With her wedding to husband John 19 pending years ago, Westerville resident Anne Gonzales became the lone student in a somewhat impromptu Italian cooking class.

 

The instructor? Her soon-to-be mother-in-law, Rose Marie Yocolano.

 

Before learning the tricks of Italian cooking, Gonzales says her culinary skills weren’t exactly strong.

 

“I had no clue how to cook at all,” says Gonzales, the mother of three. “The biggest joke when we had family get-togethers was that I was in charge of water.”

 

That all changed, she says, when Yocolano came from Boca Raton, Fla. to visit, two weeks before the wedding. Though the Calabria, Italy-born Yocolano married a man from Spain, she only cooked Italian food for her family through the years, and spent a week teaching Gonzales her staple dishes.

 

“During the week, she taught me every single Italian recipe she knew,” Gonzales says. “It was a great chance to get to know her and to learn about her family. It was an opportunity to learn about her heritage and how she grew up.”

 

Yocolano’s recipes varied widely, from manicotti to sauces (for which the ingredients are a family secret) to pizzelles, wafer-thin cookies made with anise. According to Gonzales, the recipes were somewhat difficult to learn: in traditional Italian fashion, Yocolano didn’t have exact measurements. When recording the meatball recipe and attempting to quantify the salt, Gonzales simply wrote to use an amount resembling “snow-covered mountains.”

 

At the same time, many of the recipes called for similar ingredients, which made them easier to remember. And, as Gonzales recalls from her lessons, “You can never use too much garlic or onion.”

 

The Gonzales family – which includes Jennifer, 18, Lois, 15 and Richard, 13—has its favorite Italian recipes from Yocolano’s extensive repertoire. On New Year’s Day, for example, making gnocchi is a family affair. However, Yocolano’s meatball recipe is the big standout – not only do the Gonzales kids know how to make it, but they ask for it regularly. The recipe is easy, Gonzales says, and extremely freezer friendly. You can also fry the meatballs to make a delicious meatball sandwich.

 

“The kids could literally eat this every day,” Gonzales adds.

 

Gonzales shares her family recipe with Westerville Magazine.

 

Kate Seegraves is editor of Westerville Magazine.

 

 

3 pounds hamburger

3 eggs

9 slices of stale white bread (soak the bread in water, then squeeze the water out)

1 large onion, chopped

3 garlic cloves, chopped

½ cup parmesan cheese

Salt, pepper and parsley to taste

 

Combine the ingredients and roll into balls. Boil the balls in a covered pot in your favorite sauce for one hour on medium heat, stirring occasionally. The meatballs can be frozen for up to one month.