This father knows best

ARLINGTON - In John F. Page's case, necessity was the father of invention - or rather, fatherhood necessitated invention. When the Arlington resident became, in his words, the "joint-custody dad" of two young sons, back in the early '70s, he had no choice but to take up cooking - and to teach his boys to do the same.

"Here I was," he recalls, "it was dinner time, I wasn't going to leave a 3- and 4-year-old alone, so I said, 'Let's cook.' Supper was a time I wanted to watch them and interact. They'd stand on chairs and help, they grew up playing with dishes in the kitchen sink, I'd go to the market with them. They were very comfortable with that."

Of course 35 years ago, a cooking dad was probably a bit more of an anomaly than it might be today. But Page, who currently serves as acting executive director of the New England Wild Flower Society, was determined to make a go of it - because he had to get dinner on the table and because cooking was a wholesome activity that kept the boys away from "the afternoon TV scene."

Page, 65, was fortunate that he had a solid culinary foundation. "My mom was a stereotypical suburban housewife of the '50s. I was the youngest of three, so I was around Mom and her cooking influence a lot. She was a meat-and-potatoes cook, but she . . . was nutritionally conscious." He says that while his mother's cooking might be unadventurous by modern standards, he learned basic techniques from her. The roux she taught him, for instance, serves as the basis for his pasta sauces.

Page's sons, Matthew (a father of two) and Tim, cook, but it's really their dad who caught the cooking bug. When his boys were young, John made dishes his mother made - homey fare such as sloppy Joes, fried fish, and pastas. He soon learned the number-one lesson of cooking with children: "They'd eat anything they participated in making. That would motivate them."

Eventually, Page's repertoire grew. "I got interested in new flavors," he says. He smokes whole turkeys, whips up big batches of blueberry bran muffins, cooks duck on the grill, and creates a one-of-a-kind fig, pear, caramelized onion, and blue cheese pizza. "I haven't met anyone who hasn't liked it," he says. It's easy to see why; the pizza is an irresistible balance of savory, salty, and sweet, all atop a thin, crispy crust.

On a recent Saturday morning, Page is in his bright kitchen, which is well laid out for ambitious projects like his pizza. A wide granite countertop, perfect for rolling out dough, is only a step away from a double wall oven. As he works, Page reviews the steps: Load the dough with rosemary, roll it out as thinly as you can ("the annoying part"), be generous but judicious with toppings. He's put a lot of thought into this combination, and into the assembly of its parts: He layers the ingredients with care, adding some of the thyme before the blue cheese and pears, and some after.

Sliced pears are laid out so the pizza resembles a fruit tart: "It's important to make it look nice," says Page. The key to success, is his technique of sliding the partially baked pizza off the pan and onto the oven rack, to crisp the bottom. That elevates this creative pizza from very good to great.

When his sons come to visit, Page might serve grilled chicken or a curry dish, dishes that are a few steps beyond the sloppy Joes of their childhood. Plans for Father's Day aren't quite set yet, but, says Page, "I'll bet you if it's a nice day, my sons will be here and we'll be cooking something yummy on the grill and celebrating together."

Are the grandchildren as fearless at the table as their dad? Apparently not, says Page with a humorous grimace. "It's very frustrating." Perhaps that will change if they visit their grandfather enough. After all, he educated one generation of palates.