Loved the essay by Gabrielle Hamilton in the May (Italy) issue of Bon Appetit called Blood, Bones and Baked Eggplant. I read it on a train over the weekend and was ticked off when we pulled into our destination before I was finished with the story (thanks to friend Kathi for insisting I read this issue).
Hamilton begins the piece, “Until we split up, I spent part of every summer for ten years accompanying my then-husband to his family home in Italy.” She goes on to write about her magnificent mother-in-law and — no surprise but still delightful — her food. It made me hungry.
“Had I lost this woman who sun-dries her own tomato paste by laying the purée out in trays on the woven-cane patio furniture under the blazing sun, who has orange trees and uva fragola growing in her front yard, who makes sure you are fed, attended to, safe, warm, cool, and well rested?” she writes.
Oh man, I’m hungry again.
