Cooking from scratch and longing for big Sunday dinners with family, friends
If Sophia Floros, our cook of the week from Arlington Heights, had her way, friends and family would come together for dinner every Sunday afternoon. Sophia fondly remembers Sunday dinners at her grandparent's house as she was growing up. In fact, it was Sophia's grandmother who encouraged Sophia to cook.
“I didn't really always like cooking. My family liked cooking and I always liked eating, but it was my grandmother who got me into cooking.” Sophia's grandmother was German, but she loved to cook all kinds of food — especially Italian.
“She would try anything. She even ate sushi, which was unusual for a woman of her age!” Before she died, Sophia's grandmother gave her recipe book to Sophia. “A lot of people gave her recipes through the years, friends and neighbors, and there are lots of magazine and newspaper recipes in it.”
Sophia enjoys using her grandmother's recipes, but she is also always looking for something different to try, and she likes simple, no fuss meals.
“There are three things I like: simple, fast and a good clean up!” she laughs. “My favorite meal is a piece of meat or fish on the grill, a vegetable and a pasta, or rice. If the food is fresh, it tastes good and I like to not have a lot of clean up.” Still, don't be misled by Sophia's claim of preferring simplicity. As the mother of a young daughter, Sophia is very determined to provide healthy meals for her family.
“I refuse to buy frozen meals or cook from boxes. When we were growing up, my mother was very into healthy foods.” As a result, Sophia is also very knowledgeable about nutrition. She cooks a lot of fish, but not farmed fish.
“I love fish, but farmed fish doesn't taste like fish,” Sophia has a favorite shop where she prefers to purchase fish and meat. She is also careful when choosing other foods.
“I don't buy completely organic — I don't have the money — but certain things I buy, like dairy products and some produce, are always organic and never genetically modified.
I do like to go out for a hot dog every once in awhile, but for the most part I like to eat healthy. I try to set a good example for my daughter. She sees what I eat and she wants to eat what I eat. I don't have to talk her into trying anything.” Sophia makes sure the snacks in the house are healthy and though she loves to bake, she doesn't bake too often.
“I don't want it in the house!” she laughs. When she does bake, she likes to make cookies, Kolaczkis and the occasional pie.
“In the summer I love to make a bake a blueberry, cherry or peach pie.”
As for Sophia's husband, however, it's all about the pasta.
“If he could, he would eat pasta every day!” Sophia admits. Today Sophia shares a favorite simple, yet elegant lemon pasta recipe that combines lemon, garlic and parmesan cheese to great effect.
As for the bring-back-the-Sunday-dinner campaign, Sophia keeps trying. While her own family sits down to dinner every evening, entertaining like they used to, before she worked full time, isn't as easy to do.
“Everybody is so busy now. It's hard to get someone to take the time out from their week. Nowadays, people can't even commit to that. But it is my favorite thing — to have somebody over for a giant meal at 2 or 3 in the afternoon, to be done with the meal and with the dishes, and still have some of the day left.”
Now that is one campaign that is hard to argue with!
• To suggest someone to be profiled here, send the cook's name, address and phone number to food@dailyherald.com.