Meet Sugar

My name is Arlene but my family calls me “Sugar”. You can call me Sugar too. I’m a 43 year old wife and mother of two teenagers. My passion for food comes from generations of cooks and I want to pass it on to everyone around me.

I grew up in a large Italian family in northern New Jersey where our life revolved around food. My love and passion for good food started with my Mom, Gloria, her mother (my Grandmother) Marie or as everyone called her: “Grandma Reo,” and her sister (my great aunt) Rosie. My grandmother Marie, a second generation Italian American, owned a deli for over 50 years in Union City, New Jersey named, appropriately enough, “Reo’s.”

It was there where my mother and my aunts learned how to cook. Most of my mother’s life was spent at “the store.” That’s what they called it. From the time my Mom was a baby she was behind the counter at the store.

Grandma Reo and Aunt Rosie (literally born “on the boat” on the way from Italy to Ellis Island), cooked all the food they served each day. We all lived in a multi-family home and I remember as a kid thinking they were crazy for getting up at 5 a.m. to get ready to go to the store. All they ever talked about was food. When we were eating, we talked about what we were going to eat tomorrow and when we were cooking we were talking about what we were going to cook tomorrow. I think some people cook to live, but Italians live to cook.

And cook they did. They literally made magic in that kitchen nearly every day. Cooking wholesome, fresh, anddelicious foods that people lined up for every day except Sunday. Sundays were for church and family. Sundays meant huge meals that took up most of the day and a lot of it was made before Sunday even arrived: handmade pastas, roasts, salads, homemade wine and desserts. Sunday was a day to sit, talk and enjoy each other’s company. And eat. And eat. A typical Sunday dinner started at 2 o’clock in my grandmother’s basement, featured about 20-30 people and didn’t end until around 7 o’clock with my uncle Raymond playing the accordion. After that, most of the adults carried on a card game late into the night.

It was in that kitchen in Grandma Reo’s basement, that my mother and my aunts learned how to cook. Everyone had something they made that was their specialty dish. The kitchen was a place where the women of the family, with the help of the kids and even, occasionally, the men, would prepare, cook, and eat. It was an event, a joy, a time for family. A celebration of life.

My mom carried on that tradition and became the matriarch of food in my own family teaching me everything I know. Every Thanksgiving and every Sunday (and many Wednesdays), my mother’s foods, desserts and special menus were the talk of the town and the attraction for family and strangers alike. It was this that sparked my abilities, my passion, my love for food as a teenager and into adulthood. I am hoping that I can pass even a fraction of it on to my own daughter.

In my lifetime, I have learned to carry those old world traditions into my very modern, very busy American lifestyle. And I started Cooking with Sugar so that I could share these traditions with you. Mangia!