The smell of garlic and onions wafted through the air as the sauce simmered. My eyes stung and watered. I hated onions on their own, but the smell felt like home. My grandmother boiled the pasta water, assembled her mise en place, stirred and tasted her homemade spaghetti sauce while I watched reruns of I Love Lucy or played Solitaire on her living room rug. Occasionally she'd let me dip my tasting spoon or (even my finger!) into the bright red sauce. 

"More onions. More Parmesan," she'd conclude without fail. She'd grab another half an onion and begin chopping away while handing me the Kraft Parmesan cheese to sprinkle to my heart's content. I know for anyone with a grandmother who was actually Italian, this must sound horrifying, but this was our secret ingredient and I will defend it until the day I die. 

My other special job was to mix and shape the meatballs. After washing my hands, I'd plunge them into the bowl of ground beef and turkey (always a combo for the softest meatballs), breadcrumbs, eggs, and all the seasonings. I loved the squish of the mixture between my fingers and I'd knead and shape until my hands were almost numb with cold. We'd brown the meatballs in a pan first, rotating them one by one, before adding them to the sauce. 

She let me add the one lone bay leaf and sometimes I would be lucky enough to find it in my bowl during dinner, like a cracker jack prize. 

It was a time consuming process from start to finish. I would only help some of the time, returning to the tv or card games when I got bored. But she made our beloved spaghetti and meatballs for every special occasion in our family: birthdays, Christmas Eve, graduations. We requested it unanimously. And now I miss it furiously. 

My grandmother died over a decade ago, but the scent of onions still sends me back to her kitchen. It reminds me of her patience, her love, her desire to delight us all no matter how many hours she had to spend at the stove. 

My grandmother didn't just give us meatballs; she gave us her full attention. 

She paid attention to what delighted, enthralled, saddened us. 

She always had my favorites on hand: blueberry muffins for breakfast after a sleepover, chocolate cherry cordial ice cream for dessert, garlic noodles for a weeknight dinner before gymnastics practice, and spaghetti and meatballs for my birthday. 

She listened to every story I told about Justin S. or Brad. L. asking out so-and-so on the bus. She watched me practice my beam routine behind her couch over and over, clapping every time no matter how much I wobbled. She helped with my math homework and read my history essays. She played Rummy with me until our scores were in the upper tens of thousands. She comforted me when Justin S. did not ask me out. 

She paid attention to what I paid attention to. And I felt loved. 

My mom wrote down my grandmother’s recipe from memory after she died. We've tried many times to replicate the exact blend of cheese and Italian seasoning, adding notes to the index card recipe through trial and error. But it's never quite as good as I remember. 

Maybe it never will be. 

These days I don't have much time to spend preparing food. I'm ashamed to admit most of the meals I cook for my family are pre-packaged in some way or take less than 10 minutes to make--scrambled eggs, pasta and store bought sauce, frozen chicken nuggets and fries in the air fryer, chicken tikka masala from Costco. 

To my surprise and delight, I've found that I don't actually hate onions like I thought I did as a kid. Maybe I never hated them or maybe I just grew into it. Either way, one way I've found to channel my grandmother's flavor profile and intentionality while cooking these days is to add an onion to whatever I'm making. I'll ask my husband to pick up another onion whenever he masks up to go to the store. 

"Just to have on hand," I say. 

I may not be making her family famous spaghetti and meatballs, but I can quickly chop an onion to add to scrambled eggs, a chicken dish, my tuna salad. And with every crunchy bite and scrunch of my nose while chopping, I can delight in my memory of my grandmother and be reminded to pay attention to the delights of those I love. 

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This post was written as part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to read the next post in this series "The Story of a Recipe".