What does cooking mean to me?  It's relaxing, nurturing, therapeutic.  I very rarely find it stressful.  It brings me happy memories-Nonni cooking, my mom cooking dinner while I did my homework and hung out in the kitchen.  It seems simplistic to say food is love-but in my semi-Italian family, it did.  I never liked to bake because you had to be so precise.  I am many things, but precise is not one of them.  It's my slightly rebellious and independent streak to not want to be tied down to specific directions (see also, "thinking Catholicism was a story and fiction, not reality from the time I was a small child".  I never had the beliefs to lose.  I never believed in the first place.)  I like throwing things together, improvising, reading a recipe for ideas, trying new ethnic cuisines out at restaurants and wanting to recapture the flavors, watching a cooking show to get the gist-then trying it out myself.  I just think about what I'm in the mood for, how much time I have to prepare it, what ingredients I have on hand and go for it.  It's funny because cooking is probably one of my only activities where I'm more comfortable winging it.  Usually I'm more comfortable going with a definite plan and am not spontaneous.  Which is sort of a weird juxtaposition if you think about it:  I'm a conformist but I'm not rigid and I hate being forced to do something I don't want to do, seems unreasonable or unfair.  If I could have some foods again that I don't prepare, are specific to a now defunct restaurant or long ago time-in other words, things I'll probably never eat again (just typing that out makes me feel sad):  that stuffed veal pocket Nonni used to make, also scottia (I think she may have shown Chris how to make it-I should ask him), House of Nanking's beer chicken and zucchini, chocolate mousse from Le Camembert, minestrone from Marin Joe's (they're still around though, just an airplane ride away), bagels & the accompanying spreads that Bobbie and Steve used to get, the moo shu chicken they would get (which I know you can certainly get other places, but it's never tasted the same), hot and sour soup from some Chinese restaurant in Deerfield who's name escapes me, Lemon Chicken that Lisa's parents used to get from god knows where, the pork buns from Chopsticks in San Rafael, 3 Delights (Anita's Thai Kitchen which I actually realized recently was Vietnamese not Thai, but I'm guessing it was so soon after the Vietnam War that she thought it safer to say her place was Thai), a cod and potato dish Mom made from their French cooking class (which I actually do have the recipe for but who wants to repeatedly rinse dried cod?  plus I'm fairly certain that my family would just think it was fishy, salty potato salad, so why bother?), Nonno used to bbq these ribs that were soy saucy and delicious, Amy's cornflake chicken (I'm sure that one is not tricky but whatever.  I'm sure it's better in my memory than in reality.)  She was actually a very good cook (I remember some yummy coq au vin) and definitely an appreciator of fancy, French and Italian cuisine (and Chinese-I think that was a holdover than growing up Jewish in New York), but she really made the same dishes over and over.  Sort of like her wardrobe:  talk about a capsule wardrobe.  Long sleeved silk blouses or long sleeved cotton fitted tee shirts, leather or suede slacks, high heels, and then really expensive leather or fur jackets or coats.  And lovely scarfs.  And simple, expensive jewelry.  She was funny because while she definitely looked the part of the sophisticated, cultured, really wealthy society woman-she couldn't stand most of those women.  She thought they were snobby and provincial.  But anyway, she had a formula for dressing, and cooking dinner-and both were executed pretty flawlessly.  Then she had time for other pursuits like her music.  That's what I'm enjoying about the capsule wardrobe.  I have so few things in my closet-and I think I could even get rid of more.  It's freeing.  And at Target the other day I was momentarily tempted to look through the clothes and mindlessly grab something-but then I thought, oops-I don't do that.  I have enough clothes  right now.  I'm good.  And it was fine.  I felt relieved later.  I know I need to keep purging the house.  I have so much kitchen "stuff" that I never use, and don't need.  Serving pieces and glasses that are just up in cupboards that (as much as we've entertained) never get touched! Any way-I have gotten totally off track here.  As usual.  Food.  Memories. Holidays.  It's interesting that the other day E mentioned "we should have more Jewish food."  Um, well.  Not something I grew up with .  So other than matzoh ball soup, roast chicken, matzo brie, passover brittle, brisket, mandelbrot-I'm sort of at a loss.   A lot of Ashkenazic Jewish cooking is like Eastern European cooking:  pretty awful.  If you've grown up with it you'll retain a fondness for it (hence the foodie Levines always had margarine and matzoh in their house.  Together with a sprinkling of salt: swoon.)  But since I didn't grow up with it and I'm a food snob-not too much Jewish cooking going on around here.  Occasionally at a holiday with (Jewish) friends there will be kugels.  I should try more Sephardic recipes-that would probably bridge the gap between my natural bent toward Mediterranean cooking and my kids' Jewish heritage.