Mama's Italian Dishes

These Italian dishes come from my mother's kitchen. I remember the dishes well but had not realised that my mother had taken the time to write the recipes down.

I discovered them when going through her things after her recent death, and built this website so I could share them with you.

Mama sure liked to cook, whether it was fish bought fresh or chickens she had killed herself from the coop down the backyard.

And Mama's cooking was not confined to the kitchen. As you can see in this picture, she loved entertaining al fresco - cooking on the outside stove and barbecue she had so proudly installed down the steps at the back of the house.

On warm days, Mama and her family were downstairs, drinking lots of vino and cold Aussie beer, laughing in between eating the wonderful dishes she made for us all with such love.

As you can imagine, the aromas and laughter escaping from her outdoor kitchen tormented our next-door neighbours who were always invited in to the house to join the merry throng.

Often the family get-togethers extended late into the night, with guests bedding down for the night in sofas and on lounges everywhere.

We are still a big, close family, but nowadays the reunions tend to happen at the beach someplace. There each family brings its own food to share with everybody else and the party runs all day. At the last one I enjoyed, at one of the beaches south of Sydney, one of the brothers camped out all night so he could reserve the best barbecue area for the rest of us.

That's what being part of an extended Aussie-Italian family is all about. But you'll see it with other groups of new-Australians as well. It is a good thing.