Illustration by Cherilyn Colbert
Christmas is the one time of year when my family takes things up a notch in the kitchen. Fancy culinary tools like a zester and the Kitchen-Aid mixer emerge from the hidden depths of the cabinets. In a household where, growing up, the weekly meal rotation included Hamburger Helper, a Crock-Pot pork tenderloin and a dedicated pizza or fast-food night, the holidays present a chance to get a little “fancy” and channel our Italian American heritage.
My parents, both of them born-and-raised Philly natives, are divorced, so Christmas was typically just my mom, my brother and me, with occasional appearances by my aunt and uncle. Although some may consider it sacrilegious, we eat pimento-stuffed green olives, use ricotta in our lasagna and fold paper towels in half and call them napkins.
And each year for dinner, the menu consists of a big bowl of meatballs and sausage, a 9-by-9-inch tray of cheese lasagna, plenty of escarole soup and a homemade lemon-ricotta cheesecake. It also marks the rare, annual occasion when my mom and I will spend time together cooking in the kitchen.
Rolling meatballs is always one of the main to-dos for the meal, earning their own solo moment as they’re joined by a garlicky red sauce, and then a secondary appearance in the soup, the balls rolled into the size of large marbles for the latter. A carton of eggs, pounds of ground beef, garlic, salt, pepper and that blue container of breadcrumbs line the counter, accompanied by the “good cheese,” aka a non-shake Parmesan that will undoubtedly be heavily sprinkled on anything and everything.
I have always cracked the eggs, possessing a slightly more refined energy when it comes to things with small details than my mom. Afterward, I would watch as all the ingredients were added to the mixing bowl, anxiously waiting for her to knead everything together. There is something inherently fun and therapeutic about grabbing a chunk of the meat and rubbing your hands back and forth as it transforms into a perfectly shaped symmetrical ball.
“You ready?” my mom would ask as she looked over at me with a smile, the meatballs making delightful pops as she dropped them in the oil before pan-frying them on the stove. After the regular-sized ones were seared and added to the slow cooker, it was time to form the mini meatballs for the soup.
Escarole soup is Italian wedding soup’s sultry cousin — more cheesy and direct, less fussy and traditional. To others, it may be the poorer version, lacking pasta or carrots or other veggies, but escarole always felt exotic to me when I was kid, and as far as I was concerned, the leafy, lightly bitter green was only ever used in this recipe.
My favorite part about making the cheesecake is that it has to sit overnight — the building anticipation makes it taste that much better. And I love layering the lasagna and watching its foundation grow taller and taller.
Last year, because of the pandemic, I spent Christmas with my brother and his girlfriend in Charlottesville, not wanting to put my mom and her husband at risk. That day, we drove to their house nearby and exchanged a few gifts in the backyard, briefly, before my mom sent us off with a brimming bag of meatballs, lasagna and cheesecake, the heaviness of its contents weighing me down.
“I couldn’t roll as many this year, my hands really hurt — I’m getting old,” my mom said sarcastically, laughing as I glanced down at her time-weathered fingers.
When we got back to Charlottesville, the three of us sat down at the table and unpacked the meal. It was the first time my brother and I hadn’t eaten with my mom for Christmas dinner — ever. It was the first year I had not rolled a meatball or zested a lemon with her in the kitchen.
Later that night, when we were in our Christmas PJs, a tradition we have carried on despite our age, my brother turned to me and said jokingly, “You remember how to make all this stuff, right? You wrote it down.”
And although there was a playfulness in his voice, there was also a strange sadness and a realization in his eyes. The days of carrying on these traditions, the responsibility of rolling meatballs and making holiday plans ourselves, is closer than we thought. The question stopped me. It was one of the first moments I can recall when I truly felt the passage of time. That there are no guarantees or promises of future moments and memories. I thought of the year we put an inappropriately shaped meatball in the soup, and whichever lucky diner found it in their bowl won a gift. And of the time I forgot to turn the oven on, and we didn’t realize until hours later. And of my mom, zesting a lemon, looking over at me and laughing in the kitchen, a tradition that will return this year.
“Yes, I remember,” I told my brother. “I’ll always remember.”
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