In a typical travel writer’s month I am forcing my husband onto a flight to somewhere like Portugal to go buy gloves in the world’s tiniest store, or I am saddled on a mechanical bull at a gay rodeo in Dallas, or I am foraging with aboriginals in Western Australia...but somehow with all this travel, I always end up in New Jersey. Mostly because I married into New Jersey Italianess. I think of myself as someone who can turn any situation around into a fun activity. But even I had some obstacles, when I fell in love with New Jersey. If you need some New Jersey start with Chelsea Handler’s useful lessons here.
You know when your person says to you, oh so here’s the new plan: we’re going to the family Thanksgiving holiday in New Jersey, not for a usual night - but for almost a week. And don’t get me wrong here, I love my in-laws. More than most son-in-laws do, definitely. My mother-in-law is Carmela Soprano: the hair, the jewelry, the exercise clothing (actually, she gets up every single day at 5 am to hit her nearby suburban gym, where she proceeds to make the teenagers and young yummy mummies look weak, this also happens when she’s in a bikini and we’re beaching down the shore).
But also it’s Soprano cuisine. Can you just hear that voice saying “man-uh-COT”? Remember when Tony Soprano would come home, after a night of floozies and killings and open the fridge, to tuck into some baked ziti from a Tupperware. Food never looked that perfect.
And my father in law plays the drums in a few bands around town, often down the Jersey Shore right on the beach. He’s the most easy going person you’ve met in your whole life, and he takes Italian cooking to new zeniths. He is also in pool construction, Northern New Jersey Italians in pool construction. When I first got into this family, I did think about mobsters. I’ve grown to realize they’re not that, but hey, that’s still a lot of concrete. So there is always something to eat, and a million reasons to belly laugh with them.