The “Perfect” Gnocchis
Once, there were three of us. The “perfect” little family—but I always sensed one day he would go. I never knew why, but I felt his urge to leave what we had.
My father loved to make Italian food. It was an important part of recognizing our Italian heritage in my family. Bread, pasta, you name it, we probably made it.
My father was always off on Sundays. That was the day he’d choose to up and make something. One Sunday he decided to make gnocchi’s—my favorite pasta when I was little.
My father was proud of the gnocchi's he made; they weren’t chewy like the store-bought ones. When cooked al dente, you could cleanly bite into our gnocchi’s.
I was sat at the kitchen table as he began to make the dough with potatoes, flour, and eggs. He worked and kneaded until the dough was formed before rolling it out with a big wooden rolling pin.
Sometimes he’d let me handle the flour and I’d sprinkle it on the table to prevent the dough from sticking.
“Can I help?” I’d always ask, looking up at my father with a hopeful gaze.
“Hold on, I’m almost finished,” he answered, not looking up from his dough creation.
I impatiently waited before he finally let me have my turn. I was instructed to take little chunks of dough and roll them into oval-like shapes. I, of course, was unskilled at such trade and found it difficult to make them all the same size.
“What are you doing—this one’s too small,” he complained at me, making me fix the ones that looked like baby gnocchi’s in comparison to his.
I ignored him, but I corrected my error in gnocchi etiquette. This is how it always was—my father concentrating, allowing me to help, but dissatisfied if it wasn’t going the way he wanted.
As we continued to roll the dough into gnocchi’s, my mother walked into the room. She left it to my father with his Italian excursions. It was the only time she wasn’t in the kitchen herself making us all dinner.
“How’s it going?” she asked.
I smiled up at her and replied, “Mummy, look! Those are mine!”
I pointed at my misshapen gnocchi’s, and my mother smiled. “That’s good,” she encouraged warmly.
“Why don’t you wash this?” my father interjected, motioning to some cooking utensil he needed to use but it was messy with dough and flour.
“Fine,” my mother answered, taking it from its place on the table and going to the kitchen sink to do as my father asked—or else risk his returned irritation.
It was at moments like this that I knew that my parents weren’t the happiest couple. Sure, they loved each other, and always helped one another, but there was always an underlying tension I felt in the air.
I question whether this was when that feeling—the one where I knew my father would leave one day—began to surface. Little did I know I was right.
Like my favorite childhood character Winnie the Pooh, someday, my father would take a red balloon and he too would float away for something “better”—in the case of Winnie the Pooh, it was just honey.
“Don’t—leave that,” my father chided as I reached for a pile of dough he’d left sitting on the table, untouched.
“Why?” I asked innocently, pouting at him.
“It’s for the bread,” he answered, going to move the dough into a bowl to prevent me from trying to touch it again. “It needs to sit so it can rise,” he explained, placing a towel over the bowl, and setting it aside.
“Oh,” I replied, sulking a little because my father had used that tone with me again. I never understood why he had to be so cranky when I tried to do anything.
So, I continued to roll my dough into little gnocchi’s, still unable to make them quite the right size.
“Where do you want this?” my mother asked once she’d finished washing whatever my father had asked her to.
“Just set it there,” my father responded without a single thank you to my mother for helping. Had I ever heard my father say thank you to her—despite everything she always did for us?
My mother said nothing else and did as he asked, letting my father have his fun in the kitchen. She walked out, leaving me to work with my father.
I watched as he used a fork to make ridges on top of the gnocchi. I felt proud of how my father knew how to make traditional Italian dishes.
“Let me try,” I prodded.
“No, just keep working on the dough I already gave you before it gets dry,” he reminded, pointing at the dough that was still awaiting my return.
“Okay,” I sighed and did as he asked—much like my mother.
Years later, I would decide to never obey a man as my mother did. My mother always attempted to “keep the peace,” as they say, but you shouldn’t have to sacrifice your own happiness to keep someone else content.
I was happy when it was the three of us, but, really, I became happier when it was later just the two of us. My mother, for the first time, could truly grow and be her own person again. Now we decide our own meals on Sundays, and it doesn’t have to be perfect.
Perfect doesn’t exist.
I wonder if my father, wherever he is, came to realize that.
