I was raised on pasta. Raised at the dinner table. Raised by a mother who was more herself in the kitchen than anywhere else. I could chop onions and pronounce farfalle, gnocchi, and fusilli before I could read a menu. When I was not yet old enough to help at the stove, I perched myself on the opposite counter where my mother would ladle me spoons of sauce, slippery strands of spaghetti, crisp vegetable corners. I was enthralled by the way her nimble fingers pried garlic cloves from their skin, by the loose but controlled bounce of her wrist as she diced onions, their bits scattering in growing heaps upon the cutting board.

When there was pasta cooking in the kitchen, our house felt content. We grew quiet in anticipation of the meal to come- busied ourselves arranging plates and utensils and resisting the urge to ask--for a third time--when it would be ready.

On summer evenings when the California air brimmed with the potential energy of a day not yet complete, my father, brother, and I arrived home from the beach salt-crusted and sandy-toed. Inside, the house was plush with the scent of slow-simmering garlic and olive oil, and salted butter. Our wave-beaten bodies reveled in roasted broccoli and orecchiette that dripped with smooth oil and revealed within their crevices--like the pearl of an oyster--tender bits of coarsely chopped bacon. 

I delighted in the way the shells of pasta collected amongst themselves. Stacked. Spooning. How they nestled into each other's roundness, gathering garlicky goodness. As the bowl emptied, I wound them carefully around its edges, mopping up the last drippings of oil and broccoli bits. 

It is a uniquely unparalleled sensation to eat pasta after being at the beach. I am reminded, always, while making pasta of my own, of my mother’s declaration that pasta water should be salted like the sea. These days, in my own tiny New York City kitchen, I find in the just-boiling pot, a miniature ocean, raucous and roiled like stormy days on the Pacific coast. 

Perhaps this is why pasta has always felt like coming home. 

 When my grandmother met my Roman grandfather, she had never boiled a pot of water. She was fresh off the boat from New Guinea, living in the nurse’s dorm at St. Luke’s hospital in New York City, and eating whatever she could find. When my grandparents married at 23, my grandmother–like so many women of her era–gave up her nursing career for the duties of womanhood. She did what was asked of her: cleaned, made a home, had a family, and--most importantly--cooked. 

Despite having left Rome geographically far behind, my grandfather was willing to give up little of the life he had once known. He expected my grandmother learn how to provide for his particular Italian wants and needs, especially when it came to meals, which were pasta-centric, multi-course affairs. 

My grandmother no longer practiced stitching wounds and inserting IVs and instead resigned herself to the kitchen where she labored over rigatoni al tonno, frutti di mare, and ricotta gnocchi. She swapped needles for spatulas and wooden spoons, operating tables for cutting boards, and cold tile counters. She bought and read countless recipe books, figured out where to buy the freshest tomatoes (Bronx) and the most pungent seafood (Chinatown). She coursed out meals and bought nice tableware and continued doing so for most of the rest of her life. 

When my mother and her sisters were born, they too learned the tricks of the pasta trade, hovering over my grandmother in the kitchen, listening to their father critique or praise what she produced. They learned how to sit properly at the table, how to dress nicely for meals, and to never leave their seat without finishing the food they’d been given. My mother recalls fondly the bottle of ketchup hidden in the back of their pantry that was removed only when her father was out of town. 

One night early in my grandparents’ marriage, my grandfather sat down for his usual post-dinner espresso, only to discover that my grandmother had not yet made it. She had run out of coffee, or forgotten, or simply decided not to–the story varies depending on whom you ask. My grandfather was furious. After a few minutes, he stormed out the door, heading for the small café on their corner. Everyone will know, he warned my grandmother as he left, everyone will know my wife didn’t make me my coffee.

 I have a distinct recollection from my childhood of sitting for dinner at my grandparents’ house. Their large wooden dining table—always covered in some elaborate tablecloth—was situated near to the kitchen, and from my designated seat I could watch my grandmother laboring there. The rest of us were always seated first, encouraged to drink and chat while my grandmother plated and carried each course out to us: salad and bread, followed by pasta, followed by meat of some kind (often lamb) and various sides. In between each course my grandmother would vacate her seat to swap out the dishes and attend to any dwindling drinks. At the end of the meal she would bring out an assortment of cookies, and finally—mostly proudly—a stack of homemade lamingtons. Lamingtons were the only food from my grandmother’s country that I ever recall her making; small angel-food-like squares carefully coated in dark chocolate and doused with a sprinkling of coconut. The cake-like cubes were tender and delicate, refined and yet deceptively simple. She brought them out and stacked them like bricks upon one another, a pyramid of petite yellow cakes. Though my grandfather preferred the more delicate biscotti of his home, my brother and cousins and I were always thrilled when lamingtons appeared. We scarfed them down, smearing our cheeks with chocolate frosting, our tongues reaching for stray coconut flakes. At her end of the table, my grandmother smiled.

My grandfather passed away a few years ago, and my grandmother has since lapsed into a state of confused freedom. She moved into a new nursing home and adorned her walls with Australian artifacts and images. She placed photos on the bedside table of her children, grandchildren, and friends, but none of her late husband. She began to sleep longer. To eat less. She stopped cooking. Though she had yearned, outwardly, for this kind of independence, she seems now unable to accept it. She has taken to recalling, in quiet moments with me, how she and my grandfather met in the operating room, she a nurse, he a doctor, making eye contact over their medical masks. Those eyes, she says, wistfully. It is a story I had never known before.   

Now when my grandmother heads downstairs to the buffet-style meals at her home, she sneers at the bulk-prepared pasta dishes growing soggy in their metal tubs. When we take her out to eat, she requests sushi, steak, and pastries. I’ve had enough pasta, she says over Christmas when I ask if she’d like to make orecchiette with peas and prosciutto—a dish I distinctly associate with my grandparents' house. Instead, we have lobster and a citrus salad and I watch from the far end of the table as she savors the little bites she can manage, sucking in her cheeks and chewing slowly. 

I grieve for the pasta and the extravagant Italian dinners we once shared together, but also for the life she gave up to make them possible. And I know, across the table, she is grieving too.

When I tell my grandmother that I’m dating a man from Rome—just like you, I suggest—she rolls her eyes slightly and chuckles as if to say you don’t know what you’re in for. I show her photos of us together, but I flip quickly past the ones including any kind of food. He’s sweet, I say, thinking of the cannoli from our first date, the tomatoes growing plump in his fridge, the lamingtons my grandmother is no longer able to make.

I’ve been with Giulio for almost two years now and we’ve eaten pasta more often than I care to admit. For dinner, for lunch, in front of a movie, in the back of a camper van, at family gatherings. 

Often, at his apartment, I sit at the island stools and observe while he does the cooking. Tonight, he’s making amatriciana - the most classic pasta to come out of Rome. He simmers chunks of guanciale on low heat, releasing the pungent, salty oils that will become the base of a red sauce. The pan crackles and spits while he pops open a can of fresh tomatoes and pulls basil leaves from their stems. At the back of the stove, a large pot of salted water has just risen to a boil. It bubbles over with fervent anticipation. I do too. 

When the pasta is ready Giulio plates two hearty shallow bowls and delivers the dish to me, topping it with a delicate flutter of pecorino flakes. We eat eagerly but with slow intentionality, chatting about the day and savoring each bite. After dinner, we will do the dishes together and tomorrow, perhaps, I will cook for him, not because I have to but because I want to.