Life From Scratch

by Sasha Martin

  It was just Mom, one of her friends from the shop, and a midwife in that darkened room when I arrived around midnight. After they left, Mom remembers showing a sleepy Michael his new baby sister. In the still of the night, he leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek. Mom waited for Oliver to fawn over me, but he never came. When she registered my birth a few days later, he was long gone. There is no father listed on my birth certificate—just a blank spot underscored.

  Mom named me Musashi. The most famous Japanese samurai of all time, Musashi was a fearless and calculated warrior whose skill with the sword is said to have been so great that he never lost a duel (including his very first, which he fought at the age of 13). These fights were always to the death: Losing one would have cost Musashi his life.

  When I asked Mom why she chose such an ancient and macho name for a newborn baby girl, she simply rolled her eyes and said, “I thought your father would like it.”

  A woman can leave a man several times, but still not muster the resolve to cleave through the stubborn tendons of attachment. Mom could navigate the emotional tightrope of Oliver’s drug use, drinking, and stealing; she could manage his moods and frequent disappearing acts. But in the end, her concern for Michael and me forced her to sever all ties. She couldn’t bear our disappointment when he’d vanish, and she couldn’t help us understand his temper.

  The winter before my second birthday, Mom uprooted us from the Cape, abandoning a life and the friendships she’d meticulously built over eight years to give us a fresh start in Boston. She took only what she could cram into an old leather carryall from the shop. “At some point you just have to face the facts,” she said of her departure, “Nothing was going to change. It’s like math: Two plus two is four, and it always will be. The realization just hit me: We had to move on.”

  In the years ahead, Mom rarely spoke of Oliver. If we wondered aloud about him, her eyes would flash, the corners of her mouth turned down. She tried to hide her emotions by looking away or changing the subject, but Michael and I could read her. They had been together five messy years—enough to leave more than one scar.

  Mom never dated again and made sure we never knew our father, trashing photos and erasing all connections to that era. Sometimes, when we were out and about in the city, she’d pull Michael and me into a doorway, muttering, “Why won’t he go away?” If we asked, “Who?” she’d shake her head a little too quickly.

  I wouldn’t learn my father’s name (or that I was once named Musashi) until I was 21, and wouldn’t see a photo of Oliver until I was 29. I only knew him as Mom described him: “a charismatic con artist.”

  For a long time, it never occurred to me that my father could be out there somewhere. Father’s Day came and went uncelebrated, a holiday for other people, like Chinese New Year or Rosh Hashanah. Mom was the only father I ever knew. I even considered myself Italian Hungarian, like she was, never really considering that in truth I was likely only a quarter of each.

  Years later, when Michael added “a father” to the top of his Christmas list right above “world peace,” the ache that bubbled up in me felt as alien as the words.

  CHAPTER 3

  Lean Years

  WHEN WE ARRIVED IN BOSTON, Mom waited in line with the rest of the city’s lost souls to secure the last two spots in an overcrowded homeless shelter. Even as everyone shuffled, Mom stood tall, frizzy mop clipped back, while three-year-old Michael ran circles around her with his baby doll.

  I suppose she could have asked my grandfather or someone else in the family for help, but her chaotic relationship with my father made favors hard to come by. She’d left in such a rush that there’d been no time to secure work or accommodations.

  Though the thin soups and stale bread at the shelter were miserable, my brother and I ate with gusto. Because we were still scrawny little tots, we were able to sleep on either end of one cot, while Mom slept on the other. We lasted there three days.

  After Mom made a few collect calls, we ended up at a friend of a friend’s place on the cracked side of Boston’s suburbs. We crammed ourselves into the corners of Barbara’s tall, blue gingerbread town house. Mom paid her way by doing laundry and cooking. Little by little, she saved enough of her assistance checks of $350 a month so that we could finally move to our own apartment in Jamaica Plain.

  Even in Barbara’s borrowed home, Mom had to improvise to make ends meet. She never lacked imagination.

  In my first memory, I am three, maybe four years old, sitting at a small metal table with a white Formica top, just big enough for two. In front of me is a small white bowl, filled only halfway with Os. Michael sits on the other side of me, hungrily eating his dry cereal, his cheeks puffed up like a chipmunk.

  “Where’s the milk?” I ask him.

  “I don’t think there is any,” he whispers.

  “But I want some,” I say, my voice drawn out in a whine.

  Before either of us can utter another word, Mom pulls a bottle from the fridge and splashes a tiny bit of red juice into each of our bowls.

  “It’s cranberry,” she says. “Barbara won’t mind if we borrow …”

  “Why are we always eating Barbara’s food?” Michael whines.

  “Try it,” Mom urges. As if to show us how good juice can be with cereal, she bends at the waist, spooning a bit into her own mouth. She makes exaggerated yum sounds, smacking her lips and making silly faces. Michael smiles up at her, despite himself.

  He takes a bite, then another.

  “Whoa, Mom, this is good,” he says, and starts to airplane the food into his mouth, making loud buzzing sounds.

  I sit back in my chair, unsure.

  “Milk is boring. This is—” She takes a deep breath and then pats my hand, lifting the corners of her mouth like a curtain. “Not everyone can say they’ve had juice in their cereal. Not even the Queen of England.”

  That does the trick. I bring the spoon to my lips, only once pausing to look down at the now pink Os that look like candy. The tart juice squeezes at the inside of my cheeks.

  For years after, Michael and I beg Mom to add juice to our cereal instead of milk.

  Cranberry juice wasn’t what Mom wanted for us—she yearned for that bombastic kitchen of her childhood, that immigrant arena. She wanted to give us a heritage. But by the time we had our own place in Jamaica Plain, not only were her mother and brother gone, but her dad and sister had also moved away from Boston.

  My own name became the victim in this crisis of identity. Mom changed it multiple times before my tenth birthday. Though I was born Musashi, I became Sashi, then Sashann, then Sasha. Much later at my ninth birthday, I became Alexandra. My last name was my father’s, then my mother’s. When I was about three, Mom settled on giving me her late mother’s maiden name “Lombardi,” which rolled off her tongue like an Italian lullaby.

  The decision was both sentimental and feminist; Lombardi put the power of my female lineage behind me. From what I observed of my Italian cousins, whose homes we often frequented for Thanksgiving and Christmas, my new name gave me license to yell whether I was sad, happy, or anything in between.

  Each time the Boston courts awarded my foiled and stamped name-change documents, Mom sent out calligraphic announcements to everyone she knew in purple marker on scraps of card stock. She treated each reinvention like a festive occasion, taking us on the train into the North End, where we’d eat Italian subs to celebrate. For dessert we’d go to Maria’s for cannoli or tiramisu.

  When the festivities were over, if I complained about my new fate as “Sasha” or, later, “Alexandra,” Mom would look me straight in the eye. “Don’t you know?” she’d say with all the certitude of a weatherman, “You need a name for every stage of your life. Butterflies don’t go by ‘caterpillar’ forever. And they certainly don’t go by ‘pupa’ one second longer than they have to. You, my dear, are no longer a pupa.”

  Immediately all sorts of questions about butterflies would occur to me, and I’d completely fo
rget about the name change.

  A name alone cannot keep a heritage alive. Mom shuttled Michael and me across town every month to the home of our closest living Italian relative, Great Aunt Fina. She’d boil hefty pots of her famous potatoes and spaghetti, tossing the classic Genovese combination with red sauce while Michael and I played with her rotary phone or ran through her parsley beds.

  Mom also brought us to visit the Italian relatives on the fringes of our family tree—ones who wore gold coronos (squiggly horn pendants), white patent leather shoes, and pompadours. I never really knew where the bloodlines ran together, but I lapped up the culture eagerly. Nothing was done quietly; there was even drama when washing the dishes. I’d ask Michael: “Are they all mad—or crazy?”

  Mom, who couldn’t understand the Italian cacophony, would hear us whispering, and offer, “Isn’t it great?! I could listen to them all day.”

  One of our favorite excursions was to Cousin Alfred’s place. When we’d ask how we were related to him, Mom would always say, “Who cares? He’s family.”

  Alfred always wore a bow tie. He was impossibly old, with memories from the late 1800s when the ice cream scoop, cotton candy, and stop sign were invented. Tall and lanky, Alfred bent slightly when he walked, as though he were perpetually rolling out dough. But his voice didn’t shake, nor did his hands. Mom said cooking kept him young, and she might be right: Alfred lived 104 years.

  His signature dish was meat sauce and ravioli. But we knew better than to ask him how it was done. “Waddya mean, how’s it done?” he’d say, clucking his teeth. “Watch, watch. That’s the only way to learn anything.” Alfred’s sauce started weeks before he ever picked up a spoon, when he mail-ordered dried porcinis from Italy. The actual cooking took two days: one day to brown, stir, and bubble, and one day to rest. As the wild mushrooms, hamburger, and sweet sausage mingled with the onion and a crush of tomatoes, we all trekked down to the large plank table in his cellar to watch him make the pasta.

  After rolling the dough into two thin sheets, Alfred spread one with pork and spinach filling, and then topped it with the other. He used a special rolling pin with a raised grid to crimp dozens of ravioli in one pass. Even though I was just four years old, Alfred let Michael and I drive the ravioli cutter through one of the crimp marks the pin had left behind.

  The ravioli was an even more involved recipe than the sauce, taking upwards of three days. But Alfred prepped the filling and dough before our arrival, leaving us to delight in the magic at the end of the journey.

  Cousin Alfred’s Meat Sauce

  “Meat sauce” doesn’t do this recipe justice. It’s filled with nearly a dozen sweet Italian sausages, the umami of dried porcinis, and the best tomatoes Italy has to offer. There’s a richness that comes from using first-press olive oil and sweet, sweet onion (while any onions will certainly do, Alfred specified Bermuda because their natural sugar helps balance the sauce).

  Although I have a tendency to add garlic to my sauces, in traditional Italian cooking either onion or garlic is used—never both. Alfred pureed the tomatoes with a food mill and ground the meat with a meat grinder. His sauce was an exercise in love, a taste of the Old World. Here is my modernized version, which relies heavily on a wooden spoon and pre-ground meat. But I like to think the flavors remain as hearty as he intended. Although it might seem ambitious to make a gallon of sauce, Alfred taught me to freeze leftovers in 2-cup, freezer-safe containers for future meals; not only is it handy, but it saves effort in the end.

  • 1 ounce dried mushrooms (porcinis, if available)

  • 2 sweet Bermuda onions, chopped

  • ½ cup olive oil

  • 1 pound lean ground beef

  • Three 28-ounce cans San Marzano whole peeled tomatoes

  • Two 6-ounce cans tomato paste

  • 2 generous pinches nutmeg

  • Generous pinch allspice or cloves

  • Salt and pepper

  • 10 sweet Italian sausages

  Soak the dried mushrooms in one cup recently boiled water. Cover and set aside.

  In a large Dutch oven or heavy-duty pot over medium-high heat, fry the onions in olive oil until soft, sweet, and golden brown. Add the beef and continue browning.

  Next, pile on the canned tomatoes and their juices, the tomato paste, nutmeg, and allspice or cloves, salt, and pepper. Finally, chop the mushrooms and add them and their cup of liquid to the pot. Give everything a stir and bring to a simmer. Top with raw sausages—just plunk them in whole (Alfred said so). Cover and keep the mixture at a gentle bubble for about 4 hours.

  Remove the sausages and, when cool enough to handle, slice into half-moons. With a wooden spoon, break up the tomato chunks, if there are any, and stir the sausage back into the sauce.

  At this point Alfred covered the sauce and left it on the counter overnight. Times have changed, so I must recommend refrigerating the sauce for 8 hours—more if you have the time. During this rest, the flavors will mingle and deepen.

  Though the sauce keeps for about a week in the fridge, I like to freeze it in 2-cup portions so I can enjoy the bounty over several meals. Frozen, it will last at least 6 months.

  It is simply wonderful on top of hearty pasta, like spaghetti or rigatoni, with a liberal heaping of freshly grated Parmesan. Alfred liked it best over ravioli. I find it delightful in lasagna, too, though Alfred never did this himself.

  Makes about 1 gallon

  CHAPTER 4

  Just Desserts

  IN THE FACE OF OUR NOISY ITALIAN HERITAGE, the living room kitchen in our new apartment in Jamaica Plain felt too quiet. There should have been a grandmother bustling among us, chiding in Italian, bumping elbows, laughing too loud. The only times Mom managed to capture the energy of Grammie’s kitchen was when Connor and the twins, Tim and Grace, came to visit.

  Mom made a big fuss before each of our siblings’ yearly weeklong visits, especially when it came to planning what we’d eat. One autumn she ushered Michael and me into an orchard on the outskirts of Boston to pluck fallen apples for Michael’s birthday pie. He always requested it, since Mom wouldn’t let us get those “slabs of poison-soaked garbage” we eyed at the supermarket. I must have been about five years old, Michael almost seven.

  “They’re bruised,” we’d cried in dismay when we saw the misshapen fruit around us. But Mom reminded us that soft apples make the best pie. I asked if we had to pay for them. “Not if they’ve been on the ground,” she said. “What if animals had scavenged them? Who knows what damage they’d do? Tell you the truth, we’re doing the farmers a favor keeping pests off their land.”

  I figured she was probably right—and anyway, I liked having the orchard all to ourselves. When Connor, Tim, and Grace arrived, we had a bowl of apples and a box of candles ready for the pie.

  As with all our visits, we took a while to get settled. Our siblings would load their backpacks and sleeping bags into Mom’s small bedroom; she’d sleep on the living room floor near Michael and me. Though Michael was happy to see his older brothers and sister, he often acted out to sustain Mom’s attention. He didn’t just cry; he wailed. He could kick up a full-blown scene in a matter of seconds, without regard to where we were. Once on the other side, though, he lit up with an expansive, dimpled grin, ready to roughhouse.

  Though Michael and I were skinny, our half siblings had the added height of freshly sprouted teenagers. The boys had Mom’s earthen hair, while Grace’s bloomed goldenrod. As soon as they put down their bags, the tiny apartment resounded with the ruckus of five kids with a license to run, play, and do as we liked. Not only could we get our clothes muddy, but we could also track the dirt in. “That’s what baths and mops are for,” Mom reasoned, “so live a little.”

  I’m not sure if Connor, Tim, and Grace found our lifestyle a relief or disconcerting. I know they hated to be so far from us. The feeling was mutual; we were always trying to figure out a way to get our households in the same city, or even state. In the end, we gave our
selves up to the little time we had together.

  The cramped kitchen was the only place we could all fit; we’d congregate around the mismatched chairs, elbows on the counters, sometimes sitting cross-legged on milk crates. While the older kids shaped the piecrust and squeezed lemon juice over the apples, Mom handed out scraps of dough and a few slices of apple for Michael and me, allowing us to put whatever we wanted into our “inventions.” Everything was fair game, but I always went straight to Mom’s spice rack, that hodgepodge collection situated on the railroad tie shelf above my clothes dresser. In addition to the spices she used in her pie—nutmeg, allspice, and cinnamon (which mom called “sin”)—I dusted on some hot paprika and a handful of raisins.

  I loved it when we crammed together around that old wooden table. In those days food was never just sustenance; the very act of cooking knit our disparate lives together.

  After the pie was done, Mom plopped the glass dish on the table and shooed us outside for an hour or two. She knew she could never keep us from cutting into it unless we were far enough away that we could no longer sniff that intoxicating whiff of cinnamon and apples.

  When we finally sat down to eat, Mom stuck a candle in the pie’s center and said with a smile: “Happy Birthday, cutie pie!” We all sang to Michael, ate two slices each, and licked our plates until they gleamed. Any leftovers were served for breakfast with a big dollop of vanilla yogurt.

  Even as the dishes were washed, we’d beg Mom to make the pie again. But there was never time. Inevitably Connor, Tim, and Grace had to go back to their dad, three states away. When our visits ended, all of us cried, especially Grace and me. To make the separation easier, she slipped me elaborate, handwritten notes adorned with bubbly hearts and flowers. When I was too little to read them, Mom or Michael helped me, indulging me dozens of times until I knew the words by heart.