My daughter, Lesley Riva, is the best all around home cook I know. She is a beautiful woman with a glowing complexion and an exuberant, very curly head of dark blond hair. Her energy is boundless. And, it has to be. She works in communications for a non-profit Academic Health System…facing all of the crises that hospitals are prone to….writing news releases, speeches, reports…most under very tight details. There’s a beautiful teen-age daughter and an equally beautiful daughter preparing for college (teen-age angst, romances, numerous social and athletic engagements, some distinct food antipathies). There’s a large garden that needs attention. And, there’s the magnificent, maddening Massimo Riva.
Professor Riva is the Director of Italian Studies at Brown University, a member of many University academic committees, author of a number of scholarly books and a world leader in making Italian culture available through the internet. He is a Vittorio Gassman- look-alike and a former Italian tennis champion. Need I mention, that as an Italian, he takes powerful interest in food and wine ? I used the descriptive “maddening.” An explanation: Massimo often calls, on relatively short notice, and says: “The 11-man Italian delegation from the European Union is at the University and I’ve invited them for dinner. Tonight”…Or it may be a group of Senegalese poets, Hungarian authorities on medieval pornography …or whatever. Lesley is supposed to feed them. She does. And deliciously. So, what do you eat Chez Lesley and en famille? There are always starters like her crab and lobster salads ( I have been accused of gobbling up more than my share of these goodies. The accusations are justified.) There’s often prosciutto, mozzarella, peppers, kalamata olives,very good bread…and more. Then, there’s pasta. of course. Lesley is the lady of scores of improvised sauces….all dependent on whim, the weather and the market. Yummy. (There’s very good parmigiana, a pepper mill and chili pepper flakes to accompany).
Often, she does seafood chowders of Rhode Island clams and mussels; stir fries of scallops; broiled fish with a special glaze. Her chicken sautes and her beef/lamb/pork stews and roasts are Italian, Provencal and sometimes, Jewish (not the pork roast,stupid).
There’s salad, fruit and cheese to end the meal. For HG there’s an abundance of Limoncello. Lesley also does sublime blinis, crepes, fruit crumbles, poppy seed cakes and many, many other tidbits. Back to Maddening Massimo: A liberated Italian male, he does the cleanup and is the unquestioned Maestro of dishwasher stacking and administration. I have had only two food quarrels with my adorable daughter. I believe lemon juice and vinegar are enemies of wine so I try to stay her hand when she makes a salad dressing. Also, one Christmas Lesley slow roasted rutabagas all night as I slept in an adjacent bedroom and I awakened smelling like a tuber. Have I mentioned that this very lovely dynamo is a contributor of witty food writing to the Atlantic Food Channel? As I said: How does she do it ?
How Does She Do It ?
December 7th, 2010 § 1 comment
Wonderful read and great comma and period spacing!