cooking

How to Make Nonno’s Famous Meatballs

Posted on

CUCINA

Frying Meatballs - Francesca Di Meglio
There’s nothing quite like the smell of meatballs frying on the stovetop. © Photo by Francesca Di Meglio

Meatballs comfort me in my darkest hours. It’s not that I like them so much. I wouldn’t call them my favorite food. But their symbolism is powerful. They are round like a warm bear hug. They require a loved one to mold them with their own two hands. Each chef has his own way of making them. Of course, in Italian families they are a Sunday Funday staple.

In our house, Nonno is the meatball maker. My son does not each much – especially related to our Italian cuisine – but he eats meatballs. My nephew eats them so joyfully that I wonder if he will turn into a meatball. And my niece will eat one, along with her sauceless spaghetti, every Sunday. The meatball unites generations. It’s a little ball of love with potent powers. It stops tears. It ends wars – at least in our house. A tray of meatballs is the sign of peace.

The How To

Ingredients

1/2 to 1 lb. Ground pork and/or beef

2 to 3 Eggs

2 tsp Oregano

1 tsp Parsley flakes

1 tsp each Salt and black pepper

1/4 cup Parmigiano cheese

Nonno’s Sunday Sauce Or Simple Tomato Sauce

Directions

  1. Put the ground meat in a big bowl. This is a preference call. Some Italian nonnas insist on making meatballs with a mix of ground veal, pork, and beef. My father either combines the pork and beef or just uses one or the other. The good news is you can make this to suit the tastes of your family. Don’t try arguing with any nonna or nonno about why your preference is the best way to do it. You will lose.
  2. Mix the ground meat with the eggs, oregano, parsley, salt, pepper, and Parmigiano cheese. You might want to use less salt and pepper, depending on your dietary needs and preference.
  3. Roll the meat mixture into balls. I usually use either a cookie or ice cream scoop to start and then finish molding the ball with my hands. Try to keep them all about the same size for more even cooking.

How to Cook

  1. Cook the meatballs. Now, you can put them on baking sheets and cook them in the oven. Or you can fry them (as I did in the photo above). The baked ones are not bad. But you should put some oil on your baking sheet and open one up to make sure they are cooked through before taking them out of the oven. (Whenever I’ve cooked meatballs in the oven, I have cooked them at 400 degrees F.) If you’re frying them, heat about a half-inch of olive oil or canola oil in a pan, then put them in and fry them, making sure to brown all sides. Again, I would hack one open to make sure they are getting cooked through. If the outside layer is getting dark too fast, lower the heat.
  2. The final step is to put the meatballs in sauce. You could cook the meatballs in the sauce or finish cooking them in the sauce. Some people simply add the already cooked meatballs to the warm sauce and serve. My in-laws sometimes like the meatballs with no sauce at all. Mix it up. Surprise me.

Di Meglio is the author of Fun with the Family New Jersey (Globe Pequot Press, 2012). She also has written the Our Paesani column for ItaliansRus.com since 2003. You can follow the Italian Mamma on Facebook or Twitter @ItalianMamma10.

How to Boil Pasta Like an Italian Mamma

Posted on

CUCINA

Pasta - Di Meglio
Boiling pasta isn’t as easy as you might think. © Photo by Francesca Di Meglio

You probably think boiling water and putting pasta in the pot is easy peasy. You think I’m crazy for even writing about something so basic that even the worst of cooks can handle it. That’s what I thought, too…until I met my in-laws, who live in southern Italy. Actually, even boiling the pasta is an art over there. None of us – even the best trained Italian Americans among us – know what we’re talking about. Here’s what I have learned:

1. FILL THE POT

Fill the pot with water, leaving at least two inches clear at the top of the pot. Put the pot on the stove and turn up the gas (or electric) to the highest setting. On my LG stove, it’s “SuperBoil.” Make sure you are using a big enough pot for the amount and type of pasta you are boiling. For instance, long pasta, such as linguine or spaghetti, need a wide pot, so you can get the whole pasta into the pot at the same time. When you use a tall, narrow pot for spaghetti, the top of the spaghetti might not get into the pot at the same time, and it will be harder than the other half. Or you’ll end up breaking the pasta into smaller pieces, which defeats the purpose of serving spaghetti over, say, shorter penne. Of course, if you’re boiling an entire pound of pasta, you need a big enough pot, so the pasta doesn’t all clump together and fail to cook evenly. But you know this stuff already, right?

2. THROW SALT

Do NOT put salt in the water at the start. Be patient. See, already the Italians are getting tricky. When the water begins to boil, generously add salt. Italians tend to use a thick sea salt  And they are still pretty generous. My husband insists on bringing salt (both fine and doppio) from Italy to use in our American kitchen. He says American salt is never enough, nor does it provide any taste. I don’t know about all that. I often use plain, ol’ American-purchased salt with similar results to his, but this is how seriously he and his people take the process.

3. STIR THE POT

That’s right, Italians encourage people to stir the pot (usually both literally and figuratively). They’re that kind of people. That’s what we love about them. Every so often, you must stir the pot, so the pasta doesn’t get sticky or attach itself to the pot’s bottom.

4. COOK UNTIL AL DENTE

Italians will laugh at you if you overcook the pasta. And 99.9 percent of the time when Americans boil pasta, they overcook it. There should still be a little bite to it. Pasta should never be soft, nor should it break in half when stabbed by a fork. You want it to be al dente. It should be cooked but still somewhat firm. Don’t throw it against a wall to check. Just take a bite. If it’s a tubular pasta, make sure the boiling water is not sitting in the tube before you bite into it. Otherwise, you will burn your tongue. Trust me, I know. Fresh pasta or gnocchi is a little different; in that case, you boil the pasta until it rises to the surface of the water.

5. STRAIN THE PASTA THE RIGHT WAY

That’s right, there’s a right way and a wrong way to strain pasta. Most Americans throw the pasta and water in a colander and let all that starchy goodness slip down the drain of the kitchen sink. Italians will stand by and cry foul if they ever witness this atrocity. Trust me, I know this, too. Use a slotted or colander spoon to move the pasta from the pot of water to the pot of sauce, which should be on top of a low flame. Then, you should take a regular spoon and add between 1/4 cup and 1/2 cup of starchy pasta water into the pot with the sauce and pasta. This will thin out the sauce and coat the pasta, so the sauce better adheres to it. Now, you’re ready to serve it. Bet you learned a thing or two, right?

Di Meglio has written the Our Paesani column for ItaliansRus.com since 2003. You can follow the Italian Mamma on Facebook or Twitter @ItalianMamma10. For more handmade crafts and party gear, visit the Italian Mamma store on Etsy. 

We Eat Bunnies

Posted on

CUCINA

ItalianProb1_Rabbit

We eat bunnies. There, I said it. When I would tell people this fact about my family 20 years ago, they would shriek in horror. Bunnies are pets in the United States. The fluffy fur balls are meant for cuddling and not chewing. I get it. I do. But my people from the island of Ischia, off the coast of Naples in Italy, find the fluffy fur balls absolutely delicious. They used to have a lot of them running around the island, so they were available to hunters. It was a time when people didn’t have supermarkets stocked with food. It was a time when the people did everything – including the killing of dinner – for themselves. When they could catch a bunny, they were going to have a decent meal.

Frankly, they’re not wrong about the deliciousness. This is not to say that it took a while for me – an American with access to fully-stocked store shelves and packages of meat that arrived as if by magic – to get used to the idea of eating bunny. My parents weren’t very honest about the whole thing either. There are famous pictures of my brother and me holding a precious, white bunny, who we believed would be our pet from then on. We each held the little guy in our arms. We were so happy in those photos. The next day was Sunday. My father told us the bunny had run away from home to join the circus. Seriously, that’s what he told us. Then, he served us said bunny for lunch. We didn’t even question it. We ate our pet and never put two and two together. In our defense, we were really little and liked the idea of our fluffy bunny out in the world pursuing his dream of stardom.

When we got a little older, we started to understand what was going on (and what we were eating). I remember being in Ischia with my parents and siblings one time, when I was about 11 years old. A relative showed up at our house with a paper bag that was moving as if something was inside. Sure enough, she pulled out a rabbit by his ears. She asked for a sharp knife and scissors. Then, she went onto the patio to kill and skin the rabbit on our porch. The point of bringing the undead rabbit to us was to prove this was fresh, a great gift to welcome us home. I would live to be an unwilling witness to these kills many more times in my life. Most recently, about a year ago, my cousins killed two rabbits on their porch while I was sipping tea in their kitchen in Ischia. It’s part of life there.

Many of my relatives now live in the United States. When I was a kid, a bunch of them raised rabbits for killing. Nowadays, we go to livestock farms, where you can either have workers there kill the rabbit of your choosing or you can bring the baby home alive. Every now and then, you can find a rabbit in the supermarket or specialty food store clean and wrapped in plastic just as you find a steak.

About a decade ago, my brother and sister were both living in Florida, when my parents were visiting them. My brother and father wanted to get a rabbit and had found a place to pick one up. You had to take the rabbit home alive. My sister, a zookeeper, was sitting in the car with the frolicking bunny trapped in a paper bag near her. My brother and father began discussing how and where they would kill dinner. My sister began crying with tears streaming down her face, so my mom asked them to stop talking. My father felt so badly that he pulled over and set the bunny free in the woods near the highway. We now joke that it was the day my father spent $12 to liberate a bunny. They had chicken from the grocery store for dinner instead.

In any event, on many a Sunday, we have coniglio Ischitano (rabbit of Ischia) on the table, and we eat pasta with rabbit sauce, too. If you’re interested in eating bunny (or are just curious about my family’s recipe), then here is the one Nonno Giovanni handed down to my father:

Recipe: Nonno Giovanni’s Rabbit (As Remembered by Pasquale Di Meglio)

Ingredients

Olive Oil

Head of garlic + a few cloves

1 Rabbit (cut in pieces)

Glass of white wine + some for your drinking pleasure (Nonno was that kind of guy)

Oregano

Basil (optional)

Salt to taste

1 Tbsp of conserve or tomato paste

1 Can or bottle (if you’re in Italy) of crushed or pureed tomatoes

Heat some olive oil to coat a pan. (Ischitani and Nonno used a tian, a clay pot with a protector that you place on the burner to keep it from cracking, but you can also use a Dutch oven or stainless steel pot if that’s all you have.) Brown, but don’t burn, one head of garlic and a couple of chopped garlic cloves in the oil. Generously season the rabbit with salt. Then, add the rabbit pieces to the pot and brown them on both sides. Next, add half a glass of white wine. Let the alcohol cook off. Add the conserve and crushed or pureed tomatoes. Add the oregano and basil if you have it. In Ischia, Nonno would only use basil when he had the fresh stuff growing in his garden. Cook on low for one hour. Nonno would never use a cover, only a screen to protect from making a mess. Take the rabbit out, put the sauce on boiled pasta (linguine and bucatini are preferred). And eat the rabbit as “secondo piatto” after the pasta.

Di Meglio has written the Our Paesani column for ItaliansRus.com since 2003. You can follow the Italian Mamma on Facebook or Twitter @ItalianMamma10.

 

 

How to Hold Your Place in an Italian Family

Posted on
Strawberry tiramisu - Di Meglio
Strawberry tiramisu has become one of the recipes for which I’m known. © Photo by Francesca Di Meglio

Every person in an Italian family has to be useful. If you don’t bring anything to the table (literally and figuratively), you’re out. There’s one guy who does the plumbing, and another who does the electrical work. There’s one guy who works at the banquet hall, where everybody gets married or christened. There’s another guy who knows a guy who sells cars. Nonna makes the meatballs. Nonno becomes the chauffeur. Sometimes, it’s the other way around, but you get the point. I’m the family historian and tradition maker, or at least that’s what I like to think. After all, livin’ the dream means making photo props and pancakes in the shape of Mickey Mouse, doesn’t it?

Usually, everyone who cooks becomes known for a few signature dishes. It is what you are expected to bring to the family reunion or neighborhood block party. Funny enough, my relatives in Italy ask for different bits of deliciousness than those who live in the United States. Even different branches of the family in those areas ask for different things. For example, my husband’s sisters really love these chicken wings I make with balsamic vinegar and soy sauce and both chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies. My father’s side of the family in the United States will disown me if I ever stop making them pumpkin ice cream for Halloween and gingerbread ice cream for Christmas. They also expect me to recreate Mango Poppyseed dressing from Walt Disney World’s Ohana restaurant at the Polynesian Village Resort. And I never have enough salad on hand.

Still, my mother’s side of the family, especially one of my great uncles, keep me in the family for my ability to make Strawberry Tiramisu – the boozy version. I have made this for kids with orange juice instead of Cointreau, but the big kids prefer the alcohol. It’s an old recipe from Giada De Laurentiis. And what’s great about is that there’s no cooking or baking whatsoever, so it’s really easy to make. Also, you can use the strawberries to make a design that matches any theme. The one I made above was for my son’s birthday party, so I used his initials. You could make a heart for Valentine’s Day, a four-leaf clover for St. Patrick’s Day, or a bunny for Easter. Let your imagination guide you. Remember to soak those Savoyardi in the Cointreau mixtures to guarantee your spot in the family – at least for this week.

Di Meglio has written the Our Paesani column for ItaliansRus.com since 2003. You can follow the Italian Mamma on Facebook or Twitter @ItalianMamma10.

Make Everything from Scratch

Posted on
Homemade yogurt - Di Meglio
Homemade yogurt is just one example of our crazy Italian DIY ways. © Photo by Francesca Di Meglio

Southern Italians don’t believe in short cuts when it comes to cooking. It’s almost as if the longer a task takes you, the more faith the people will have in its desirability. These ideas stand in stark contrast to the beliefs of the Americans I know, who are usually most interested in efficiency, which implies finishing tasks quickly. Nothing is fast with Italians, except maybe the movements of their hands while they talk.

Nonna Francesca made bread from scratch every other day when the family lived in Italy. Her children would gather around her every August to jar tomatoes for the conserva, so marinara and red meat sauce could be a possibility throughout the fall and winter. I myself partook of this tradition with my own parents throughout my childhood. August meant waking up to clouds of steam coming from the pot of boiling capped glass jars, bins of removed tomato skins, and the old sheets covering the kitchen to sop up the tomato juice that would go flying as you cranked the red stuff through the machines – by hand until your arm felt like it would fall off. And my people were hunters in the truest sense of the word. They would kill rabbits, goats, pigs, and even little birds (yes, the kind flying outside your window right now), skin them, clean them, cook them, and eat them. I was always terrified one of my friends would open my fridge to find a dove with his little talons pointing to the heavens. You never knew what you’d find behind those closed doors. By October, grapes would be covering our driveway as my father prepared to make wine in the garage. Again, we would be cranking grapes by hand until our arms actually did fall off.

Through the years, we’ve become a little more Americanized. We’re doing less stuff completely by hand. We’ve mostly given up on the conserva, and my father makes fewer bottles of wine than he did before. Still, we give more importance to stuff we make with our own hands. It’s in our DNA. I’ve taken it upon myself to make my relatives bread, pasta and gnocchi, and ice cream from scratch. But now this Italian girl is even making Greek yogurt from scratch. It’s nuts. I think I might have lost my mind. My native Italian husband has brainwashed me. I am starting to think that we have to make everything ourselves or risk missing out on the freshest flavors and healthiest foods. If I wake up tomorrow and start writing about moving to a farm, have me committed.

Di Meglio uses the written word to help families create memories and stick together. You can follow her on Facebook at Francesca’s Newlyweds Nest and on Twitter @ItalianMamma10.

Milestone Moments for Italian Mammas No. 2

Posted on
Lasagna - Di Meglio
Making lasagna is the mark of a true Italian mamma. © Photo by Francesca Di Meglio

That moment you realize you haven’t really made lasagna from scratch until you’ve drawn blood, specifically on your fingers while grating cheese. It is a rite of passage for every Italian – man or woman, really. And don’t worry. Those few drops of blood will blend with the sauce. No one will notice, and it will make it all the sweeter for you because you will feel satisfaction at the blood, sweat, and tears that you literally poured into the meal.

This is part of a series of brief blogs that will reflect on the pivotal, earth-shattering (and often hilarious) moments that most Italian mammas experience at some point or another. 

Turning Into an Italian Mamma

Posted on
Garlic - Di Meglio
The first sign of my transformation is the smell of garlic on my hands. © Photo by Francesca Di Meglio

After nearly five months in Italy, it has finally happened. I have officially turned into an Italian mamma or nonna or zia. Take your pick because the transformation for all of the above is the same. The first sign you are an Italian mamma or nonna or zia is the scent of your hands, which constantly smell of garlic and bleach. Sometimes, lemon gets in there, too. I first recognized this as the “perfume” of the Italian women in my family when I was a kid. No matter the time of day or the event (even at black-tie weddings), when my nonna or zie squeezed me hard, I caught a whiff of that garlic and bleach. At first, it made me gag, especially first thing in the morning. But now I associate the scent of garlic and bleach with admiration, strength, and most of all love.

Yesterday, in the shower, I noticed that I could not scrub enough. The garlic and bleach sticking to my skin wasn’t budging. The transformation is almost complete. Here are the other signs I’ve turned into an Italian mamma (or nonna or zia):

1. I wash my dishes with scalding hot water (by hand) every day. This one isn’t really my choice. We have no dishwasher in Italy. Still, I have a history of this behavior. One of my college roommates used to call me Teta (referencing her own grandmother) back when I was performing this trick at university. Listen, they just wouldn’t be clean without the suds and nearly boiling water. If my hands get red and the heat makes the garlic/bleach perfume stick, so be it. I also often wash clothes by hand, and this goes back to my college days and early 20s as well. I like pretty things, and they need to be cleaned, and sometimes the washing machine is your enemy. Oooh, did I just say that? Despite this, I will be kissing my dryer when I get home to the States because I HATE hanging clothes outside to dry and taking them inside to fold and folding them. (This and the fact that I don’t really iron might be a setback to the transformation.)

2. I cook everything from scratch. Again, this isn’t my choice. Here in Ischia, there are few shortcuts. There are no already-made pie crusts or Pillsbury biscuits that pop out of a carton and into the oven. And they don’t have the boxed cake mixes that I’ve often relied on in the States. So, I’m left with doing my cooking and baking the old-fashioned way. The good news is that everything tastes better, way better. Some things ended up being easier than I imagined. Chocolate and vanilla icing had always intimidated me and now I’ve made both with great success. I’ve had some failures, too, including my first attempt at cinnamon buns. But they became challenges that I worked hard to overcome. Eventually, I had success. Score for the Italian mamma!

3. While doing all this cleaning and cooking, I’ve worn a headscarf – close to a babushka – to keep my hair back, the sweat off my face, and as a preventative measure for headaches (my zia told me it would work, so there!). I think this says it all. I wore it with no shame and I really believe it prevents headaches, even though medical science repeatedly tells me that’s hogwash. Wait, this might be two signs I’ve entered Italian mamma-dom.

4. I have pope towels. Ok, this one also goes back some time. What are pope towels you ask? They are the kind of towels you reserve for when the pope is coming for a visit or that you use just for decoration and not for actual use. You don’t use these fancy towels for your average Giuseppe. I also have pope sheets, pope glasses, and pope espresso cups. I’m sure my collection of pope pieces will only grow over the years. When the collection is full, my transformation will be 100 percent complete. I wonder if some Italian nonna will then present me with a diploma that I could put on my resume.

Di Meglio is the author of Fun with the Family New Jersey (Globe Pequot Press Travel, 2012) and the Guide to Newlyweds for About.com.

Italian 4th of July

Posted on
Flag Strawberry Tiramisu - Gerenini
Under that flag lies rich and creamy strawberry tiramisu, perfect for an Italian 4th of July. © Photo by Antonio Gerenini

I’ve spent many a 4th of July in Italy, but this was by far the best one ever. I turned my Italian relatives into patriots for the day, had them drape the American flag in every corner of their kitchen, fed them American food (which you will see below), and forced them all to proudly wear – yes, I insisted they wear them proudly – Old Navy tees with the American flag on them (and yes, all 13 of them and one friend obliged). Rather than just describe what we ate (since that’s all real Italians will care about anyway), I decided to share the photos with you.

Confession: I did make one Italian dessert, strawberry tiramisu (in the photo above), but I dressed it in red, white, and blue. If you like the sound of the tiramisu (you’ll like the taste even better), then click here for the recipe by Giada De Laurentiis. Although my cousins in the States can’t get enough of her version with Cointreau, I replace the one-third of a cup of liquor with one-third of a cup of orange juice (so you’re doubling the amount of orange juice) and leave the rest of the Cointreau out, so the kiddies can enjoy it, too.

Chicken Wings - Di Meglio
Chicken wings are always a big hit with my Italian family. © Photo by Francesca Di Meglio

For the main course, I made chicken wings. I know tradition calls for hamburgers and hot dogs. But the hot dogs aren’t beef in Italy; they are wurstel, which is pork and the burgers just aren’t American enough. They have this weird after taste. Chicken, on the other hand, is delicious here. Recently, you’ve been able to special order wings (Italians don’t usually eat ’em). My Italian relatives beg for this dish. This is another old recipe I picked up from Giada De Laurentiis. It’s like American-Chinese food adapted for Italian people because it includes balsamic vinegar and soy sauce. Since my mom sent me brown sugar (which is not available in Italy as you know if you read my blog entry about chocolate chip cookies), this was the best version of the dish I’ve ever made for them.

Corn on the Cob - Di Meglio
Corn on the cob is hard to find in Ischia. © Photo by Francesca Di Meglio

The corn on the cob wasn’t the winner I was hoping it would be. Unfortunately, nothing beats fresh New Jersey corn. Although my in-laws were able to find a place from which we could order it, the kernels were huge and no matter how long they boiled, they remained pretty tough. Still, taking my mom’s advice to put sugar and butter in the water and add more butter afterward, made the flavor good.

Caesar Salad - Di Meglio
Caesar salad is a must for my Italian relatives, who had never heard of it before I made it for them. © Photo by Francesca Di Meglio

Caesar salad is an Italian American dish. Most real Italians don’t know of it. When I made this for my relatives for the first time last year, they screamed with pleasure. So, I knew it had to be on the 4th of July menu. I was happy to serve it in the punch bowl my husband and I received when we wed in Ischia nearly five years ago. It made a beautiful presentation (as did all the wedding gifts we got to put on display). I used a Ceasar dressing recipe from Once Upon a Chef, but I eliminated the anchovies. Most recipes call for raw eggs, but this one doesn’t, which is appealing to me because I’m afraid we could all end up in the hospital for salmonella poisoning.

Kitchen Decorations - Di Meglio
My nieces, all teens, decorated the kitchen with delight and a bit of sass. © Photo by Francesca Di Meglio

Decorations are always on hand for 4th of July because I’m always here in Italy for the holiday. I had tons of stuff from years past, and my mom sent some more in a package. We decked ourselves and the dining area in red, white, and blue.

Flags - Di Meglio
Flags make for the perfect decor for a staircase. © Photo by Francesca Di Meglio

Flag bouqet - Di Meglio

Table - Di Meglio
The table is set for a feast. © Photo by Francesca Di Meglio
Kinder-covered strawberries - Gerenini
Kinder-covered strawberries are unexpected and delightful. (I just dipped the strawberries leftover from the tiramisu in melted Kinder chocolate Easter eggs. © Photo by Antonio Gerenini
Cupcakes - Gerenini
Chocolate-covered confetti cupcakes are a favorite of the kids. © Photo by Antonio Gerenini

My nieces don’t all like strawberries, so chocolate-covered confetti cupcakes were my back-up dessert. Of course, the flag had to be featured on top of each one. I’ve only made cupcakes from scratch one other time, and my two-year-old niece and 18-month-old son had to help me the first time. So, these, which I did solo, were infinitely better. (For starters, the icing ended up on top of the cupcakes instead of into the mouths of babes.) I used Baking Bites’ recipe for the cupcakes (minus the almond extract because I couldn’t find any in Ischia), and About.com’s Guide to Southern Food’s icing recipe, which is so simple that I’ll probably never buy pre-packaged icing again.

Watermelon stars - Gerenini
Watermelon stars are a refreshing bite at the end of any summer meal. © Photo by Antonio Gerenini

A 4th of July party – or any summer get together – is incomplete without watermelon. Rather than just cut it into wedges, I had my husband slice half a watermelon and then use a star cookie cutter to make shapes. Whatever melon was left after he cut out the stars was cut into chunks and eaten as well. Of course, those flags made yet another appearance. Wouldn’t be 4th of July without the red, white, and blue!

Ischia Finally Gets the Chocolate Chip

Posted on
Chocolate Chip Cookies - Francesca Di Meglio
Chocolate chip cookies are an all-American treat. © Photo by Francesca Di Meglio

Gooey, chewy chocolate chip cookies, paired with an ice cold glass of milk, are almost as comforting as mamma’s warm embrace. When you’re jonesing for one on a small island off the coast of Naples, Italy and your mamma is nowhere to be found, you end up agreeing to a hug from some large-breasted zia – who is really your neighbor and not a blood relative at all – and in whose chest your nose ends up getting stuck. Instead of feeling warm and fuzzy, you usually just feel violated. And you still want that dang chocolate chip cookie. Alas, Chips Ahoy are hard to come by here. Let’s face it, nothing beats a fresh-from-the-oven, homemade cookie anyway.

You think, “I have an oven, two hands, and my recipe on this Godforsaken island, so why not make the cookies myself?” Well, it’s the ingredients that get you. Classic chocolate chip cookies require brown sugar. When you ask people on Ischia for brown sugar, they hand you raw cane sugar. It’s brown, but it’s not brown sugar. Next, you begin dreaming up ways to make your own brown sugar. But that requires molasses. The reaction from the natives when you ask for sweet, sweet molasses is, “Molahhhsss, che?” It basically translates to, “Mole ass, what?”

So, I never realized how American chocolate chip cookies were until I spent even more significant time with Italians. Bet you didn’t think that was possible, right? After all, I grew up with a father who grew up in Ischia and a mom, whose father grew up in Ischia. Still, I never knew that my deprived ancestors – on top of having to climb out of poverty, go to school only until the third or fifth grade, and pee and poop in an outhouse – only learned of the sacred chocolate chip cookie when they moved to the States. I took the cookie for granted. The islanders had no idea what they had been missing.

When my husband and I got married nearly five years ago and his family came to the United States for our vow renewal ceremony (shortly after we married in Italy), my mother would serve up Nestle chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven after dinner every night. My in-laws had never seen or eaten a chocolate chip cookie. But it was love at first bite. Now, they wanted me to make the cookies when I was in Italy. But I didn’t know what to do without brown sugar. A few of them attempted to make them with white sugar and failed miserably.

For the first time last week (as a Mother’s Day gift to my sisters-in-law, who craved the chocolate chip so), I made the chocolate chip cookie successfully without brown sugar. I can not take any of the credit for it was another blogger, who came up with the recipe that saved us from our cookie-free life on this isolated isola. If you want one of the best chocolate chip cookies ever, make the recipe at How to Simplify. We Italian islanders are forever in your debt, Jen Tilley.

Di Meglio is the author of Fun with the Family New Jersey (Globe Pequot Press Travel, 2012) and the Guide to Newlyweds for About.com.