Brighten Your Day

I posted something about our Italian style Sunday dinners on Facebook recently and got several requests for my Nana’s recipe for her spaghetti sauce. I gladly sent it out to them, but kind of felt bad about it. It wasn’t that I didn’t think my Nana would mind. She loved sharing her sauce with everyone. It was just that I didn’t think people would get it right.

You see, I still have memories of wandering into my Nana’s kitchen when I was a boy. There she would be sweating over the stove, her apron covered in flour from hand rolling loaves of Italian bread. She would be slowly stirring the huge pot of sauce that had been simmering on the stove for hours. Then she would take off the lid, dip her wooden spoon in, pull it out, and taste the sauce. More often than not she would shake her head, take a pinch of salt and throw it in, or sprinkle a little more garlic powder into it, or add just a touch more parsley. Then she would put the lid back on to let it cook a little longer until she got it just the way she wanted it. In truth, no recipe could capture her sauce. Every pot of sauce she made was a little different. Yet they were all perfect. She always seasoned to taste. She always seasoned with love.

My dear Nana taught me a lot about cooking and she also taught me a lot about life. She taught me to take each day as it comes with all of its difficulties, problems, and challenges and season it with my love, my kindness, my smile, my laughter, and my joy until I got it just right. Each day would be a little different, of course, but each one would be perfect in its own way.

I know Nana is with God now smiling down on me from Heaven with each meal I cook and each day I live. And I know that God wants us to season all our days here with Love. He wants us to pour in a lot of kindness and add a generous helping of smiles, laughter, and joy. He wants us to make each day here a feast and invite everyone we can to our table. May we always do so.