We never took my mother out for dinner on Mother’s Day. She wouldn’t hear of it. Mother’s Day was family time, not just “her day.” And for Mom real family time happened at home. Besides, no one could cook like my mother.

For years, at family gatherings, my mother wouldn’t ask for help when she prepared a meal. We’d pitch in by setting the table and washing dishes. Maybe you could make a salad or bring some fresh bread (Italian of course) to dinner.

While my mother could pretty much cook anything well, she also had a magic bag of special homemade treats. Each of her three sons had his favorite. Mine were her roasted peppers (with herbracciole a close second).

As she got older, we naturally all started chipping in with the cooking on holidays. But one of the things she held onto was making roasted peppers. If you’ve never had homemade roasted peppers, take my word for it: they beat jarred roasted peppers hands down. Especially my mother’s. It was all about how she made them.

When I was a young boy, I would stand in our little kitchen and watch her turn the two front gas jets on, placing one pepper on each. If it sounds dangerous, it wasn’t. You just had to keep your eye on them (Mom must have kept one eye on the peppers and one on me!) and turn them with metal tongs from time to time as the flames burned the red skin black.

Once they were done, she’d put them in a brown paper bag for a few minutes. Then she’d take them out and pull off the blackened skin with her hands, cut them open and scrape out the seeds. The whole apartment filled with a sweet roasted aroma.

Thinking back, I can’t remember reading or talking much about Italian culture growing up. But maybe roasting peppers was one way I took it all in: those bright red, round peppers; the crackling sound of the fire as it turned the red skin black; that sweet roasted aroma; the feel of the roasted pepper flesh as you pulled off the blackened skin (after a while, she’d let me help her); best of all, the taste of a freshly roasted pepper in olive oil flavored with a hint of garlic. I was learning a bit of my heritage through my five senses.

I thought of all this the other day when our 16 year-old son bought some red and yellow peppers and roasted them on top of the stove. They tasted just as good as my Mom’s. And it wasn’t any special roasting technique my mother taught him. It has more to do with giving, with putting love into what you do. (And I know he learned that not just from my mother, but also from his own mother.)

As she got older, Mom eventually had to stop roasting peppers. It was one of the last things her arthritis took away from her. It must have been frustrating, but she never showed it. Old age wasn’t easy for her, but the giving and the love didn’t stop, even though the roasted peppers did.

It’s possible your mother didn’t cook as well as mine. (A good friend of mine – also Italian-American – once told me my mom cooked better than his mom, so I don’t think I’m just prejudiced about this.) But mothers don’t have to be great cooks to be great moms.

Maybe you’ll know what I mean when I say this: a mother’s love is like nothing else in this world. And it never ends, even after they’re gone. It’s true, isn’t it? How else do you explain a 16-year old guy making roasted peppers for his family?
Happy Mother’s Day,

Rick