Jackie boasts a heritage of culinary riches with her Jamaican-Italian-Russian Jewish roots. The pursuit and production of delicious food started in her family well before she was born...

The Jamaican Side
The Russian-Italian-Jewish Side

The Jamaican Side — "The building of the Panama Canal was fueled on the food of my ancestors.", Jackie says.

"My great grandmother, Rosa Adams, was a caterer there. She fed the men who built it."

Jackie's Jamaican-born, great grandmother, Rosa, cooked and sold food from the West Indies to Central America. She cooked her family's way to New York City. There she was lost to cancer and most of her recipes passed with her. To this day, her now 92-year-old daughter Maude's ("Grandma" ), Jackie's grandmother, biggest regret is never learning to cook from her mother, whom she swears was ten times the cook she is. Jackie finds this difficult to believe:

"The Gordon family would beg to differ because "Grandma" has always been an amazing cook! I got my "excess is best" motto directly from my grandmother. Her incredible holiday and Sunday dinners were as delicious as they were feats of space."

Grandma cooked sumptuous meals from 'soup to nuts' in a pivot kitchen. A room so small you could stand in the center and touch the four walls. And if the variety didn't floor you, the quantity did. At times she borrowed neighbors' apartments to seat all her guests. AND every guest had to have food to take home for the next day. Grandma's theory was the dinner was ruined if your guests had to cook the next day.

Then there was Granddad, Marcus Gordon Sr., direct from Jamaica. He bought and cooked the meat. Nothing but the best!

"One year, he spent so much money on a standing rib roast from Macy's that Grandma insisted on hanging the receipt on the wall so the guests could thoroughly appreciate the food."

He worked for decades at a midtown hotel that exposed him to diverse cultures and developed his taste for a wide variety of foods. He introduced Jewish food into the family's repertoire of favorite food in the pre-grandchildren days. A trip to Zabar's was one of his greatest pleasures up to his passing at the tender age of 94.

"The men behind the smoked fish counter were on a first name basis with my grandmother. She was very popular because she bought out the store - a feast of smoked salmon, sable and sturgeon, herring in cream sauce with onions, chopped liver, shrimp salad, horseradish beets, rye bread with the seeds, and bialys, and bagels, and, and, and, and . . . I would always ask her "Now you're POSITIVE you're not the source of my Jewish ancestry?"

The Italian-Russian-Jewish Side - "Let 'em eat cake!" or rather in the household of Jackie's mother, Bernice,"Make her eat cake!" That was the battle cry of Jackie's Italian grandmother Stella, and her Russian grandfather, Joseph. It was their solution to their daughter, Bernice, being too skinny. Cake "four times a day" would turn her into her father's ideal of beauty, namely a robust peasant girl. She never got any fatter, just borderline hyperglycemic.

To this day, she suffers a wicked sweet tooth that compromises her otherwise healthy lifestyle. "Food was God in my house." says Bernice. "My father wasn't fussy about anything else, but our food had to be the best. We supported the local merchants. They used to bow when my mother walked into the store."

Joseph's greatest joy was seeing family and friends served wonderful meals in his home. But he didn't cook. Bernice's mother, Stella, was queen of her kitchen! She was from a large Italian family of exceptional cooks, but she converted to Judaism. Having to pass herself off as a Jew after marrying and converting to Judaism, she was forced to learn to cook the food, everything from gefilte fish to blintzes. And the food never gave her away.

Bernice, the rebel, avoided the kitchen at all costs, especially because her father insisted, "The only way you'll get a man is if you learn to cook like your mother." She proved him wrong, but that's not a food story.

As Jackie remembers:

"My mother always said what distinguishes great cooks from good cooks is that great cooks love to cook. Every meal is an opportunity to express that love."

Bernice was a good cook but HAVING to shop, cook and work full time while raising three kids on her own was a nightmare. Bernice remembers:

"It was like feeding a small army every day. I used to rejoice when I had leftovers, then cry the next day when I got home from work and found that 'someone' had eaten them and left just a tablespoon in the bottom of the pot."

She really could have used a personal chef in those days. Bernice cooked under duress, and only ever enjoyed doing it when she found the time to cook for company. Fortunately, for almost everyone, cooking became Jackie's chore.

For her two brothers, it was an exercise in "the pleasure with pain." Not only did they have to eat at the odd hours when her culinary masterpieces were finally finished, but they had to clean up after her! It was the beginning of the number #1 Gordon House Rule. If you cook, you don't clean. Could this be what inspired Jackie to be a great cook?

Jackie's mother was disconnected from her family, but after 35 years she reunited with her brother. And as it turns out, Jackie is related to chef Larry Forgione, the champion of American food and produce, on her Italian grandmother's side. And they both worked at the River Café. Years apart, so they never met, but it's a bit spooky just the same...

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