Fix-It and Forget-It

We all know that the food we eat in childhood creates a deep sensory memory. Just a scent, a glimpse, or a taste transports us back to the long-ago kitchen where we tasted that food. We often prefer our childhood flavors to the newer recipes we’ve found.

Recently, we read an article that made us laugh: a chef flies his Italian mother to his New York restaurant several times a year to make tortellini by hand. He so desperately wanted to share the authentic flavor of his childhood with his restaurant patrons. We want to go to New York to eat Mama’s hand-rolled pasta, too!

Isn’t it interesting, the intersection between homecooking and professional restaurant cooking? We enjoy the entertainment and variety of fancy restaurant food, but we want homecooking for our souls.

Here at Fix-It and Forget-It, we support the home cooks who are creating memories for the children in their lives. You might be using your time-tested childhood recipes or experimenting with new ones, but the children will remember your cooking with love and longing.
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I’m not a very good schmoozer. It wears me out. I’m not much of a gawker either. I will go out of my way to get a book autographed by a writer I respect. And I do have a special interest in people who cook well, too.

I’ve run into a few food celebs at QVC when we’ve met off-stage, plus I’ve seen several at the Housewares Show.

But I’ve never met Lidia Bastianich. She strikes me as an honest cook, who makes food from her heart, despite having become a name in the cooking world. Somehow she’s managed to still keep one foot firmly in her Italian family’s cooking tradition, while translating it into manageable instructions for the rest of us.
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