By Sam Hill
This week I had the honor of interviewing my brother-in-law Josh, someone who, like me, actually cooks out of the cookbooks they collect. When I say I found a kindred spirit in Josh, I mean this guy can throw down in a kitchen. There’s so much intentionality in his food, so much love shared with each plate, it’s like he’s feeding your soul as much as your stomach.
I’ll never forget the first Thanksgiving he showed up with real cranberry sauce. I was horrified. How dare someone come into my parents’ house and offer an alternative to our jiggly, gelatinous cranberry mound, the one with portion lines already pressed into it by the can. All jokes aside, I sat across from him, took a bite of those fresh cranberries, and my mouth exploded with vibrant tartness. From that moment on, I found myself eagerly awaiting whatever Josh would be cooking next.
When I asked Josh where his love of food came from, he said, “Both of my parents enjoyed cooking, so there was almost always a homemade dinner every night, and they didn’t stick to one thing. I definitely got my love of variety and trying new foods from that. It could go from roast chicken one night, to stir fry the next, then steaks on the grill, then pasta with homemade meat sauce, then a fish fry. They never let food become just ‘that thing you have to do every day.’”
But what really pulled Josh into cooking was loss. “I lost my parents at a fairly early age,” he told me. “Once I was out on my own, I got nostalgic for the kinds of meals I grew up with. But now I was in a situation where if I wanted any of it, I was going to have to figure it out on my own. So, I just started trying to recreate things from memory. That got me enough of a taste of them that I kept challenging myself to get it closer the next time.”
Josh’s journey is one of memory turned into mastery. He picked up techniques from books and shows, folded them into his process, and eventually found joy not just in the results, but in the act of cooking itself. “Having a 90-year-old little Italian grandmother still around was a huge source of inspiration,” he added. “She always had her freezer stocked with homemade meatballs and chicken soup, and there’d always be a pile of breaded veal cutlets.”
Josh grew up on the Chesapeake in Virginia, just five minutes from a dock. “We’d go out there with a spool of twine and a pack of chicken thighs and come back with a bucket of blue crabs. No matter how many we had, there were never leftovers.”
When he closes his eyes and thinks of a memory that takes him back, it’s not a feast, it’s simplicity. “Angel hair pasta with garlic sautéed in olive oil, with fried eggs,” he said. “The simplest meal in the world.”
And maybe that’s the heart of it. Food doesn’t have to be fancy to be unforgettable. It just has to be made with love, served with intention, and rooted in memory. Josh’s cooking is all of that and more.
Angel Hair Pasta with Garlic Fried Eggs and Parmesan
Garlic
Olive Oil
Eggs
Red Pepper
Sea Salt
Angel hair pasta
Parmesan Cheese
Boil your angel hair pasta according to instructions. While this is boiling, sauté garlic in olive oil and break in a few eggs. Sprinkle the entire pan with red pepper and sea salt and cook the eggs until they are semi-set. Remove your eggs to a separate plate. Drain your noodles and toss the pasta in the pan with all the olive oil goodness. Plate your pasta with the egg on top and top with parmesan cheese.
Samantha Hill grew up watching the cooking channel and dreamed of one day becoming a chef. She later learned that cooking for others was her love language. She decided at 35 to go to culinary school and graduated from Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts with a Culinary Arts degree. Samantha was the sous chef at Gadsden Country Club for two years, but then decided to go into the corporate world. She’s currently an assistant bakery manager for Publix.
