Parmesan Days Poem by Alicia Patti

My mother made pizza on weekends,
in the days when we had little else to eat.
How else to pacify a horde of ten?
Pasta every day drained us,
though my mother’s attempts to ‘kick it up a notch’
smacked of culinary genius,
even though the broccoli was full of bugs.
Such a far cry from the spectacle of the
present-day pasta craze, elite gastronomes
notwithstanding...

Emeril and his ilk could never
hold a candle to her simple Sicilian crust,
with all its blessings of plump organic tomatoes,
heavenly Parmesan, and homegrown basil
that would make your mouth sing.
But that was long ago,
when I was young.