Sunday supper: The American tradition that cuts across cultures

PITTSBURGH — Raymond Mikesell wanted to make Sunday supper, the kind he had growing up on the North Side of Pittsburgh that began with waking up early to the rich aroma of his mother’s sauce and ended with his siblings and cousins playing pick-up baseball or football in the backyard while the grown-ups sat on the porch with their Coleman coolers popping the tops off of Schmidt’s beers and solving the neighborhood’s problems.

Large decorative bowls of steaming hot rigatoni, platters of greens and beans, meatballs, gravy, chunks of Parmesan cheese and crispy bread that melted in your mouth when you bit off a chunk would fill two tables: one for the adults and one for the kids.