Phyllis' mom, an immigrant from Poland, was taught to cook by her neighbors in the Lower East Side and Brooklyn.“My parents were orthodox Jews from Poland. We lived on Rivington St. We had a neighbor named Mrs. Katz, and this was before television. So Mrs. Katz would come to my apartment and teach my mother how to cook. And the dishes were from Poland. One thing she made was blintzes, and it was made by hand from scratch. Five years later, we moved from Rivington St. in Manhattan; we moved to Bensonhurst Brooklyn, and Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, my mother would sit on the stoop and listen to the ladies talk. I went to camp, and I came home and I told my mother that I had delicious spaghetti with sauce. So she went upstairs, and she made – took ketchup, and she poured it on the spaghetti and said ‘Look! Spaghetti with sauce.’ And of course it didn’t taste like what I had at camps. So she went back downstairs to the Italian ladies, and they taught her how to make spaghetti and sauce! So she went upstairs, and she did exactly what they said, and she ended up with a delicious sauce on the spaghetti. Plus, she would put it on the baked white fish. So after all this, I received a healthy meal.”

– Phyllis

Relationship:  Child of im/migrant Child of im/migrant