30 AUGUST 2020
Into the Sauce The life-changingmagic of canning tomatoesBy Anthony GiglioTHE ODEI HADN’T BEEN DATING ANTONIA for more than a couple of weeks
when she invited me to her parents’ home for lunch. For the first
time. We were moving pretty quickly, if you must know, because
we had already dated, exactly once, five years earlier, then took
a half-decade break to figure things out. Still, I didn’t know her
parents at all. “My mom’s making eggplant,” Antonia announced.“It’s the best.” I waited a beat before answering. At the time, I
was a cocky young journalist and restaurant critic being paid to
say way too much about the hard kitchen work and creativity
of others. I was also accustomed to pretty lackluster eggplant in
every direction where I grew up in northern New Jersey. “I’ll be
the judge of that,” I told her, half-jokingly. She kissed me.OBSESSIONSPHOTOGRAPHY:^
ANTHONY^ GIG
LIOOPPOSITE:^COURTESYOFTHE^ LOPRESTI^ F
AMILY