Emilia-Romagna is the region in Italy known for having the best food and the highest cooking standards. We lived there until I was about four, and I have vague memories of our farm. We had cows, oxen, pigs. We grew vegetables, mostly corn. I remember going to the mill with my mother. The miller would grind the corn and keep a little for himself as payment. That's how it was in those days. With the ground corn my mother would make polenta.

She had an outdoor stove that had a special opening for a polenta pot which was much deeper than regular pots. There was a special stick for stirring the polenta. It had a curved handle for scraping the edge of the pot. My mother would hold the bag of ground corn meal under her arm so she could pour it in slowly, stirring all the time so there wouldn't be any lumps. I do it her way, even though I use a smaller bag of cornmeal.

You eat polenta with chicken stew or sausage or mushroom ragou. The next day you can fry it or grill it and have it with eggs or use it cold with salad. It was our form of bread. She used to slice it with a thread, then put the slices in a roasting pan covered with tomato sauce or cheese - she liked fontina. Also with mushrooms.

My mother put mushrooms into everything, especially her sufreit which is dialect for soffritto. Sufreit is the combination of flavors that makes the foundation for a Iot of dishes. I still make sufreit the way my mother did. Everyone loves it, but to me it just never tastes as good as hers. I make it in huge batches and keep it in the refrigerator. It's there whenever I need it, and it really cuts down on cooking time.

She also made her own pasta. Not for fun but because she never compromised in the kitchen. I liked pasta days. I'd come home from school and see the pasta drying in the kitchen. She'd put brooms across the backs of two chairs, then cover the brooms with dish cloths, and hang the pasta over the cloths. It always made me feel good to drop my books, and think about eating the pasta. Even today, all these years later, I feel good when I think about pasta hanging from those brooms.

ABOUT JENNY: Jenny is a housewife, known for her generosity with food.