Flour Covered Floors
Normally, my dad is the person who cooks the majority of the food we eat at home and take for school lunch. However, every so often, my sister’s and my schedules align and we can spare a few hours after school. When that happens, we force our parents to evacuate the kitchen for a few hours and the two of us get ready to make our go-to family dinner: chicken parmesan and pasta from scratch.
After managing to convince my parents that we aren’t going to burn the house down, we turn on some music; after months of adding, deleting, and re-adding songs to our shared playlist, we have finally come up with a list that we can both sing along to. We roll up our sleeves, put aprons on, and get to work on our chicken parmesan and pasta. We start by wiping down the counter, measure out two cups of flour, and pour it into a pile on the counter. Then we add two eggs and a little bit of water and get to kneading the dough. Sometimes my sister and I get bored of the repetitive rocking motion and end up throwing bits of flour and dough at each other from across the kitchen. We created the rule of no adults in the kitchen after getting caught with flour scattered all over the kitchen floor followed by a lecture about how food should be on our plates not the ground. After kneading the dough to our liking, we roll it out and cut it into strips using a pizza cutter (much to the chagrin of our Italian neighbors).
The cooking class where my dad, sister and I learned how to make pasta from scratch.
After placing the pasta in a pot of salted boiling water, my sister starts on the chicken parmesan while I begin making the tomato sauce. My parents get tired of waiting while smelling all of the food being cooked as, almost on queue, they start to yell, “Is dinner ready?” and “I’m hungry!” to which we always reply “Not yet” and “Too bad.” Somehow, the sauce, pasta, and chicken always finish cooking at around the same time. If my sister and I are tired, we just throw everything into containers and use the excuse that it all ends up in the same place. However, we typically pay very close attention to the details of the plating. The pasta is swirled into equal-sized nests and placed into a bowl. The extra sauce is carefully wiped with a napkin before gently laying the chicken on top. We set the table and look contently at all of our hard work. We then turn around and stare at the mess that is our kitchen – handprints of flour covering the refrigerator, blobs of sauce that fell onto the counter, and dirty pots and baking pans dumped in the sink. We finish cleaning the kitchen, our morale kept high with the knowledge that the delicious meal we will eat together is all going to be worth it.
Our parents come downstairs, groaning about how long we took to make dinner. Yet, their complaints quickly turn into impressed nods as we sit around the table. We say grace and dig in. My dad inevitably starts talking about how our perfectly al dente pasta is comparable to what he gets in restaurants. He then remarks the egg yolks in Italy are more orange in comparison to the ones in the US because of how fresh they are, resulting in a much richer colored pasta. We transition to conversing about our days and how our meetings or classes went. Though we part ways after the meal, we all look forward to the next time we get to share a meal and spend time as a family.
My grandma and I enjoying chicken parmesan together.
My sister and I recognize that our parents have sacrificed so much to make sure that we thrive and succeed in life. We take preparing meals as an opportunity to show our appreciation for them. My family members are my biggest supporters and have shaped my values, identity, and who I am as a person today. I see it as my responsibility to give back to them and bring the same joy to their life the same way they do to mine.
Recipe:
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