Travel has changed so much in the last decade. Think of it: with a few taps on your phone, you can rent someone’s home, room or even pitch a tent in their backyard; you can swap your home with someone else’s; you can rent someone’s car or hire someone to drive you around in their private car; in some cities you can rent a car from anywhere in the city, drive it to your destination, then park it and simply walk away; you can rent bicycles and scooters lined up along the street. Our family has embraced this way of traveling and stay in private homes whenever possible as they are much more comfortable than most hotels and come with kitchens so we can save money by cooking some of our meals. 

We recently congregated in Scottsdale for my son’s 40^th birthday. It was a bittersweet birthday as my father had passed away earlier in the month and his larger-than-life presence was missing, changing the tenor of our lives in so many ways. My son had rented a huge house with many bedrooms, a pool, a putting green, a bocce court and a kitchen that could have been pulled directly from a magazine. It was gorgeous! The house easily accommodated ten adults and children with plenty of space and long tables for feasting. 

I brought along the complete ingredients for the birthday boy’s favorite cake: Colonial Apple Cake. Never a fan of anything super sweet, he prefers this lovely cake dotted with apples, dates and lemon zest. Before departing on our trip, I pre-measured the ingredients and even packed the bundt pan because not every house has a bundt pan! And, thank goodness I did that because we discovered the glorious kitchen was not the kitchen of people who cook. 

Also in my luggage: the ingredients to make Pasta con Sarde for dinner the first night. I planned to give a cooking demonstration to the group while we caught up with each other. I brought all the ingredients, including special pasta from Italy for the birthday boy who has a hard time digesting the wheat grown in North America. In our family, there are two ways to make this iconic Palermo dish: a light sauce with olive oil and lemon or a hearty tomato sauce with raisins and pignoli. I opted for the former since I wanted to spend more time in the pool than in the kitchen. (Click here to read a blog about this dish and get the recipe!)

The group gathered; I pulled out the ingredients and talked about the recipe. The sauce comes together so quickly that you really need to put the pasta on first. I started opening cabinets in this stranger’s kitchen on a quest to find a pot large enough to cook two pounds of pasta. I found a drawer containing a small soup pot, a small sauce pot and a smaller sauce pot. Surely, there must be a bigger pot in this house! We went on a mission, looking in all cabinets, drawers, closets. No go! There was not a single pot large enough to cook one pound of pasta, let alone two. Clearly, this showcase kitchen was in a house of people who do not cook. 

Let me preface this by divulging that every person in the house that weekend was of Italian descent – except for a few and they are married to Italians. So, the absence of a pasta pot was downright shocking and conversations of outrage erupted throughout. “What kind of a house doesn’t have a pasta pot?” “Eight bedrooms and no pasta pot?” “Who are these people?” The complaints gradually turned to resignation and then discussions on how to make do with what we had, but the thought of cooking two pounds of pasta in small pots was ridiculous and was not going to work.

What to do? Pizza delivery to the rescue! Afterall, we were together, sharing laughter and tears, drinking good wine, and passing beautiful babies around – ingredients for the perfect birthday dinner!

– Pepper, February 2024