Project 1 Final Draft

I woke up filled with excitement, I was thirteen years old and it was the day of the annual family reunion. I walked into the kitchen to find my mom cutting tomatoes and bell peppers into slices, arranging them neatly into patterns on a large serving dish, and covering them in balsamic vinaigrette. My immediate family was charged with procuring this specific dish at the reunion each year. After watching NFL Football for several hours, it was finally time to get ready. I showered and dressed in athletic clothes, ready for whatever events may ensue. I walked outside and gathered pretty much every single type of sports ball and gear known to the human species. We loaded the equipment and food into the car and set off on the twenty-minute drive to the lake. When we arrived, anticipation was in the air as everything was being set up and the smell of meat cooking on the grill wafted through the air around the pavilion that we rented for the event every single year. As usual, my Uncle Bob and Uncle Mike were manning the grill, a grill that was so large that it was constructed on wheels in a manner that made it a grill and a trailer all in one. The first event to take place that day was the most anticipated, as it was the annual family bocce tournament. This tournament was taken extremely serious. When I say serious I mean bracket created, measuring tapes to measure distances between balls down to the inch serious. Uncle Gary called everyone to attention and announces the first matches to be played. The bracket was created on his iPad. I remember the first time that he did this, everyone in the family was fascinated that an iPad held the power to create a tournament bracket. It was somewhat akin to what I would have imagined cavemen acting like when they discovered fire. Matches were played all afternoon, progressing through rounds in the single-elimination format. Each match was assigned a referee who measures and makes all authoritative rulings. My cousin Dominic, Uncle Bob, Uncle Gary, and myself made up the refereeing corp. I met up with Dominic as soon as possible and confirmed that he would be my playing partner that day. We stormed through the first three rounds and I fully expected to win all the marbles that year. I had floundered in bocce mediocrity prior to that year, but I was playing with Dominic and he was a renowned bocce ace. Eventually, the bocce tournament reached its pinnacle as all the teams had been eliminated except two, my great-uncle Dario and my great-aunt Josephine as well as Dominic and myself. It was championship time. The anticipation rose and was seemingly palpable in the air. The whole family gathered around the roofed court that was constructed for the tournament after it was rained out two years in a row. We took the court to a rousing introduction from Uncle Bob featuring my cousin Carlo as a DJ. The match was close and full of momentum swings. Dario and Josephine had game for old people, I can’t lie. Eventually, Dominic and I prevailed as he converted a clutch shot that put us over the fifteen-point threshold that was needed to secure victory. With the winner crowned, there was only one thing left to do- eat. The food had been prepared throughout the day by my grandma, mom, and aunts. It was a powerful event that happened every year, seeing my mom help her mom prepare recipes that have been in the family for generations. It is always traditional Italian food, food that every one of us eats frequently but can never seem to get tired of. My hypothesis for this phenomenon is that it’s because eating this food together reminds us that we’re family. The food is more than food, it is a reminder of who we are as a family as well as a reminder of our Italian roots and the fact that those that came before us paved the way for us to enjoy the food as a family. All of us sat down at the many tables that were situated under the pavilion and the food was served. The first course was a salad with Italian dressing. This was followed by the main course which includes steak, spaghetti with homemade Bolognese sauce, sliced bell peppers, sliced tomatoes, and homegrown Italian yard-long beans. The spaghetti was made from a famous family recipe. My Nonni, which is Italian for grandmother, holds several spaghetti sauce cooking sessions throughout the year. These sessions include help from all of the family, an extremely large pot, and an actual canoe oar to stir the sauce. The recipe goes as follows, Dessert was comprised of some family favorites such as strawberry pizza and lemon pound cake. Many of these recipes have been in our family for several generations, if not more. My mom learned how to make them from her grandmothers when she was my age. In order to ensure that these recipes will live on into the future, my grandma took an extra step later that year. Most of these recipes have been passed down through word of mouth and not written down. That all changed several years ago when my grandma, who isn’t getting any younger, decided to preserve her culinary legacy by publishing a cook book with all the family recipes. It took a collective effort from my mother and her siblings who shoulder the load by typing the recipes that my grandma provided to them but it eventually was finished. The book was sent off to a private publisher, who added visual designs and bound approximately twenty copies of the book. My grandma then gave the books to most of our family as a Christmas gift. It might seem like a somewhat interesting gift to give especially when most of the people who received it had some hand in its publishing. However, she really gave everybody a piece of history, a piece of our heritage, and ultimately a sterling symbol of the strength that we can draw from our family. This combined with the fact that the marketing of our family farm’s produce is based on emphasizing the added quality that comes with doing business with a family owned farm as opposed to a more commercialized operation, has led to me having an extreme sense of pride in my family name, even as younger individual in our society.