Family has always been very important to us.

Growing up we always had our evening meals together after my dad closed the store. Supper was usually pasta in some form or another, or pasta soup and always a salad with oil and vinegar dressing to be eaten after the meal. We lived upstairs in the apartment over the store which made it especially convenient because my dad did not close the store until 7 o’clock every night.

Sundays were always a special time when we were growing up. My maternal grandparents lived in St. Catharines and we would drive there most Sundays to have a great Italian meal. Dinner was usually pasta, sometimes homemade or gnoccho and sauce from my grandpa’s tomatoes. Quite often our cousins that also lived in St. Catharines would come by to my grandparents to visit with us or we would go to their house.

We would very often stop and pick up my grandparents on Sunday and take them over to Niagara Falls; we had a lot of family there. We would go for an early dinner at an Italian restaurant ‘Comos’ and pick up a large pizza from an Italian Pizzeria nearby and take it to my aunt’s house to spend time with my cousins that lived there. In the summer we would often have large family picnics at Hyde Park in Niagara Falls with all our American cousins. It was very important to my parents that we grew up being close to our aunts, uncles and cousins.

We always kept that custom alive with our children in later years. When the grandchildren were young, we would all gather at my parent’s place so all the cousins could be together for Sunday dinner and grow up with a close relationship to each other. It was not so much what we ate but just the fact that we were all together as a family that made our mealtime special.

As the grandchildren grew and became young adults, we could still gather on a Friday evening at my parent’s house to catch up on each other’s lives. We continue to keep the family close whether living here in the city or afar. As result their great grandchildren are extremely close to one another. I know my parents would be proud that their legacy of commitment to family, traditions and good food continues to live on.