I come from a long line of stupendous cooks. When I was young, my grandmother would try to get me to sit still. “Come learn how to make Christmas chicken,” she would say. “Sit, sit.” I had little patience for such nonsense, caring nothing about how delicious food made its way to our table day after day, and frankly I didn’t have time for such tradition.

So respectfully declined.

“Later Nanny…later,” I would say quicker than I could run out the door.

As I got a little older I watched my Mother and Grandmother, listened and educated myself about food, its importance in our society and the meaning of sitting as a family to a glorious supper. Later I captured many different variations of cooking and experimented a great deal with different menus.

However, for some reason I always steered away from making the traditional Italian dishes of my family–very much to the chagrin of my husband.

“Honey, I only married you for your Mother’s gravy,” he told me. “Why don’t you ever make it?”

“Thank you honey, I love you too,” I retorted.

And so today we invited my Mom to give a gravy making class. Our daughter was home from College and our son and his girlfriend were happy to come by for a class and a meal to follow.

We are still not sure if our children really paid attention enough to grasp the full recipe.

Maybe they did.

But we spent a day together.

Laughed.

Learned.

Three generations rolling meatballs.

Now that’s a good day.