One summer day when I was nine, I sat at my grandparents’ kitchen table on Nantucket Island, staring wearily at chicken and rice in tinfoil, smothered in cream of mushroom soup. I swirled my fork through the rice, watching the patterns change, wishing I had a plate of Papa Gino’s chicken parmesan with spaghetti.
I spent every summer on Nantucket Island with my grandparents. The rest of the year I was with my parents on the mainland, which had what Nantucket did not: Papa Gino’s, a New England strip mall pizza chain that served my favorite dish.
I don’t remember exactly how I became obsessed with this meal. I do not use the word obsession lightly. When I was eight years old, my mother brought it home for me one night. One taste of the pre-frozen, fried chicken cutlet covered in oozy cheese and slightly sweet sauce with two garlic cheese breadsticks on the side was all it took—I was hooked.
For the next eight years, I ate chicken parmesan every night, seven days a week, even on holidays. My mother would even wrap it in tinfoil to bring it to my aunt’s house in Connecticut for Thanksgiving. The only time I did not have it was during the summer on Nantucket, or on family vacations.
This phenomenon was even stranger due to my mother’s passion for fine dining. My mother is an excellent cook. She has an innate ability to create wonderful combinations of flavors—and yet every night she bought chicken parmesan takeout for me, instead of the meal she made for herself and my father.
I would help her make dinner, but none of it compared in my young mind to the satisfaction of eating Papa Gino’s. Even though I didn’t eat what my mother prepared, I still learned about food through cooking with her, as well as trips when we went to great restaurants. And by great restaurants I mean Michelin star restaurants in Paris, where she lived in high school. One of the most memorable dinners I had was at Hubert Keller’s restaurant, Fleur de Lys, in San Francisco. At twelve, I was amazed at how every bite was delicious. I remember asking the chef how he made each dish, in awe at the complexity of the flavors.
I never remember my parents forcing me to eat healthier things. I’m sure, as a great cook, my mother was frustrated that I was not eating a variety of different foods, but she handled my obsession well, allowing me to explore something for as long as I needed to. I don’t remember when I stopped eating it every single night. I think it was my sophomore year in high school when I heard carbs made you overweight. It happened gradually, as I started to enjoy my mother’s dishes one by one.
My mother was ready with delicious meals: fried veal chops, spaghetti alle vongole, lobster fra diavolo, beef Wellington, beef Stroganoff, and Cornish game hens in Calvados cream sauce. She tricked me into loving diverse foods by letting me explore my own path, while making sure I was having fun and learning when we were cooking.
I am lucky to have a mother who allowed me to eat chicken parmesan every night, assuming that I would abandon it on my own—which I did. My friend’s parents had more traditional standards of raising their children, but my mother’s round-about way worked.
Today, I have a healthy, balanced diet, and enjoy delicious dishes from different parts of the world. But I have never stopped eating chicken parmesan from Papa Gino’s. I don’t have it in Manhattan, so whenever I pass by one of the chain’s outlets in Massachusetts or Rhode Island, I have to stop, no matter what time of day.
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