We have all heard the phrase "made with love". My husband Michael and my brother-in-law Christopher actually say it even more accurately-"love is what makes it taste so good".
It sounds silly, right? What makes it taste so good is the expensive imported olive oil, or the locally produced artisan goat cheese. Well sure those things count but I think Michael and Christopher are actually on to something here.
When you cultivate a tomato plant from a seedling and harvest your own fruit and share them in a salad they are the best tasting tomatoes around. Can't be beat, right? The family and friends you are breaking bread with are thinking the same thing. They taste fresh of course, but the fact that someone loved that seedling into fruition gives it a little something extra special.
OK, maybe that was an obvious example. Try this one on-Michael's Zia (Zia=aunt in Italian) will throw together a salad for me to eat. There is nothing special in this salad, it actually has far fewer ingredients than I would normally put in if I made it myself. Generally, there is Romaine lettuce, cucumber and maybe some sliced onion. But then the Zia magic happens-she squeezes a lemon over the top, drizzles it with a little olive oil and a generous sprinkling of salt and pepper.
The result is the most perfectly dressed salad around-lemony tart, salty and fresh tasting. The ingredients in her dressing are just like those in the bowl-simple. So what really gives here? She makes it for us because she cares about us.
Zia wants our hunger to be satiated. She wants us to find enjoyment in what we are eating. She wants to share with us the way her own mother cooked for her in her own childhood.
If that isn't love, then what is?
Next time your kids make you breakfast in bed for mother's day or your mom makes you soup when you are sick think about how much better it tastes because of the love.
It will be delicious.
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