Jonathan Ari Steinberg

Everybody has their vices. Women, wine, gambling. For my entire 36 years, I've been a slave to the green stuff. No, not money. Lemon-lime Gatorade.

When I was born with a milk allergy, our doctor in Miami suggested my parents feed me a new sports drink on the market, a sweet substance loaded with carbohydrates and sodium. Invented in 1965 by Dr. Robert Cade at the University of Florida for the school's football team, Gatorade quickly became the gold standard of sports drinks, which it remains to this day. The Gatorade brand is one of the most recognized in the world, and has even spawned the Gatorade Sports Science Institute, which studies the way athletes' bodies react to hydration. As for me, I became addicted early on. In my 13,000-plus days on this earth, I'd guess there are probably less than 50 of them in which I haven't had at least a sip. When I was a kid, I would get sick every summer at camp if I would go more than a few days without it. I'm convinced my body requires it for normal function. As I became involved in youth athletics, I drank more and more, and somehow never lost the taste for it. I'm convinced it even subliminally drove me into a career in the sports business. And the love affair continues into my mid-life. I often consume an entire small bottle with my lunch, and enjoy a tall, cold glass every night with dinner. In short, my comfort food is a comfort drink. I can't imagine life without it.

Marilyn Ethel Moore Moon

When I was in junior high school, my family lived on Merchantile Street in McKeesport, outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One Friday night, my friend Myrna slept at my house. The next morning, my parents, Ethel and Bill, made us breakfast. My mother made six dippy eggs- one for each of us and I guess two for my father. My father made bacon and toast. When we were ready to eat, my mother passed the platter with six eggs to Myrna, who exclaimed, "Oh My Goodness! I can't possibly eat all of these!"

But she did. Nobody said a word. We were so startled, none of us knew what to say.

Arthur Zanville Steinberg

As anyone who has been around for a few years, I have so many great food memories that I’ll just have to choose among hundreds to share with you now. I hope to supply you with many more as time goes by.

Among my earliest of such memories is one that my maternal grand-mother used to prepare. She lived in our family home in Baltimore and, on occasion, would take over kitchen duties from my mom.

She made a casserole of mashed potatoes mixed with freshly cooked spinach, then baked in a 350 degree oven until the top was crusty, that was out of this world. I used to fight for some of the crust. It was simple to make and delicious.

Many years later, as students in Cincinnati, your “uncle” Arthur B. and I used to treat ourselves to an occasional dinner at two special restaurants. One was an Italian place called Scotti’s where we sat and dined with the owner and her personally prepared viands. I loved her pasta with both meatballs and meat ravioli. The other, La Maisonette, where our favorite waitress, Marge, would advise us of the best menu items of the day. Their rare steaks and bottles of Lafite Rothschild were truly memorable.

Another, from the much more recent past, is the bourbon turkey breast that your Kitty-Mom has been making every Thanksgiving. You’ll have to ask her for the specific recipe but, please do, because it is outstanding.

Mim Golub Scalin

We just returned from a trip to NYC & NJ where we ate pizza for dinner 3 out of 4 nights we were there. (Arturo's, La Bottega, Krispy's) The pizza was so good! This reminded me of the first time I ever ate pizza. I must have been about 9 years old. My older sister was babysitting for us younger sibs that night and had a friend over. They ordered pizza and closed themselves into the kitchen with it. I knocked on the door. It cracked open a bit and my sister thrust something out at me and said, leave us alone. It was a hot, greasy triangle that smelled good but didn't look appetizing to me. I peeled off the top layer (cheese) and looked at the bumpy dough underneath and decided this was not something I wanted to eat. I went into the bathroom and broke it up into little pieces and flushed it down the toilet. (Pizza was a new thing, back then.) Hope you enjoy my memory,
m i m

Check out http://mim4art.blogspot.com

Jill Bari Steinberg

There are so many great food stories in my memory. My family was lucky enough to have many, many meals together while I was growing up. And while I have fond family memories and recipes, I have also been lucky to learn different recipes from other close families. It is no secret to anyone who knows me that, fortunately or UN, I have had my share of boyfriends. Some say I like variety - like a good tapas plate that has a little of everything. Due to this I have learned some great recipes from the mothers of my boyfriends. Recipes that I would never have normally come across. You can say it was an added bonus. If love don't last forever, well, the recipes will and have. It is hard to pick a favorite but I will say one of the top recipes I was ever taught and still make to this day is Mrs. Organ's Cream Chipped Beef. This recipe fascinated and thrilled me. Yes, you heard me right. You see, Jews don't eat meat out of can unless, I suppose, they are trapped in a bunker, lost somewhere. Needless to say, I had never seen or heard of this delicacy but Steve kept talking about his mother's creamed chip beef like it was heaven drizzled on a biscuit. I try to be adventurous when it comes to food - at least tasting it if not loving it. My parents taught us to try everything once. I just wish I had realized then that they were talking about food. Anyway, Steve's parents live in an idyllic log cabin home on the side of a mountain just minutes from West Virginia. Visiting there was always a treat but -- on special occasions --it got even better. I was not sure what to expect when I sat down for breakfast with the whole family - the smell of the biscuits and the chipped beef were almost too much for me to handle. It smelled that good and tasted even better. It was creamy and salty and the biscuits were crunchy. I think I ate two full plates and fell into a food coma. So the next time I made sure to watch the whole process so I could learn how this magical recipe was made. She was kind enough to share this family recipe with me and gave me many helpful hints. Some of the things also apply to other recipes I have tried since then. For instance, the creamed chipped beef starts with a simple roux. I had never done that before and since then it has been in so many recipes I can't count them all. I am grateful to have had that opportunity to learn a recipe that I never would have learned. So, variety may be the spice of life, but it was also my ticket to the best creamed chipped beef anywhere.

Florence Roberta Krakower Steinberg

When I was a child, my family made the trek from Ft. Wayne, Indiana to Cincinnati, Ohio at least once a month. The high point of the trip was eating at a tea room which was located at the halfway point in Eaton, Ohio. It was called Mrs. Wagner's. They were known far and wide for their corn fritters, which were served with hot syrup. Everyone in my family looked forward to eating in Mrs. Wagner's and devouring the corn fritters. I can’t even tell you what other food we ate there, but I will never forget the delicious, delectable corn fritters.

Jenn DiPiazza (aka The Leftover Queen)

My food memories are almost always tied to my family. Those big Italian affairs with lots of food, people and hugs. Loud voices speaking over loud voices and hands waving with intention and enthusiasm, knocking over glasses and punctuating sentences. Most of what I know about food and cooking has come from this family too. I am not the only Leftover Queen in my family, either. This much has been clear from the day I sat down and thought about where my food inspiration comes from. I was taught by a whole generation of Leftover Queens. In reality my love of leftovers comes from the resourcefulness of the older generation of my family – people who lived during The Great Depression and know what it is to get creative with what you have. These people were also Italian immigrants or children of Italian immigrants and therefore had the tenacity to make delicious creations from the bare bones. Everyone in my family of my grandparent’s generation had a garden. The garden was a place of great pride, a place where one could go and see the fruits of their labor, quite literally. It was the place that provided for and fed your family. It was a way of bringing a part of the Old Country to America with them, a little bit of security. One of the pictures that held a special place at the forefront of my grandmother’s dining room was of my Pap and his brother, my great uncle Sammy holding vegetables out in the garden. It was an old black and white picture and they were probably in their 40’s, two brothers proudly sharing their bounty.

When I was young, visiting my grandparents in Western Pennsylvania, if we went out to eat it was usually either to Santoni’s or the Italian hall. My grandparents lived in a very small town in the hills so there really wasn’t a lot of choice when it came to dining out. However, dining options were ethnically diverse – the small closely packed together towns were full of immigrant families from all over Europe. Of course, there were lots of Italians. But there were also Poles, French, Greeks and Germans -it was kind of like a much scaled down version of New York City – all different ethnic groups living in their own neighborhoods, close to one another, sharing the foods of their home countries – a cultural exchange.

Each of these immigrant groups had their “halls” - little gathering places where they served the foods of the various Mother countries, where people came to eat, relax and socialize. Whenever we went to the Italian hall or Santoni’s, one of the mom and pop Italian restaurants in town, my Pap would always order me Spumoni for dessert. Spumoni is an Italian Ice cream treat that originates in Naples. However as I have learned, most Italian immigrants to America have been from the South of Italy. Therefore, most of what we think of as “Italian food” in America is mostly Southern Italian cuisine that has been adapted to the American kitchen. Then these dishes are served in all the Italian restaurants with perhaps some regional favorites from the owner’s family. Spumoni is no different – it is Napoletan however, it can be found in many Italian restaurants all over the world. It usually is comprised of three different ice cream flavors – Pistachio, Chocolate and Strawberry that is swirled with maraschino cherries and pistachios and laced with rum. Many times it has layers of whipped cream as well. It is sweet and delicious – a symphony of flavors in the mouth.

I really had not thought about Spumoni for years. But I had it recently at a pizza restaurant run by Sicilians. Isn’t it amazing how a taste of something can bring you back to the past? One minute you are sitting enjoying a sweet treat at the end of a pizza and pasta dinner and in the next moment you are an eight year old child sitting in the Italian hall enjoying the same sweet treat with your Pap-Pap. Sometimes, it has been so long since you had that particular taste that you forgot that it even existed. In that same moment that you are tasting this long-forgotten delight, moments in your life you had also forgotten come flooding back – now full of emotion because they had been forgotten for so long you did not realize how much you missed those simple, wonderful moments. Food is a very powerful tool, not only does it bring back memories, it brings people together, teaches you about other parts of the world, expands your horizons and creativity and sustains and nourishes us. Ah, the power of food.