Ma's Greek Pizza

Rachel here: The other night I made, for the very first time, my favorite childhood meal: my mom's Greek pizza. Growing up, this was what I asked for for my birthday dinners and the leftover I hoped would be mine when my brothers and I ate leftovers for dinner. I remember feeling like I had sophisticated taste buds because I was eating spinach and feta cheese, foods that weren't staples per se due to the fact that I shared meals with G and S who, as has been mentioned before, weren't always game for eating food that didn't come in cute shapes. Anyway, since my mom did a post featuring this dish a few months ago, I've been craving it. The day that I was going to make it I felt a little bit excited all day. I don't think I'd eaten this meal since I lived with my parents and I was nearly giddy by dinner time at the prospect of revisiting my favorite childhood food. If you haven't made your favorite meal from growing up in a long time, I highly recommend that you do so. Cooking and eating this Greek pizza left me feeling all warm and fuzzy and nostalgic for dinners in my parents' kitchen, talking with my brothers and my mom about our days. It was fun to share it with John, too, since he had never had it. He dutifully ate seconds and totally understood why I was so excited to make this meal. This is a recipe, for sure, that I can't wait to make for our kid in a few years. After all of these years of missing this meal, I'm glad I finally incorporated it into my kitchen. I didn't make it quite as well as my mom, but I still felt like she was there by the stove with me and that, in and of itself, is just the kind of nourishment we all need sometimes.

Janet here: It's funny to read Rachel's post because I really didn't realize as she was growing up, that this was such a big deal meal for her. I knew she liked it, of course, but I had no idea it was infused with so much emotion.

We really are so clueless aren't we? We work so hard to make a moment special — cooking a special meal with all the right ingredients and candlelight, say, for a significant other — and yet so often it's the little every day moments that actually make it all matter. While cooking with phyllo dough, a major ingredient in Greek pizza, was not something I did every day, I certainly never thought the nights I served it were "special," and yet those moments apparently were. I guess the message is we should try to remember it's all special because you never know the moment that's going to "count" in someone else's memory. Good to be reminded of that, I think, don't you?