“The quickest way to the heart is through the stomach.” “Cooking is love made visible.” “The people who give you their food give you their heart.” 

There are scores of sayings about food and love, and for good reason. Cooking for someone not only shows that you care for their well-being and comfort, it can also be intimate and vulnerable. Beyond breaking bread, when we prepare and share a meal, we let others have a taste of our heritage, the flavors we favor, and the skills we’ve taken time to hone.

This holds true for chef couple Lizzie Clapp and Dan Martello. Though their work revolves around food — she co-owns Petit Poutinerie and he co-owns Restaurant Good Luck, the Jackrabbit Club, Cure, and Lucky’s —  preparing a meal for one another, for their young daughter, and for friends and family is a major part of how they express love.

The pair enjoy entertaining in their Fairport home, which became easier after they remodeled their kitchen last year. 

“We captured Thanksgiving,” Clapp said. “Both our sides come together, which is really fun. Everybody always brings something — Dan's mom is an amazing cook. My mom is an amazing baker.”

There were cocktails, multiple courses, then chestnuts, fruits, desserts, and espresso.

To give an idea of the party size, Martello cooked three turkeys. “I roast one, I smoke one, and then I do one on the rotisserie,” he said. 



Making a heartfelt meal for one another can be a necessarily simple matter for two busy adults with thriving businesses and a child at home.

Clapp said that she fell asleep early on New Year’s Eve with their daughter, Ada, and by the time she came back downstairs she had missed midnight. 

“But he made these beautiful little ravioli,” she said of Martello. "And we had a nice bottle of wine. You gotta keep that hidden bottle for just each other, right? Just for that last minute, ‘Oh, Grandma's-gonna-keep-her-overnight' occasion that you don't expect. We don't really plan a lot of date nights. But when they pop up, they're special.”

But even a chef couple — maybe especially a chef couple — has nights when they  don’t want to fuss in the kitchen at home. Clapp said that on those nights, “a rotisserie chicken and salad situation” is ideal.

“Getting a chicken, breaking it up and throwing it in a salad, or getting a ramen kit and putting it in there, or making quesadillas,” Clapp said. “Dan’s mother hosts at least once a week, and that’s always like a five-course, full-on Italian situation, and then we have leftovers at least one day of the week.”

The family also has playful and easy finger-food charcuterie nights and indoor picnics, but cooking at home took on an even sweeter significance when they began including Ada, who is 3, in the process of preparing meals. 

“It’s the whole sensory thing, right?” Clapp said. “They just want to be involved, they just want to be next to you doing the thing you're doing.”

Ada is an enthusiastic and focused helper, and her parents let her assist with all stages of cooking, including letting her choose foods while shopping. 

She’s hands-on while they prepare ingredients and make the meals, from stripping herbs from stems to cutting cherry tomatoes while mom holds them and guides the knife, breaking eggs, mixing ingredients, sautéing garlic, and supervising while dad flips an omelet (their current go-to meal to make together).

Special touches include crisping Parmesan cheese in oil before putting the eggs in the pan and adding Ada’s favorite snack: frozen peas.

“I love fries, obviously,” Clapp said with a laugh, a nod to her restaurant, which specializes in the Canadian cuisine of French fries, cheese curds, and gravy. “So we make a lot of wedges at home, and they go perfectly with the omelet.”

These kitchen lessons impart taste and cooking skills, but are also teaching Ada confidence, caution, exploration, and other important skills.

Martello’s advice for cooking with toddlers and little kids is that patience is key to success.

“Let them contribute and have fun even if they make a mess,” he said. “It can't be too rigid or it's no fun.”

That’s love.

Rebecca Rafferty is CITY's life editor. She can be reached at [email protected].