On my first Father’s Day without my dad, making his signature ravioli offers comfort, connection and a way to remember him.
Key Points
- Family recipes can become powerful ways to honor loved ones after loss.
- Cooking traditions help preserve memories and connect generations.
- Sharing meaningful foods with children can keep a loved one’s legacy alive.
My dad’s homemade ravioli—hand-rolled sheets of fresh pasta filled with herby mushrooms and cheese—were true works of art. That’s fitting as he made a living as an artist, selling paintings at shows across the country.
When I was barely tall enough to see over the counter, he taught me that fresh pasta sheets should be moist and flexible but not so wet that they turn gummy after simmering in salted water. When prepared properly, these ravioli are pillowy, soft yet tender and every bit as delicious as a Michelin-starred dish.
This Father’s Day I’ll be passing down the recipe and technique to my own children, 8- and 5-year-old food lovers who enjoy cooking with their dad. While I relish every opportunity I get to cook with my daughters, this experience will be especially significant since it’s the first Father’s Day since my dad passed away.
The Grief of a Holiday
On the surface, both Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are happy holidays, acknowledging and celebrating the parents who do so much for their children. But digging a little deeper, these holidays are also very hard for so many.
This year I’m joining the painful club of people commemorating the holiday while grieving a parent who died, and while the holiday is all about me for my kids and wife (not a bad gig, right?), my thoughts will be with my old man, wishing he could join us for homemade ravioli.
Foods That Define Generations
Food was a significant part of my childhood. While I didn’t learn to cook from my dad (my passion for food comes from my mom, who to this day is still one of my all-time favorite cooks), he did master a handful of delicious recipes from his own Italian American mother. She taught him recipes that have become some of my extended-family’s classics, like her chocolate icebox cookies.
She also taught my dad what I consider the absolute best comfort food: a dish of small pasta with eggs, butter and black pepper that we affectionately call “grandma noodles.” I’m fairly certain it started as a failed attempt at cacio e pepe, since our family’s version intentionally scrambles the eggs. My dad would make it for lunch whenever I was home sick from school, and to this day it’s the dish I turn to when I’m feeling down and out. It’s the ultimate feel-good food that takes me back to my safe and loving childhood.
But the one family recipe that means the most to me is definitely the ravioli. It’s rustic and forgiving but requires a fair deal of culinary skill. When my dad learned it as a kid, he likely stood on a thick phonebook by his mom’s side, watching her careful and sturdy hands mix eggs into finely ground flour, add a big pinch of salt and knead the mixture into a smooth ball. She must have taught him the importance of resting the dough before rolling because he taught me that simple lesson, and I will share it with my girls.
Losing My Biggest Fan
Over the years, as my dad slowed down and found little interest in cooking, he would pull a stool into my kitchen and watch me cook as we caught up on our lives. He was my biggest fan and always the first to show genuine appreciation for anything I made. He also supported me when I moved around the country pursuing journalism jobs, celebrated me when I graduated culinary school at the top of my class and encouraged me to pursue food writing full-time.
So when I lost him very suddenly, I lost a role model for how to be a good father, a guide for making a non-traditional living and my biggest champion.
I spent the past nine months or so reflecting on his life, squeezing out all the memories I could. I still love telling his story to friends, family and complete strangers, and I’m trying to live my life with the same love for the beauty of our natural world, compassion for all people and strong work ethic that he had.
His artwork covers our walls, and I see his distinguished features on my face when I look in the mirror, so there’s no shortage of reminders of him. But the memories I find myself returning to most often are the ones from the kitchen—watching him roll out pasta, learning family recipes and sharing meals around the table. Those moments are what I’ll be thinking about this Father’s Day.
Memories Through Food
When my dad showed me how to roll out sheets of pasta for ravioli, he sprinkled flour across our burgundy peninsula while I helped him lay down long strips of thin dough and dust off excess flour with a pastry brush. My own kitchen counter is far too small, so my daughters and I will use our dining table—the same one I inherited from my dad’s parents when they passed away many years ago.
There’s likely a lesson here on holding on to physical objects that remind us of our loved ones, but in truth, my dad would just as soon recommend using a sheet of plywood from behind the shed if that’s the only big surface I had. For his many strengths and few flaws, he was far more practical than sentimental. Lately I’ve felt the exact opposite, seeking activities that bring me back to a time and place when he was still alive. Cooking his ravioli with my daughters lets me do that while also passing something meaningful down to them.
This Father’s Day, I’ll finely chop and sear mushrooms, grate Parmesan cheese and combine it with ricotta and lemon zest and teach my girls how to roll out thin pasta sheets. The holiday won’t be the same without you, Dad, but teaching my girls, your granddaughters, how to make Poppy’s ravioli helps you live on and reminds me how lucky I was to have you as a father.
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