Best Meal Of All

Next week my younger sister and her husband are leaving for a holiday in Northern Italy. I am so envious, as I have been confined to New York City for the past year, due to a long illness. My body has been steadily healing after a major operation over Yulemas, but the doctors have strongly advised that I stay put until my immune system has recovered from the major procedure and drug treatment. So I wish my dear sister and her loving

Italian food is one of the best cuisines in the world.

In the late-1950s, our family lived on Falmouth Foresides, Maine.

Every Sunday my father drove across the two bridges into Portland to pick up two pizzas and an antipasto plate of Italian meats and cheeses from Angeleno's on Washington Street. This change from cooking dinner for seven every night greatly pleased my mother, even more so since we sat in the living room and watched TV.

THE TWENTIETH CENTURY followed by THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW.

Pizza was all we knew about Italian food other than Italian sandwiches, which had nothing to do with Italy.

They were only sold in Maine and only from the Saco River to Yarmouth Maine and inland to Cornish, Maine.

We had to wait until our family moved from Maine to the South Shore of Boston.

Both our neighbors were of Italian descent. The first day our neighbor Elda Menconi invited our family over to their house to eat lasagna. We children were in heaven. Nothing had ever tasted this good. Not even the pizza from Angeleno's.

Frank and I never told our mother how much we liked Elda's cooking.

We lived on meatloaf and pasta covered with canned spaghetti sauce, regularly stopping over the Menconi's for an early dinner.

We always told my mother, that her cooking was the best.

In the winter of 1967 my older brother Frank exited off 128 without stopping for gas. The needle was on E. There was a gas station on Route 28. I warned him that we couldn't make the two miles. He said there was plenty of gas, although the station wagon had shuddered twice in the last minute. We were running on fumes.

He stepped on the gas and we entered the Blue Hills Reservation, a long straightaway through the woods to our housing development in Milton. The car came to a halt within a minute. It failed to start. We were out of gas.

I had to walk to the gas station in a slushy storm and upon my return found out that the battery had died, because Frank had ran radio. I left to get Adele Menconi. I was in love with the teenage brunette, as was every boy in my hometown. It took forty-five minutes to walk in the cold rain to 109 Harborview Road. Adele jumped in the family Valiant and drove to our stalled car. I tried to get in the car, but she ordered me to stay behind.

I entered our house and was greeted by a fantastic aroma. A pot of beef stew simmered on the stove. It was an hour or two from perfection. I poured some in a bowl and sat at the table

That stew was one of the best meals in my life

To this day.

Everything is the best when you're hungry.

As for my sister and her husband I wish them 'Buono Appetito'.

I'll be traveling come the New Year.

I can hardly wait.