I’d been stalking the squash for weeks. Sure, vegetables move slow, but you never know when they’re going to deceive you out there, looking innocent in the garden.

Clips in hand, I went at it speedy-like in the early dawn with dew on the grass and the birds singing, squirrels scampering, and the pack of urban deer out on the neighbor’s lawn, looking like they’re on a smoke break before decimating the raspberries.

I don’t have ethical convictions one way or another about slaughtering butternuts. It had to be done. I had dinner to make. Greens to sauté. Clip. Clip. And it was over. Painless. I cradled the five-pounder in my arms, walked back inside, my little dog nipping at my heels.

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This week food writer Catherine Piccoli takes over my blog with a tale about her family, Greenwich Village, and a live lamb. –Sherrie

With NYU just nearby, Greenwich Village looks like any other urban university setting at ground level. Bars, hipsters, trendy cafes, and bicycles are the norm now, but the apartment building where my Grandma grew up and where my Dad was born still stands there, above the hip din – all seven floors of tan brick and black-painted fire escape at 142 Sullivan Street.

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I felt it coming on…the need to make something complicated. In my 20s this impulse led to spontaneous road trips and bad relationships, but now it leads me into the kitchen.

The thought descends like a mist. Tourtes de Blettes. The scrumptious and strange sweet chard tart. Swiss chard booms in the garden. It’s time.

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Having gardened for over 12 years, you would think I’d made my peace with vegetables. Yet, I hadn’t seen any point in growing cucumbers until last year. I don’t particularly like cold soups and cucumbers strike me as a bit slimey in their just-picked state. But then I realized I could pickle them. And a full-on household infatuation with pickles kicked in.

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Pizza

People are fierce about their pizza, taking sides in heated, generations-long arguments regarding thick, thin—crispy, chewy. But all that territorial debate goes out the window if you make someone a pizza from scratch in your home. It’s like coaxing a wild animal into submission, sitting someone down in front of such a miraculous, inventive thing.

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As I tucked my finger into the room temperature cheese and took a small taste, the creamy texture accented by a tiny ting of lemon, I realized I had been—for years—eating an unimaginative imitation. The ricotta I’d spooned out of a tub and layered into my lasagna was just the idea of ricotta, a rough estimate. Here before me rested the real deal. This ricotta sang a little tune, as it shimmered in its authenticity.

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Conversation and a big bowl of steaming mashed potatoes traveled around the long oak table the day I first heard about my dad’s egg route. It was another Flick holiday, a plate of ham, a basket of rolls—everything eventually passed to the card table, pushed up snug to seat the 20 plus people my family has become.

My dad likes to reminisce, and I like to ask questions. We talk through dessert (usually a selection of 5 or 6 homemade pies), and continue sometimes even after most everyone else has retired to the living room to nap and watch sports. While I can’t remember what I ate for breakfast, he easily recalls the name and hometown of a person he worked with for two months, 58 years ago.

I learned that day that the urban eater’s desire for local farm fresh eggs isn’t a new thing. That the act of farm-to-table kept my parents in gas money and connected to both the city and their rural roots for the first four years of their marriage.

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