Tomato Kumato

One year later, I don’t have the heart to completely replace this… after all, it’s still all true. But I’m a lot more confident in the kitchen now, and in my life. As those of you who have been reading a lot know, I was infected with the travelbug early. Born and raised in New York (home of bagels, bialys, Italian-American cuisine at its finest, Chinatown, Arthur Avenue, the list goes on and on…), a brief stint in San Francisco (seafood, sourdough, and Ghiradelli Square) with the family, then back to New York, and almost as quickly off to the north of France (my first brush with real French cooking, effortless meals of boiled potatoes, yogurt sauce, real cheese, and cold ham… still makes my mouth water), to Andover, Massachusetts (boarding school… my endless battle with the peanut butter and Wonderbread sandwich, applesauce slurped out of the container in the middle of the night, bread so stale you could do battle with it, and a kinship with our Chinese delivery guy). From Andover, it was Royan (the West of France is seafood, seafood, seafood. Mussels… yum), and then to Toronto (Canadian beer, poutine, and my guilty pleasure… Pizza Pizza), and then to Cannes (Riviera food was too expensive for a student like me… but kebabs and schwarma became new favorites, and I discovered my love of wine and apéro). A brief stint in the southwest (ratatouille and cooking by my eye because we didn’t have measuring devices). And now? Paris. A cook’s dream.

And after all of this, I have no real origins… everything is mixed together. I get ideas in the kitchen and don’t know where they came from, but I’m determined not to be limited by the fact that I no longer live in such-and-such city. I will reap from Paris if Paris caters to me… and she will. But I’m a hopeless expat no matter where I go. I’ve got no idea where I’m really from, or where I’m going next. But I have an apartment in the 7th with a kitchen. It may be small, the oven may be a little bit too close to the opposite wall, but I’m determined to continue to explore my love of food and to share it with all my new friends. As for what’s next… Well, dear reader, you’ll be finding out as soon as I know myself.

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I know I’ve taken awhile to update this page, but I kind of wanted to get into blogging before I decided what I wanted to write here.

I’ll start with the easy part. My name is emily, and I was born and raised in New York City. My father’s family is from Italy (Sicilia and Napoli), and my mother’s family is a mix of German (Prussian), Irish, and Portuguese.

My mom is the cook of the family, and not only does she take after her mother and grandmothers when preparing typical German and Irish food, but she is also well-versed in Italian cooking (she had to be to appease my father, raised on maccheroni and gravy). To top it all off, she was trained in France.

While she has never made a career out of it, my mother is one of the most amazing cooks I have ever known. I know that everyone says that about their mother, but there was not one night growing up when my entire family of six did not sit down to a full, homemade meal. I didn’t even know what Rice-a-Roni was until I got to boarding school. I’m still not too sure what comes in a box of Hamburger Helper. All I know is, when I came home from school, I would immediately come into the kitchen, where a platter of crudites and a platter of sliced seasonal fruit was already waiting. I would sit and munch on carrots while doing my homework, absently watching as my mother added a little of this and a little of that to the many saucepans on the stove, peered in the window of the oven, and pulled lettuce and vegetables from the fridge to assemble a salad. And then there was that moment. That one moment where suddenly everything was magically ready. The chicken came out of the oven and was plated. As it rested, potatoes and carrots took their place in their serving dishes. The salad was dressed and tossed, the bread was buttered, the perfectly caramelized shallots were poured over the blanched green beans, and as she carried the large platters over the table, her refrain carried over the Celine Dion CDs she played in the kitchen, “Friends of the friendless! Dinner!”

My mother is my inspiration. My cooking guru. I look to the day when I will seamlessly assemble an entire meal all at the same time. Until then, I am content with being me, the student. I take inspiration from everywhere: recipes from epicurious and cooking magazines, tips from other bloggers, and a lot of trial and error. But my best teacher, my first teacher, is my mother. My tomato sauce will never match hers, no matter how many times she walks me through the steps, but maybe someday, I will have a dish to call my own.

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Header image courtesy of kwei, used under license. Some rights reserved.