Nita S.
I have been trying to think where I should start to tell you about me, and I decided that the beginning was always a good place to start. My parents met when my father got a job as a dishwasher in my grandparents restaurant. Our family always had restaurants. I grew up in an Italian American home (I actually am half Italian and half Swedish, but we never cooked anything but Italian). I grew up at a time when there were neighborhoods, you know the Italian neighborhood, the Polish neighborhood, the German neighborhood etc... We lived in an Italian neighborhood. We had all of the usual you know St. Josephs Day feasts... We did however live nextdoor to a Jewish couple that I adored who had an African American women to help tham around the house that was my best friend. I would sit in the kitchen with her and we would cook all of her favorites and I learned so much about the different foods and how to prepare them, and I think I was only about 6 or 7. Christmas time we always had an open house for the entire neighborhood, people came and went all day long. My grandmother cooked for days to get ready for this annual tradition. I learned to cook from my grandmother (she was blind and I thought I was helping her, little did I know that the love she put into her food was really helping me). My grandfather would read a recipe to her in the morning before he went to work and it would be on the table when he got home that night. She measured every thing with her hands and let me tell you she was accurate every time. We made bread everyday. Food was always readily available and something was always on the stove or in the oven, no ready made stuff in our house. We ate if we were happy, sad, excited celebrating, mourning and any other emotion or curcumstance that you could think of. In our house food always fixed anything. When you went to my grandmothers house even if it was unexpected, with in a few minutes there was an antipasto plate on the table and something cooking and ready for consumption in a short time. I learned to appreciate food at an early age, and was shocked at the food they served in the cafeteria at school. I came home for lunch everyday. I was a skinny child and a fully developed teenager (if you know what I mean). I was athletic and fit (5'4" about 170 pounds). I never thought of my self as overweight. When I got to college is when I started to look around and notice that I was not like the other wonderful people that came into my life at that time. When Russ and I were married (30 years ago on Christmas day) I was still about 170 pounds. When I got pregnant with Mary (our oldest) I developed toxemia and was in and out of the hospital and had to deliver her at 32 weeks. I was able to loose my pregnancy weight and am glad to say that Mary is a happy and healthy adult today. Two years later I became pregnant with Jacki and once again it was not a trouble free pregnancy. I gained around 80 pounds and delivered her at 36 weeks. Needless to day we did not want to try that again. Again I lost my pregnancy weight. About 5 years later I broke out in hives and was on steriods for 1 solid year (no one told me that a side effect of steriod use is weight gain, a lot of weight gain). I gained 100 pounds and could never get it off. Jump to 1999 and my fight to get gastric bypass surgery. I ended up having to be cash pay and had my surgery April 13, 2000. I thought for the first three months that I was commiting slow suiside and that I had made an awful mistake. At the three month mark if was like someone had turned a switch and everything was fine. I was able to keep my weight off for 5 years. I was one happy Nana (Italian for grandma). I once again developed hives (cause unknown to this day) and was on steriods for awhile (not sure of how long this time). this started the weight gain once again. I then developed some female trouble and had to have surgery, after that my weight skyrocketed. Now I wait patiently and determined to have a revision. I will update you as I progress on my wonderful journey.
