Despite my upbringing, I have become a bit of a cook in my own right.

You see, my mother never really liked to cook — although she was quite good at it. As the only girl in a family of five children, she was often forced to do the cooking in her teenage years. She always sort of resented that, and it impacted her ability to enjoy her time in the kitchen.

Her kitchen, itself, was another thing she disliked. When I was 5 and Dad was off work following a heart attack, he decided to remodel the kitchen. It was a project he never finished, so she was never happy with that space.

Obviously, I wasn’t raised to be a cook. I was taught the basics of how to cook to survive, but the expectation that I become someone who could cook a feast for a family never seemed to be there.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, though, I spent much more time at home. One of the things I did to pass some of that time was experiment in the kitchen. I cooked dishes some people would consider unusual. I baked. I raised vegetables and preserved some of them. And I came to enjoy cooking for the sake of cooking and enjoying a meal I had prepared myself.

Perhaps that is why I so enjoyed a recent interview I conducted that turned into more of a friendly and enthusiastic conversation among a small group of women.

On Page D1 of today’s edition, you will find an article I wrote about the newest cookbook created by the Sons & Daughters of Italy in Bellaire. Thanks to my recently retired colleague Doug Hartlieb, I was invited to the lodge to talk with the six-woman committee who compiled the more than 200 old family recipes that make up its contents. Those ladies included Doug’s wife, Cynthia, as well as Brenda Ault, Irene Louda, Lillian Siebieda, Annette Ice and Anita Smigill.

Not only was I impressed with their work, but I couldn’t help but notice the camaraderie they had developed over the course of the project. All were pleasant and pleased with the final product, and they were quick to give each other credit for the long, hard hours of work that they put into the effort.

It was obviously a labor of love for them — a unique way to preserve and share their childhood memories and Italian heritage. Some of the recipes they collected from lodge members had been prepared and enjoyed by four different generations of those families.

So, after I had been informed of all the book’s particulars — the pages that feature family histories and photos, the indexes that allow readers to search for recipes in two different ways, the details about the regions of Italy where each recipe originated — I settled into a comfortable chat with the group.

Although I have no Italian heritage myself, we all shared similar experiences with our mothers and grandmothers in the kitchen. We even recalled some of the same treats being made by our grandmothers, such as a fluffy candy called “Divinity.”

It was an interview that I truly enjoyed. And, after the talk of food and cooking was over, we even spent a little time discussing the various trials and triumphs of life in general.

Overall, they are a delightful group of women who are dedicated to the club and its causes. The book that they produced is well organized, interesting, informative and absolutely filled with traditional Italian recipes you aren’t likely to find anyplace else.

I hope to have an excuse to visit them again soon, and I can’t wait to try cooking up something from their book!