I made a family recipe for a dinner party last night. I started cooking on Saturday at about 1 PM and finished all the preliminary steps by about 9:30 PM. I then started in again yesterday afternoon in order to have dinner ready by 6 PM. And all I could think was that my grandmother did this on a regular basis all her life. It is apparently true that old time Italian family recipes are there to keep women in the kitchen cooking all day and night so they don’t bother the men while they do important things like sit around and ask when dinner will be ready. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to be viewed as the family servant. And yet, that’s what it most felt like as I stood there stirring and chopping and simmering and stuffing. That’s what our grandmothers did. They cooked and cleaned and cooked some more and basically served their man and their family.
I thank god once again I was born after that went out of fashion because I would have seriously hurt someone half way through my life if that was the way I had to lead it.