Food and Family

By Zandra

"There's the notion that, you know, no one really dies, there are little bits of them that, that they carry through with us and then carry through."

Zandra: Throughout my upbringing, preparing and eating meals has always been a way of getting the family together or teaching my generation about our family history. I wanted to get my dad's perspective on how food can bring communities together and remember past generations.

Zandra: And, tell me more about your neighborhood.

Joe: The neighborhood felt, uh, very compact, and everyone knew everyone else and everyone knew everyone else's business, whether they, uh, wanted to or not, whether they wished other people to know their business or not. So we grew up in, um, in a house that I believe is 1000 or 1100 square feet with, uh, with eight people in the… in the, in the house, three bedrooms. But there was another family, the Lees family, who had either 9 or 11 kids in the same size house in the middle of the block. And I do remember one time we were out with one of the Lees boys and, uh, and it's dinner time. And it's like, “Oh, well, just stay here. We'll, we'll set another place.” And, uh, like, you know, we're completely jammed. And that was just sort of… normal.

Food was an absolute focus, and, uh, it's also reflective of the fact of… you have a community that, that really didn't have very much. And so you'd find comfort in things that, uh, you could.

Zandra: And, tell me a few stories from working at the pizza shop. Cause that was a big part of growing up with the family.

Joe: There was one year where, all six of us worked there one summer. I remember a guy that we worked with, Ray, was a great pizza maker and could really spin things really fast.

And so we had this door by the side of the shop where you could see in a little bit. And, so, I remember Ray, whenever little kids would come by, like, took a peek in, he pulled me over, he would flip the pizza in air, and act like he's waiting for the pizza to come down, like looking up, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting… and of course he flipped it to me next to him that was out of the view of the crack in the door. So then, seven seconds later, we'd throw the pizza back to him and the kids would just bust up over that.

So, um, so there was all that, and then, back to college, one of the really fun things, and you had a chance to experience this, was I went over to my friend Paul Kozachenko's house, and his grandmother taught me how to make pelmeni, and I taught her how to make pizza.

Pelmeni is a Russian stuffed dumpling, so we did a, uh, pizza and pelmeni party here in San Francisco, and that was really fun. It was, whatever, 30 years later, you got to come and, and have his mom teach you how to make pelmeni at their home over in Fremont. And, um, I remember with his grandma… you know, how difficult it was. And, and it was really pretty involved. And I remember sitting down to have this delicious, like, feast of pelmeni and eating more pelmeni than you could imagine. Then what I remember with you, I remember that you were so focused and so diligent and… diligent in the science of the cooking and in the process of the preparation. You know, there was a recipe that you wanted to follow and you wanted to understand. I remember sitting down and thinking that, um, Paul's mom looked kind of just like his grandmother did, but 30 years later. It was just a really fun time. And if you recall, we sat down and probably more pelmeni than you'd ever believe you could eat.

Cooking is a way to, you know, to spend time with people and, you're just gonna have conversations because you can't speed it up. It's only going to take, and take a certain amount of time.

Zandra: All of my memories of my grandmother are of baking with her. Giving each other what cannot be said in words, a portion of one's world and space in the form of time. Just as it was done with my aunt, dad, and sister, both arduous in the precise measuring of salt and vanilla bean, and easy in how the conversation flows with the sugary smells coiling through the kitchen. The anticipation blooms as we're rewarded for the cooking by sitting down and letting our muscles relax, a joyful tiredness and a time for lighthearted discussion.

Joe: There's the, you know, there's the notion that, you know, no one really dies; there are little bits of them that, uh… that carry through with us and then carry through. So hopefully you take away the, uh, uh, the, the love that, that Grammy tried to show by, by creating food and, and creating wonderful meals at her house and, the process of, uh, of, of cooking with you that, that she enjoyed. And it's like, that's the continuing legacy of… of my mom.

It was a way to say “I love you.”