by Cinzia Aversa Howson

Created on: August 20, 2009   Last Updated: October 23, 2009

My great, true, personal garden story

When I was a child in Italy, many moons ago, my family had a small house in the countryside South-East of Rome, where my parents loved to go and hide for the week-end. The place was on one of the many gentle sloping hills of the area, and from the west windows of the house, on a clear day, I loved to scan the horizon to catch in the very distance the shape of the dome of Saint Peter Cathedral, while all around the people from the near village were busy tending their handkerchief size gardens, vineyards and olive groves. Our place also had enough space around for fruit trees, olive trees and few rows of grapevine that my father personally loved to take care of and nurture the whole year, proudly waiting for the fruit of his hard-and-fun work at harvest time. He would then brag about his small precious barrels of wine and jars of oil for the rest of the year with his colleagues at work. My mom had her kitchen garden, just like one day her mother did in the South of Italy, and nothing tasted better to me than those new potatoes and fresh carrots in spring, at least those that rabbits and moles kindly let us find on Saturdays, after their week-days feasts. She was an old style mom, still one of many in those days in Italy, who considered cooking the best part of being a housewife, and could transform any vegetable or fruit she grew into the most incredible pickle, jam or preserve for her winter pantry. I loved to watch her and check every part, every detail in the sequence of that process, from seeding to harvest, prepare and store away, trying to grasp all the secrets of that magic that would then enchant everybody at our dinner table.

Week-end after week-end, I grew up enough to learn and wish to have my own garden and create my own charm. One day of winter, when I was 8, while doing my homework at the kitchen table, I told my mother I wanted to have my personal patch of tomato plants, so I could make the best tomato and basil sauce of the world and make people happy with it! "How much sauce do you want to make?" she asked, as she was ready to join into my plan, proudly pleased by the daughter who would follow in her footsteps. "A big pot!" I replayed with no hesitation. So it started, and at the end of July 1969, under the lovingly supervision of my mother, in my own handkerchief (literally) size garden in the countryside of Rome, I finally had few kilos of the best "San Marzano" tomatoes ever blessed

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