YESTERDAY SEEMED LIKE YESTERDAY ALL OVER AGAIN.

Getting older is no way to grow as you ache, forget, and need to know where all the toilets are. You wish you were young again and could do the things you did once, smell the smells that made you happy, got a full night’s sleep, and eat the things that helped define who you are today.

The last thing: “eat the things that helped define who you are” is perhaps the only thing left besides old faded black and white photos you still have somewhere in a worn shoebox.

So, what do you do to capture all that? Think back to the days when the one thing you took for granted then, is your passion today, food.

And what better way to remember Mom, wearing her apron stirring the pot, causing aromas that leave you paralyzed today if by chance you do smell them, the creation of my favorite dish, Pasta Fagioli!

Yesterday afternoon, I went to the supermarket and got all the ingredients that make my stomach growl and my nose sing and my mind leave me while my mouth waters, I got the ‘fixins’ for my favorite dish!

Once things got going, I went out to get the mail and when I opened the door to re-enter my house, there it was! Aroma! Sweet memories and flashbacks that gave me backlash! It was 1950 all over again! I could hear Mom’s soft singing to herself, filling her cooking with joy, the sweet songs of love that transcended from her heart to her lips to her hand and into the pot. That was her first ingredient to go into the pot. It took me back to aunts and uncles, places and special days all spent once upon a time!

I used to sit at the kitchen table and watch her slice an onion or a piece of bread and look at her hands, soft, kind hands that did her cooking so lovingly. On her ring finger was her wedding band, and I would remember that Dad was soon coming home. His climbing the two flights of stairs, whistling, a fedora cocked to one side, brown wing-tipped shoes and the Journal American folded under his arms so we kids could read the funnies before Mom filled our plates and stomachs.

It is funny how much this plays out as I seek memories that seem to trigger even more! It took me back to Grandma’s house and her cooking, her attacking the gas stove, tossing her ingredients without fancy measuring devices or fancy pots and pans, hers were worn, well worn and she flung, tossed and cut over the pots and pans. It was magic, her slippers flopping as she patrolled her kitchen.

Dad was another story. He taught me to spice things up once in a while. Sometimes Mom would make pigs skin and knuckles with cabbage. We, as children hated it but the smells that emanated from the kitchen didn’t square with our hatred and so we tried it. After all, our stomachs told us we were hungry, besides, there was a great looking loaf of Italian bread waiting to be eaten with it, and Dad would take out a jar of vinegar peppers and slice some in my dish, give me a little glass of wine and I was king. Mom would protest me getting wine and dad would say: “You know… in Italy, they give the children a little wine!” Giving me the wine was like giving the fox the keys to the hen house.

But all these memories, from one dish of pasta fagioli!