Let Me Tell You Something Read online

  It doesn’t matter where you eat, as long as you’re together.

  It also doesn’t matter what you eat. You can serve a peanut butter sandwich and still have a great conversation. The best meal that I made for the kids was also the simplest: star soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. Star Soup is so easy—it’s chicken broth with pastina in it. Salt, pepper, cheese. You serve it with grilled cheese on toast or on English muffins. The whole meal for the three kids probably cost under seven dollars and takes five minutes to make. And it’s still one of their favorite dishes. Whenever Christopher comes over, one of the first things he’ll say will be “Mom, Star Soup?” Even if it’s one in the morning, he’ll ask and I’ll make it. It’s a great-stick-to-your-ribs meal, and kids love it.

  Our family always prioritized these family dinners. Even with the challenges of Al’s demanding job. But now, after thirty years of marriage, I can tell you that these meals became the glue that held us together and kept us connected.

  Star Soup

  This is so simple, but one of my kids’ all-time favorites to this very day!

  ½ lb. “pastina” pasta, cooked and drained

  1 can College Inn chicken broth (14½ oz.)

  Salt and pepper, to taste

  Grated cheese (optional)

  Return the cooked, drained pasta to the pot and add the broth, salt, and pepper, and heat to desired temperature. DONE! I told you it was easy!

  Albie is a grated cheese addict, so he always adds cheese to his soup; Lauren and Christopher are fine with it as is!

  SERVES ABOUT 3 (HOW CONVENIENT!)

  If your husband is a workaholic who’s never home, or if you’re the one with the crazy schedule, you’re going to find the family meal difficult at first. Be prepared to eat whenever you can—if it’s breakfast at 5:00 AM or dinner at 3:00 AM, it can be done. Being tired all day is a small price to pay for showing someone you love them, and getting to hear about what’s going on in their life.

  I know that life is speeding up for all of us. We’re bombarded from the minute we wake up—from our families, our friends, the TV, and all the social media we didn’t even dream of ten years ago. That’s why it’s more necessary than ever to drop out of that madness completely, just for a half hour, once a day. You’ll learn more important stuff in that half hour with your kid or husband than if you spent the whole day on Facebook.

  Ask Caroline

  Caroline, my husband and I have grown apart over the years and have definitely become less intimate since the birth of our daughter a year ago. He’s struggling to find his feet and get a job while I’m running the house. I do feel like my love for him has lost some of its passion and we’re trudging along. We’re under a lot of stress. Can you tell us how to find each other again and bring back the passion?

  Don’t get discouraged. You and your husband have a lot on your plate. Navigating your way through new parenthood is hard enough, but you guys have financial problems hanging over your heads. Realize that you have to work as a team. There’s no room for the blame game here. Be grateful for your daughter, and as long as your husband is actively looking for work, you need to remain positive and supportive. It’s not unusual to feel disconnected right now, your roles have changed from partners to parents and you need to adapt.

  Make an effort to reconnect with your husband. Spend time together without discussing the pressures of your life. You don’t need to do grand gestures, just give your undivided attention to each other, hold hands, laugh and enjoy the simplicity of moments you share together. Believe me, a little bit of love and attention goes a long way. Marriage can be backbreaking work, but anything worth keeping usually is.

  Everybody eat! Food is love.

  In my life, everything revolves around food. Whether somebody is born or has just died, gotten engaged or divorced, the first thing I think is, “Want me to bring food over?”

  If somebody is upset, I’ll make them cookies. If it’s cold outside, I’ll make soup.

  Now that the kids are out of the house, I don’t cook as much as I used to. The boys aren’t home anymore, and Lauren has the store, so there’s no point. I’ve cooked enough in my life for a growing family that these days I don’t feel like cooking for myself when it’s just me. I’m not sad about the change. Lauren and I still cook together when she’s home, and I still have to cook for enough family events, so I continue to do my time in the kitchen. And I love it. It’s one of the most satisfying things in my life, to be able to cook something special for the people I love and then watch them enjoy it.

  My all-time favorite meals

  Sunday dinner: It’s the great constant in my life to know that every Sunday, my house will be full of people I love, talking and laughing. It’s all about family and friendship and is incredibly important to me.

  Christmas Eve: This is my hugest holiday meal and it’s my favorite. I look forward to it all year.

  Breakfast with Al every day: Before Al goes off to work we either eat together at home or go out and grab breakfast. We connect and chat, and it starts the day off perfectly.

  One meal a day with at least one of my kids: I make it a mission to have a meal with at least one of my kids every day. It’s fun and casual, and I cherish it.

  Birthday dinners: Any birthday dinner is a great fun meal in my family. The five of us always go somewhere together to celebrate.

  I cook every Sunday at home, and now when I go to visit the boys in Hoboken, Christopher loves to cook for me. When he’s cooking, he always texts me pictures of whatever he’s making or he’ll call me and ask for a recipe and I’ll talk him through it. He has inherited my love of cooking, and that makes me so happy.

  Food is one of the best ways for me to connect with my family and my past. Think about it—you’re sitting in your kitchen and you smell something cooking; you close your eyes, and suddenly, you’re twelve again. The smells can take you back to wonderful places. I can be transported to my mother’s kitchen in my childhood by the smells of Thanksgiving dinner cooking in the oven. The smells that I remember from my grandmother’s kitchen are going to be the same smells that my grandchildren grow up with.

  Food is tradition, food is love. Nothing is better for bringing a bunch of strangers together than a nice home-cooked meal and a cocktail.

  Listen, I’m not saying you have to slave over a stove for hours every day. If you’re busy and you need to heat up frozen dinners for your kids, that’s your prerogative. Just make it special. If you’re microwaving a store-bought meal for your kids, involve them in it. Let them poke the holes in the plastic, serve it to them on a funny plate. Always approach food in ways that shows your kids that you care.

  BEHIND THE SCENES

  I treat my crew like guests in my home. I tell them to pretend they live there too. They don’t have Porta Potties, they use my bathrooms. They’re welcome to help themselves to the fridge. We don’t have catering, but they’re all so self-sufficient, they always bring stuff to eat even when I’ve told them it’s not necessary. If I’m cooking, I’ll cook for them. If I order pizza, I order for them. It’s starting to sink in—finally, they’ve stopped asking if they can get a cookie, and they’re all helping themselves to my leftovers. I wouldn’t have it any other way—these people work so hard, we could never do the show without them and they don’t get enough credit.

  When Albie was young, I would make him a sandwich that he loved. He called it a Specialty. It was just three slices of white bread with peanut butter spread in between. He would come home from school and say, Mom, please make me a Specialty. And then when he was nine or ten, he decided that he would make Specialties for everyone. Even now, at twenty-six years of age, if I offered Albie a Specialty, he’d say, Oh my God, yeah! This sandwich is one of the easiest meals you can make, but because we named it and treated it like something more special than it was, it has become a family food tradition with my kids.

  I get a lot of mail from women who say they don’t know how to cook, or t
hey just can’t cook.

  MY SIGNATURE RECIPES

  Every person should have their own signature gravy or sauce that they develop over the years. It should be custom-tailored to your taste, and you should guard the recipe. I love making my sauce, and while I change it up from time to time, here’s the basic recipe—use this as a springboard to create your own personalized sauce!

  Sunday Gravy

  Olive oil for browning meat (about 4 to 5 tablespoons)

  8 cloves garlic, crushed

  1 small onion, chopped

  2 pounds Italian sausage (I use 1 pound sweet, 1 pound hot)

  3 veal neck bones

  3 pork bones (ribs are fine)

  1 beef braciole (recipe below)

  3 28-oz. cans crushed or whole tomatoes

  2 6-oz. cans tomato paste

  1½ cups red wine

  Handful of fresh basil leaves or 3 bay leaves (your choice)

  Salt and pepper

  In a large pot simmer the olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and onion and sauté for about a minute, but don’t let it burn! Add the sausage, bones, and braciole. Let meat simmer for a bit and turn until all sides are browned, about 5 minutes.

  Add the tomatoes along with the tomato paste to the pot and simmer for about 10 to15 minutes; we want to blend all the flavors. Once the sauce begins to bubble a bit, turn down the heat and add the wine.

  Add the basil/bay leaves, and salt and pepper, to taste, keeping the pot on low heat, stirring occasionally. We don’t want the sauce to stick to the pot and burn. Let the sauce simmer for about 2½ hours.

  Though I throw some meatballs in midway so they absorb all the flavors of the gravy, I do keep a fair number out too, since Al and the kids like them fried without sauce.

  Once the sauce is done, remove from the heat and discard the bones. Serve over pasta of your choice. Get yourself some good grated cheese and Italian bread and enjoy!

  Braciole

  Lean beef slices—buy one flank steak and slice it into thin pieces

  1 cup grated Locatelli Pecorino-Romano or Parmesan cheese

  Salt and pepper, to taste

  5 cloves garlic, minced

  ½ cup fresh chopped parsley

  Lay the beef slices out on a cutting board. Sprinkle with the grated cheese, salt and pepper, garlic, and parsley.

  Roll up each beef slice and secure with string or toothpick to create a bunch of little beef roll-ups.

  I say bullshit. Everyone can cook one thing well; you just haven’t figured it out yet. Think about your favorite dish that your mom made for you. I bet it wasn’t anything fancy. It was probably her spaghetti or her cupcakes or cookies. It might have even been something frozen that she heated and served her own way. You don’t have to be a chef to make your family some food that they love. Trust me, they will love you for making even something very simple for them. It’s the process of cooking, putting love and care into it, as much as the end result, that draws us closer to our families.

  Ask Caroline

  Caroline! Help! My mother-in-law can’t cook, and it’s our tradition that we always spend Thanksgiving at her house. Nobody eats their food, it’s so awful. I tried talking to my husband about having it at our house, or even for us to arrive early so I can help her cook, and my husband said no! My husband says Thanksgiving isn’t all about the food, but I don’t think I can do this every year. How can I bring up her bad cooking without causing conflict with my husband?

  Sorry, I’m with your husband. Your mother-in-law can’t cook? So what? It’s just one day a year, and it’s clearly important to her, and to your husband. The holidays are about so much more than the food.

  However, if you have a good relationship with his mom, you could offer to get there early and help, and make it seem like something fun that you’d like to do with her. You could also offer to bring some dishes with you as additions to the meal. But if any of these suggestions cause insult or hurt to your mother-in-law, drop them immediately.

  Bottom line is this: it’s only one day a year. It’s not going to kill you. Look at the bigger picture and deal with it.

  Big families are tough,

  and I haven’t even begun

  to figure them out.

  My family is insane, and I love it. Today we are eleven middle-aged adults with lives of our own, but in many ways, we are still the same kids we always were, and things are still as complex and strange as ever.

  I marvel at how each one of us has had such a unique experience growing up in the very same household. It’s amazing how differently we perceive our childhoods. There were eleven kids in one house, but if you talk to each of us, you’ll get eleven different versions of our upbringing. Quite often, when we get together and start reminiscing, it won’t be long before we get to bickering! “Are you nuts?” someone will say. “That’s not how it was!”

  My parents were very strict and we had to do our own work around the house. The brothers had to take care of the outside of the house—painting, yard work, construction—and the girls had to take care of the inside. And one of my sisters talks about it as if we were slaves. If you ask me or some other sisters, we remember it as fun, that we enjoyed all hanging out and doing our chores together. When I was sixteen, we moved to a gorgeous mansion on a lake with thirty-five rooms. We grew up in an 18,000-square-foot home with an amazing pool. We lived a very nice life and were in no way servants. But as I’ve learned, that’s just my view of things, and that doesn’t make it the absolute truth!

  I look at my own three kids, who were raised in the same house with the same parents. Their values are the same, but they’re completely unique people. That’s what I learned from being in a big family: that you’ll share core beliefs, but everyone is an individual. I’m thankful for that lesson. From a young age I became accustomed to accepting different opinions and different behaviors, and it’s a skill that has served me well throughout my life. My siblings range nineteen years in age, from forty to fifty-nine. So many different thoughts and perspectives in the same house.

  Ask Caroline

  Caroline, as a member of a huge family I need your help! I’m visiting my boyfriend’s family for the first time. He is one of ten kids, ranging from twelve to twenty-eight years old. My mother taught me to never turn up empty-handed, but how do I bring something that appeals to everyone? And do I bring a separate hostess gift for the mother? Help!

  I agree with your mom, but you’re taking it to an unnecessary level. You are in no way obligated to bring gifts for the whole family, and I’d be willing to bet that nobody expects you to.

  A bouquet of flowers, a favorite cake or cookies, or something thoughtful like that are more than adequate as a hostess gift. Anything more than that will likely make your boyfriend and his family uncomfortable.

  It was never calm in our house. You’d have a war with one sister and another would become your ally. The next week, the roles would reverse. It kept me nimble, and it really taught me never to hold a grudge with family. I learned the skills of negotiating, of fighting right and of making peace. I had to find my way through complex shit every day, and it made me who I am.

  The family dynamic was always evolving and changing—at first my sisters were my best friends and my brothers were my protectors, later on my brothers became my friends as my sisters went off and got friends their own age—but even with the changes somehow it also always stayed the same. We were the Lauritas, and that was that. Our family made sense to us, and that was all that mattered.

  Once my siblings started to marry and we had to add brothers- and sisters-in-law, and then nieces and nephews, it became even more complex. They all fell into the same routines, the cliques just got bigger, and the dynamic got more complicated, but it’s wonderful and has been a true blessing.

  Ask Caroline

  Hi Caroline, I have a troublesome relationship with my sister. We are very different people, with little in common. I feel pressured from other family members to
be close to her and come to her aid whenever required, at the cost of any situation I may be experiencing. Is it selfish to want to cut ties in an attempt at self-preservation?

  I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family.” We live in a society that suggests that we should automatically get along and live a fairy-tale existence within the family dynamic. That couldn’t be further from the truth. The simple fact is although you may be related by blood, it doesn’t necessarily mean your personalities will blend—after all, we’re only human. You have the right to your feelings, and a relationship between two people should never be expected or demanded by anyone.

  Although you may not have anything in common with your sister, I’m sure you love her, and if push came to shove and she really needed you, I imagine you’d be there for her. Having said that, it doesn’t mean you need to be her doormat. As an adult you get to choose the people you have relationships with and spend time with.

  I’m sure there is a fair amount of guilt regarding your parents and extended family members, but if you have tried to overcome any issues you have with your sister and you just don’t click, then stop beating yourself up, get over the guilt. We live in a fast-paced world, so use your time and emotions effectively. Don’t overthink things and bring undue stress upon the situation.

  When you are with your sister. be civil, have a conversation, and show respect. Take one day at a time and have no greater expectations than getting through each meeting without confrontation.

  Bottom line is you need to be you and live your life in a way that suits you. As long as you are not adding wood to the fire, your parents should respect your decision to live your life free of stress.