put a smile on someone’s face.

It was at that moment I knew that cooking was my calling.  That Christmas Eve I was allowed to help prepare the feast which, as any Italian-American knows, is no small feat.  There was mussels marinara, giardiniera, frutta di mare, clams oreganata, fried cauliflower, rice balls, and, oh dear God, the crab sauce (wipe tear).       

 To me, food should evoke emotion and nostalgia.  As a chubby Italian kid (or as my mother would say – husky) nothing was better than Sundays.  Sunday mornings were synonymous with intoxicating wafts of meatballs and sausages frying in the same cast-iron skillet that my grandfather had brought from Avellino in 1909.  It was the smell of espresso made in the family maganette, sweetened not with sugar but with the gut-warming goodness of sambuca, to be sipped around a table tended by my uncles as they talked about whom from the neighborhood had died or who went away.

More importantly, however, to cook well is to not get too fancy, to realize that most of the dishes you order today at your favorite restaurants have staunchly peasant roots.  Do you think my ancestors from their tiny coastal fishing villages really gave a shit if their branzino was cooked au papier?  Va’ fa’ in culo, they’d likely say.  Fish, olive oil, herbs, salt, fire….done and done! 

 Don’t get me wrong; I enjoy a colorful overly elaborate foo-foo celebrity-chef-concocted hot dog just as much as the next guy.  I am, after all, a lover of all things food.  But the beauty, nay, the pure magic of fine cuisine to this humble foodie is found in its simplicity, its focus on the ingredients, and the respect of its origin.  Chefs of today are modern-day storytellers nurturing a long tradition of creativity born out of necessity, availability, and flat-out balls.  Here’s to them…