This is my “meat from the motherland”. I grew up in the dawn of what I call the Age of Convenience where fast food, frozen dinners, and canned soups and fruits dominated much of the American family table. Fortunately for me, my mother was “anti-convenience” and she was in the kitchen almost every evening for at least an hour preparing our family dinner.

I wasn’t much help to her as she prepared her delicious brisket or leg of lamb. When she was done, she and my father, my sister and I gathered around the dinner table, no television in sight, and talked about our day. I might not have even realised it then but my mother planted the seeds of my love of cooking and gathering around the table.

Unlike some mothers of today who have a vast repertoire of recipes, my mom Doris had only about a dozen tried and true dishes she prepared while I was growing up in the 1950s and 60s. And by the way, they weren’t recipes, just dishes she made from trial and a few errors that she was quick to fix.

Of all of them, my favourite was her brisket, which she cooked for God-knows-how-many hours. I would come home from grammar school and I swear I could smell – even feel – the brisket before I even opened our front door.

But then, then “the wait” began. She wouldn’t let me tear into it until our beloved nightly ritual; my mom, my dad Lawrence, my sister Gail and I sitting around the dinner table discussing our day. It was a cherished routine, something that I think is becoming a rarity in today’s technology-crazed world.

It’s probably no big surprise what I’m going to say next, but I’ll say it anyway. That brisket was delicious.