)“Tidy and Chop” would make a great name for a restaurant. That’s what I thought to myself today as my daughter and I stopped in for coffee and breakfast (for her) at an old local coffee shop near the University of Arizona. The coffee shop was cluttered. Not dirty but cluttered. It still makes you wonder about the state of the kitchen from where the food is born, though. I thought to myself, “this place isn’t very tidy.” After that I admired the place’s custom-made wood counter top. From there the phrase “tidy and chop” popped into my mind, and then I said to my daughter, “Wouldn’t Tidy and Chop be a good name for a restaurant?” She gave me a weird look and mumbled, “I guess….”
Many years ago I dreamed of owning a restaurant. I was a serious cook trained by masters. I was so serious that I auditioned for “Master Chef.” That is a story unto itself. My Nona-straight from Italy-taught me how to make homemade bread and hand-rolled and cut pasta when I was a kid. She used to have a room in her duplex whose sole purpose was to house drying pasta. My Nona was just like Strega Nona from the children’s book. She would make pasta, all different shapes and sizes, by the boat load and leave it to dry both flat and on racks in a spare bedroom. The room was always filled with pasta, a normal sight for me but a strange experience for my non-Italian friends. I don’t know if Nona was preparing for an armageddon or just always wanted to make sure she had pasta on hand for unexpected guests.
Nona’s daughter, my mom, taught me how to make the most delicious to-die-for red sauce. She also taught me how to make manicotti, lasagna, and ravioli all from scratch. We didn’t just buy the pasta and then fill it with our own take on a ricotta mixture. We made the pasta first, then moved on to ricotta and other cheeses and, of course, sauce. We were hardcore.
Everything was always out of this world delicious. Guests raved, “You can never get anything like this in a restaurant.” Before each pasta dish was the antipasto and following each pasta dish was some sort of roast and then a couple hours later everyone sat down to dessert. The wine flowed freely from jugs. We were all in a food coma.
)My inherited love of cooking and pairing wines with meals gave my husband and I the idea to grow a vineyard on our property. We labored for days preparing the land and then planting the vines that we ordered from out of state. We decided our homemade wine’s label would be “Tortuga de Paz.” We would give the wine as Christmas gifts and serve it to guests. It was all such a romanticized vision that played out in my head like a Norman Rockwell painting. Then one day the deer came and cleared the vineyard out. The Universe spoke.
All of this cooking, eating and drinking appeared to work for me back in those days. It seemed right. It was how I was raised and it was what we did. It was that cage called tradition. Then, things changed. It was a rather abrupt change, too. It wasn’t overnight, but it didn’t last years either. Yes, there was catalyst which I’ll write about another time, but all of that food and wine lost its appeal. Food as entertainment slowly waned.
Now, I eat simple, mostly raw, vegan foods. I eat mainly fruits, in fact. I got my twenty-one year old body back in the process, but more importantly I feel free. How I eat feels right. My energy soars. I still cook for my husband and kids, but even that has simplified. My husband is vegetarian and my kids still eat meat. I enjoy the creativity that goes into preparing meals, but I have come to the conclusion that the simpler the better.
The photos are of my “secret recipe” light-as-a feather manicotti and a dish of cookies I made. Most of the cookies are Italian cookies. I would never make that many cookies now! But, if I ever opened a restaurant I would definitely name it Tidy and Chop.