Project 1.mp3

Stella, who lives in California, shares her love for food and cooking, especially Italian cuisine. She recalls fond memories of Sunday family dinners and making homemade pasta. Stella emphasizes the importance of spending time together as a family and mentions that many children today are distanced from their parents. She believes that simply spending a few hours together each week, like cooking or eating together, can greatly benefit kids and give them a sense of belonging. My name is Stella. I was born and have lived in California all my life. The rest of my family lives in Italy and Chicago. I live with my mother, sister, and two cats, Rocky and Mindy. A big part of my character is eating and cooking food. Being Italian food is certainly an important part of my life. Sunday family dinners and cooking together with three tenors playing in the background was a regular occurrence. I remember making a few things each week, such as polenta and homemade pasta. We used to use wooden hangers to dry the pasta because you have to let it dry and harden before you can cook it. The hooks that we used for the hangers are still on our wall. We would make desserts too, which mainly consisted of my sister making the best lemon cake you've ever had. Once when I was little, I was making pucelles, an Italian waffle cookie, and I was so afraid I was going to mess them up. But my mom would say, you can't mess them up. That great-grandmother's waffle iron, and it's almost like she looks over it so all the cookies it makes are perfect. That night, we ended up talking about my great-grandmother and how she had a lot of recipes in a book that my mom still has, but she would leave out ingredients so only the people she would cook with would know exactly how to make them. I think most families should cook together or even just spend time together. Medium has an article that says 27% of children are distanced from either one or both parents. That's almost 3 in 10 kids. I bet everyone knows 10 kids, but I also bet that not everyone has thought about that 3 of those kids might actually need help in some way. That number should not be this high in this day and age, especially when we have so many resources that can help them. The answer for helping is so simple too. Just by spending a few hours with each other once a week can really help kids feel like they have a good family and someone to go to when they need it. Sometimes something as simple as just cooking or eating together on the weekends can really help kids everywhere.