MOM FOOD : Remembering the women who shaped our tastes. The recipes are the least of it. : We Remember Mama : The Open Refrigerator Policy

A jaded food writer who has dined at tables around the world, sampled the cuisine of the world’s great chefs and spent a lifetime developing, cooking and tasting recipes critically would put Mom’s cooking in a category marked “be nice.”

But not I. My mother’s cooking was not just food. It was theater. It was the result of training by Ottoman chefs hired to teach her the culinary arts in preparation for marriage--a custom in many Albanian families during the early 1900s. The exotic dishes from my mother’s banquet repertoire filled our home in Manhattan with high drama whenever they were served.

There were the savory cheese, spinach, pumpkin, onion and chicken filo dough pastries called byrek , served to my father’s lonely bachelor friends--those cut off from families in Albania--who dropped in regularly for family warmth and a care package.

There was the Ottoman floating island (probably the precursor of the French), made with rice flour custard, she served to a Cold War-era U.N. diplomat who tapped his glass with a knife when he wanted more dessert. He had never tasted such ambrosia in his own country, whose opulent culinary past, said my mother, had been crushed along with table manners.

My mother and her sisters were also trained in girlhood to distribute food to the poor. I now realize that is the root of the amazing energy and boundless generosity that characterized my mother’s cooking throughout her adult life in America. Albanian political refugees would frequently and unexpectedly arrive at the house, interrupting my piano practice, my sister’s cello lessons, our homework, my father’s Gabriel Heatter evening news programs and his peaceful pipe smoking.

My father, a mild-mannered gentleman, tolerated these invasions upon his privacy reasonably well. Although my mother had just arrived home from work, she always insisted on giving the newcomers a fine meal; in minutes it would magically materialize from her four foot high refrigerator, a tiny box jammed with stuffed vegetables, gallons of marinated olives, feta and byrek.

Sometimes she would serve them the leftovers of our Sunday meal--lemon-garlic chicken whose tiny dumplings I helped stir over a low flame for hours; vinegared fish sprinkled with walnuts; roast chicken with a bagel stuffing flavored with dill and garlic; turbans of rice studded with nuts, orange peel and raisins; roast lamb studded with garlic and mint; tripe in garlic sauce; baked lamb coated with yogurt custard and the vast variety of baklavas, including a huge corrugated nut-filled roll coiled in a pan like a sleeping serpent.

More than any of these, however, I remember a dish that was neither Albanian nor Ottoman. It was spaghetti with short ribs, a dish my mother had borrowed and permanently adopted from the southern Italian cooks at the pension in Bari in which she spent her childhood vacations.

Akthenee particularly liked that dish. She was an old Albanian woman with no teeth, spidery, webbed hands and a sharp tongue who wore her entire year-round wardrobe on her person for fear of being evicted from her son’s home at any moment. She complained of beatings from her son, lived meagerly on whatever was doled out to her and came to my mother’s house for some solace, pampering and a good plate of spaghetti--just about the only food her toothless mouth could bear to eat.

She would praise the spaghetti and the tasty sauce. She’d lavish compliments on my father for his kindness and generosity, all the while feigning pity for the fact that he had to put up with a wife who was too thin and too peppery. “Poor Aliko,” she would say, criticizing my mother’s unnecessary use of antique china, crystal and starched napkins. “What a fancy one you are,” she’d say to my mother.

“If you’d learn to keep your thoughts to yourself, you’d be better off,” my mother would reply, plumping up a pillow for Akthenee’s frail bones to rest against.

Akthenee is no longer alive, but my mother’s open door policy lives on. So does her spaghetti with short ribs.

SPAGHETTI WITH SHORT RIBS

8 short ribs or 3 pounds flanken or chuck beef

4 cloves garlic, slivered

Salt, pepper

1/4 cup olive oil

1 large onion, minced

2 cloves garlic, minced

Few sprigs parsley, chopped

1 stalk celery heart, chopped

1 (6-ounce) can tomato paste

Water or good quality red wine

1 (1 pound 12-ounce) can tomato puree

1 to 2 teaspoons crushed oregano or basil

Dash paprika

1 pound spaghetti

Make slits with tip of knife in several places in each short rib and place sliver of garlic in slits. Season to taste with with salt and pepper.

Heat olive oil in Dutch oven. Add short ribs and cook until browned on all sides. Remove ribs from pan and set aside. Add onion, garlic, parsley and celery. Cook until onion is golden. Stir in tomato paste and stir to blend flavors. Add 2 tomato paste cans water and tomato puree. Bring to boil. Add short ribs, salt and pepper to taste, oregano and paprika.

Bring again to boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer over low heat until short ribs are very tender and almost fall off bone, about 2 to 2 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally.

When ready to serve, cook spaghetti in boiling salted water until tender and drain well. Pour small amount sauce (without meat) in empty pan. Heat and add spaghetti. Toss to mix well. Turn into serving platter and top with additional sauce and short ribs. If desired, serve short ribs on side. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Styling by Minnie Bernardino and Donna Deane