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           When Ma passed away in 1991, it seemed very natural that I would inherit her cookbooks, recipe cards, and cookware. After all, I was her only daughter and my two brothers were not as interested in cooking. They spent more time enjoying the results of the cooking rather than preparing the finished products.

            I easily learned the fine art of bread making by watching Ma make homemade bread. She had learned from her mother; the art was passed onto a new generation when she taught me. My mother, Rose, showed me how to warm the water to the correct temperature so that the yeast would not be killed. Bread does not rise properly with dead yeast. A great loaf of bread had to look appealing, as well as have a light texture.

            Time passed as she kneaded the dough, shaped it into the correct design, and lovingly placed it into the greased loaf pans. Although I was still an apprentice to bread making, I was allowed to whip the raw egg into a frothy mixture, brush it on the bread top, and generously sprinkle on the sesame seeds.

            A favorite Saturday meal consisted of pasta covered in Italian tomato sauce. That sounded very simple to my friends that knew little about the culinary arts. Some thought that you only had to buy a box of macaroni, open a jar of sauce, and then merely pour the warmed sauce over the boiled pasta. That did not occur in Rose’s kitchen.

            Rose’s sauce contained meatballs that were created from beef, Romano cheese, chopped onion, raw egg, and the right blend of seasonings. Ingredients were mixed in a stainless steel bowl. Because Rose’s hands were large enough, they were the right size to cup the proper amount of mixture. I watched as she created spherical masterpieces. The meatballs and additional spareribs were browned in the oven on cooking trays before being added to the bubbling tomato sauce.

            The sauce was cooked in a huge, stainless steel kettle. Rose said, “Using a suitable flame, the sauce is less likely to scorch in this type of metal container.” After the meats were prepared and added, the rest of the cooking process took at least three hours. Burning the sauce would certainly wreck the pan, destroy the food, and waste precious hours of food preparation.

            When I was encouraged to create my first meatballs, I rolled too little of the meat mixture in my hands. Ma told me to make the meatballs larger or they would turn out hard and dry. The only way I could remedy the problems of not making them large enough, and fairly uniform in size was to use her old-fashion, metal ice cream scoop. I could easily grab the appropriate amount. Afterward, I rolled the scooped amount into a consolidated shape. Another of Rose’s kitchen tools saved me from ruining an important addition to the sauce.

            As I became more adapt at bread making and preparing Italian tomato sauce, I examined more of Rose’s kitchen “tools,” recipes, and cookbooks. I was eager to attempt new recipes. Some were Rose’s hand-written favorites; others were circled in her cookbooks. The cookware was available from my inheritance. Patience and time will be the controlling factors.