Cooking with My Dad

My dad made the best polenta.

In this 111-degree Sacramento weather, I made polenta. As I stirred it vigorously for the corn to be well-mixed, I remembered my dad, who used to get as giddy as a kid when making polenta for my mom and me.

“Look at this! Pure gold,” he would point at his mushy culinary masterpiece. His blue eyes transfixed on the healthy and nutritious food he prepared for us with love almost every day.

Growing up in communist Romania, my friends and I used to call polenta “the poor people’s meal,” as it only required water, salt, and cornmeal to make.

More than 30 years later, on this scorching hot day, I feel the richest daughter in the world, remembering and cooking with my dad — adding some butter at the end for the creamiest and most golden polenta.