When the stars make you drool, just-a-like-a Pasta Fazool, that's a....sin.

This is a picture of my mother's pasta e fagioli, although we Americanized Italians call it Pasta Fazool. I was over at my parents' house for dinner this past Sunday and this soup was like a bowl o'childhood for me. I can't speak for other families, but for mine, Sundays usually meant two things: 1.) "Dinner" would be served around 1 or 2 depending on when church ended and 2.) The meal would be very large and very Italian. My mother grew up on a farm spending her Sundays like this. My great-grandmother Carmella, a formidable Sicilian woman, would have enormous dinners for all of the children and grandchildren; imagine, if you will a whole table full of assorted Marys, Josephs, and Freds. Great-grandmom would spend all day making soups, salads, bread, pasta dishes, assorted meats; she would cook and you, in turn, were expected to show up and eat everything on your plate. My grandmother (one of several Marys) once told me that great-grandmom (her mother-in-law) advised her to never tell her own children "I love you". The children were supposed to assume they were loved by how you took care of them and fed them. Thankfully, my grandmother completely ignored her mother-in-law's advice, but the tradition of expressing love through service and cooking has definitely stuck with us.

I have always loved hearing the great-grandmom stories that my mother and aunts will indulge in around our kitchen table during parties and holidays. They'll argue over how long great-grandmom's bakala fish soup would sit, soaking and stinking, in the basement before she cooked it on Sunday. My mom even told me about the plate-sized ravioli she used to make, with each person getting about 1/2 lb of ricotta cheese filling per ravioli. The conversation usually shifts towards how mean Great-grandmom was to everyone, with each aunt arguing over who got it the worst. Sprinkled throughout each of these stories is one of my favorite phrases,"That's a sin". I love this phrase, love knowing that anything from dressing your child in ugly clothes to not being a good cook could be met with a "Awww that's a sin".

Even though Sundays have changed drastically (which happens when families grow up and out) since the Great-grandmom days, I felt like my recent bowl of Pasta Fazool was a small reminder of my heritage, much like the stories, the big family dinners, and my mom and aunt's wheezy cackling that brings them to tears and bathrooms. I love having my own traditions and my own time and freedom, but it is rather nice to go back home now and then, even if it's through a bowl of soup.

I must confess that the Pasta Fazool was also one of maaaany meals that I haven't had to make for myself these past couple of weeks, hence the lack of blogging. Part of that is because I've been babysitting quite a lot and, well, indulging in other people's pantries is all part of the "You're 27, you have a decade of babysitting experience...so the least I can do is let you eat whatever you want while I leave my children in your over-qualified hands" deal. Also, my community of loved ones are well acquainted with my 'food=love' ethos because they're usually on the receiving end of it. They know that by giving me eggs, tomatoes, quiche, burritos, and barley risotto, they're just reminding me that they love me too; however, I think my mom has interpreted the project as me not having enough food to eat. Whenever I come over to the house, she encourages me to take whole bags of chips and huge containers of leftovers with me. That could just be a mom thing, though...

So no, I don't think that this outpouring of food gifts undermines the purpose of the Lent(il) Project. I'm about three weeks away from the celebration of Passover, a day in which Jesus Himself went to an upper room and enjoyed his final meal, a meal that someone else prepared for Him. I don't think that this fact should slip from our minds. Passover is an incredibly symbolic meal full of songs, traditions, wine and foods that weave a story of redemption; but most importantly it is a meal meant to be shared with others. I had this Bible professor who theorized (and I am inclined to agree with him) that Jesus and His disciples went to the Essene commune in Jerusalem to have the Last Supper. The Essenes, aside from being a strict monastic community, were incredibly hospitable. The Essenes believed that you should always welcome strangers for you never know when you could be entertaining the angels of God Himself.

I think that being embraced and fed some of my meals by my friends and family is quite befitting the holiday season of Lent. It is undoubtedly a time of sacrifice, but it's also an acknowledgement of one's place within their community, global or otherwise. But I will conclude this post by saying that I promise to be more diligent in posting blogs and putting up more meals that I've made for myself. In fact, I plan to dedicate the entire weekend to cooking outlandishly creative meals for myself and not just gorging on homemade yogurt.