Bon Appetit!

MY first culinary exposure to odd animal parts was in the basement kitchen of my paternal grandfather, Tom.

The kitchen of the apartment he shared with my grandmother in Buffalo was fine for eating, not for the odors that came with cooking. So Tom, whose idea of recreation was to cook, installed a Hotpoint gas stove and refrigerator in the laundry room downstairs.

We grilled baby lambs’ heads seasoned with lemon and oregano. We simmered tripe in tomatoes that he grew and canned every summer. We roasted beef hearts, deep-fried calves’ brains and sauted chicken gizzards. And he cooked calves’ liver rare at a time when everyone else in the family thought it had to come out shoe-leather well done.

Sometimes he poured me a small glass of the homemade wine he served young from barrels in the “cave” (his tool room).

Possible Obama Ad: “Look at some of the things Mitt Romney ate when he was in France!!1”