Peeling Oranges, Remembering Home

Sardinian citruses in a Swiss kitchen: a story of family and food

Picture by the author, taken in the kitchen while cooking orange risotto

It’s a cold January afternoon in Zurich, Switzerland, one of those days where the light never quite decides to arrive. The baby is a few weeks old now, and my new life is measured in stretches of feeding, changing, and fleeting moments of sleep. The days blur into each other in a haze of monotony, punctuated only by the wonder — and exhaustion — of this new role: motherhood.

Then, the package arrives.

A big cardboard box, weathered from its journey, arrives with my mother’s familiar handwriting scrawled across the top — a sight that instantly carried me home. It comes from her Sardinia, my mother filled it with oranges and lemons plucked from her garden, some green leaves scattered here and there. It is her surprise, her way of reaching across the geographical distance that separates us, her way of saying, I’m here.

I opened the box, and the fragrance hit me first — sharp, sweet, alive. It is as though she had sent me a piece of the Italian sun, a gift of warmth in the middle of the Swiss gray. It is her way of thinking of me, her daughter living far away, now a mother herself.

I carry the oranges to the kitchen, and I begin to prepare dinner, thinking about how motherhood has…