by Paula D.
on February 27, 2023 9:20 am in Family / Food
Three days of prep for three hours of perfezione. I learned how to throw a party by watching and helping my mother. We go to extremes. We indulge… we’re Italian. Too much food is all part of it. You need abundance so people feel comfortable around the table. You can’t have “Look at me, look at you.” This phrase I’ve lived with my whole life. Grandpa Ralph coined it. Here’s the best way I can explain…
There are a few morsels left on the table. No one wants to be “rude” and take it, but everyone is eyeing it, looking around the room, feeling out the situation (looking at me, looking at you). The guests are still hungry. Finally, someone says “Oh I’m so full, (obviously lying) you take, we can’t let it go to waste, blah blah blah.” This exchange goes back and forth until finally, one person “the lucky winner” gets the tiny piece of whatever is left.
“Look at me, look at you” is the most embarrassing situation a host can ever face (or someone having sex in your bathroom when there’s a line).
I was also taught, you need enough food to offer leftovers. In my family, sharing food is next in line to buying a diamond engagement ring. Feed the people you love. And practically speaking, you’re making a huge mess anyway, so you might as well make extra.
I asked my friend Good Keith if I could host his birthday dinner. Yes!, he said. GK asked for ziti but I know his favorite is chicken parmesan. I haven’t cooked meat in the house in years. I’m a flexitarian. I’ll eat meat if my mother puts it in front of me but I won’t cook it, I eat veggies. Here’s the flex… they don’t call him Good Keith for nothing… so chicken parmesan it was.
It felt so good to prep. I had the whole menu vision, timing, and presentation in my head. I was “workin the kitchen” for days. Making the sauce, chopping, buying, frying, adorning, and finally plating. I felt like a better, past version of myself and it was lovely to get reacquainted.
Making the chicken cutlets was like riding a bike. Here are the DiGioia family’s cardinal rules of frying:
- Cut the cutlets small. After tenderizing, the cutlets become even wider. Account for that. Make the pieces smaller than you think necessary. My family tenderizes with our wrist, while breading the cutlets. It’s the old country way. It saves time and works better. It’s important to cut each piece to a similar size so the chicken cooks at the same pace.
- Salt everything.
- The oil needs to be very hot. The chicken goes in and out only to brown. It will cook in the oven (parmigiana). You don’t want overcooked, oil-soaked cutlets.
- As annoyed as I used to get when my mother would scream at me, “Don’t play with it!” I learned over the years, she’s right. Place the breaded cutlet in the pan and just let it be. Flip once. The more you play with it, the more the breadcrumbs fall off leaving “bald spots” that contaminate the oil. When loose breadcrumbs fall into the oil, they burn quickly and stick to the food. This leads to…
- Don’t be lazy, change the oil when it gets dirty. I can’t stress the importance of this rule. Use an empty tomato can to pour the old oil into. Whip the frying pan clean with a paper towel and start again.
- Let the cutlets drip over the oil for 5-10 seconds before placing on the paper towels to drain. This saves oil, meaning you change it less. More importantly, don’t be cheap with paper towels. Drain the cutlets well by flipping and lightly pressing them on the towels. Do not layer/ cover them. They’ll get soggy.
For more over the pot, follow me on IG – @theglorifiedtomato.
by Paula D.
on February 17, 2023 9:35 am in Food / Recipes
Most of my choices are based on aesthetics, not practicality. Look at this cover design! The book also matches my cat.
A few weeks back I wrote that I’ve pulled my cookbooks off the shelf, using them for recipes instead of the stupid internet. This week, I chose Better Homes and Gardens, New Cookbook. Note, “new” means published in 1981. That’s my birth year and all the more reason to try it out. Old doesn’t mean irrelevant. After flipping though, I firmly concluded this is a fantastic book. The recipes are concisely written; it includes informative nutrition analysis charts at the beginning of each section; the vintage photographs are dope (especially the jello fruit tower one) and lastly, the cover design matches my kitchen and my cat.
The biscuit section looked challenging, but not over-the-top hard. I decided on Pecan Biscuit Spirals which sounded pretty delicious. I added dried cranberries because I always feel compelled to put my own spin on things.
Pecan Biscuit Spirals
Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup butter
1 beaten egg
½ cup milk
3 tablespoon butter, melted
¼ cup finely chopped pecans
3 tablespoons brown sugar
⅓ cup dried cranberries (optional)
Directions: In a mixing bowl stir together flour, 2 tablespoons granulated sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut in ½ cup butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Make a well in the center. Combine egg and milk; add all at once to the dry mixture. Stir just until dough clings together. Knead gently on a lightly floured surface for 12-15 strokes.
Roll dough into a 15×8 inch rectangle. Brush with 1 ½ tablespoon melted butter. Combine pecans and 3 tablespoons brown sugar; sprinkle over dough. Fold dough in half lengthwise to make a 15×4 inch rectangle. Cut into 15, 1 inch strips. Holding a strip at both ends, carefully twist in opposite directions twice, forming a spiral. Place on a lightly greased baking sheet, pressing both ends down. Baste with butter. Bake in a 450 oven for about 10 minutes. Makes 15 spirals.
The take away… they were really good for my first time baking biscuits. Any English nanny or Captain Picard would have enjoyed these with a cup of Earl Grey (hot). Next time I’ll butter baste the biscuits before putting them in the oven. My biscuits looked undercooked and the butter would help to brown them. Also, I forgot to rotate the tray. I have a convection oven and rotating is important, especially when baking.
Here’s the kicker: after typing out the recipe for this column and re-reading it, I’ve realized I may have shaped the biscuits incorrectly. I took “spirl” to mean a pinwheel shape. I believe the recipe meant a twisted elongated shape. This would make sense as the recipe says “makes 15 pieces.” And it would attest to my undercooked biscuits. I thought biscuits are round
Next time I’ll try the long twist shape. Making a recipe blindly and kinda failing is all part of the fun! It’s the beauty of traditional cooking. And by that I mean without having a start-to-finish TikTok reel showing you exactly how it all goes and how perfect it should look.
These vintage photos from the book are everything…
by Paula D.
on February 7, 2023 4:51 am in Food / Recipes
“In Tuscany, white beans are more than just ‘the poor man’s meat’; they’re a whole way of life. – Lori Zimring De Mori, – Saveur
You think Italian food, you think pasta. But us paisans know that beans are just as traditionally significant in the old country. Rome early 1500’s – enter beans by way of import from the new world. Italians took to the taste, incorporating the legume into their everyday meals. Some included, beans and escarole, minestrone, beans and gravy, pasta e fagioli, sauteed cannellini with sage drizzled in homemade olive oil, beans and seasonal vegetables from the countryside garden.
In Tuscany “pane e companatico”—bread and something to go with the bread, was the commoners food most evenings. Cannellini beans, famously grown in Tuscany, were often the “to go with” ingredient. Highly nutritious, easy to grow and inexpensive were main factors in the beans’ widespread popularity in Italy.
Rockaway power couple Katherine Kordaris and Bobby Carnevale.
Last week I was invited to my friend Katherine’s birthday party. I was looking forward to celebrating with her and seeing friends I haven’t connected with since the fall. Katherine and her husband Bobby are the raddest, loveliest people and therefore they are a Rockaway power couple. And so, I anticipated they’d have a lot of attendees. I needed to take that into consideration when deciding on what appetizer to bring. This party situation called for an affordable, “feed the mass” dish with “wow-factor.” I flipped through my rolodex memory of recipes. It stopped at Warm and Tangy Tuscan Hummus. The rich and buttery flavor of this spread is attributed to the lightly toasted pignoli nuts. The warm flavor is accented by a burst of tangy charred lemon juice. Experiment with different herbs but my preference is fresh parsley and thyme.
I hesitate to be braggy but I need to say that people were ranting and raving about the hummus! A few party people hovering over the spread were intrigued by my use of cannellini beans. My friend Rob said, “Paula, it’s better than Sahadi’s.” I was so overwhelmed by the complement that I had to excuse myself and regain my composure in the bathroom. This is a must make…
Paula’s Warm and Tangy Tuscan Hummus
Ingredients:
16 ounces canned cannellini beans (drained and rinsed)
2 lemons
2 cloves garlic
¼ cup tahini
2-3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, and more for the topping
2 tablespoons ice water
¼ cup parsley, finely minced and more for garnishing
¼ cup pignoli nuts, divided
Salt and fresh ground pepper to taste (be liberal with it)
Ciabatta for dipping
Instructions: Char both lemons over a flame on the stove. Use the juice of one in the hummus. The other is for garnish. Lightly toast the pignoli, set some aside to top the dish. Place all ingredients in a food processor. Puree until smooth. Check the taste. Add more garlic, herbs, salt, etc. as needed. Serve in a shallow 9 inch dish. This way, you have a nice space to dress the top (wow-factor), with the fresh herbs, nuts, spices, lemon and olive oil. Alternatively, save for later and store refrigerated up to 7 days and garnish before you serve.
The Bialetti mascot with his index finger held up as if ordering an espresso. In Italian he is called l’omino con i baffi – “the mustachioed little man.” The mascot is a caricature of Alfonso’s son, Renato Bialetti by Illustrator Paolo “Paul” Campani. Source Wikipedia
A friend broke my red Cuisinart drip coffee pot several months back! I started using a spare pot I had that I don’t like… actually I hate it. Yup, it is possible to hate a coffee machine. All this time I was trying to figure out what my next move was. I was thinking a pour over, then I was back to a 12 cup drip. When I took coffee classes at Greenhouse Cafe, I learned about the Aeropress method, maybe that…
Finally about three weeks ago, the internet’s alarming, yet smart algorithms put it all together for me – The Bialetti Moka Express. With one click, I knew this beautiful Italian vessel was my new coffee dream come true. The Moka is an iconic, Italian brewing pot/method developed in 1933 by Alfonso Bialetti, an engineer of the time. He wanted to bring the caffè of the bar into the home. Caffè bars were for men only. Bialetti’s invention revolutionized coffee culture in Italy, especially for women. They could now gather with friends in their homes, enjoy coffee and socialize. Still today the Moka is widely used in homes throughout Italy and Europe. They say, “No Italian kitchen is complete without a Moka.”
This is so interesting… Bialetti was inspired by washwoman (lavandaie) he’d seen doing laundry. In the 1900’s the lisciveuse was used. The wash tub is filled with water, soap and soiled clothes. The bucket has a central steel tube. It is placed over a fire. When the water boils, it enters through the tube and distributes the soap and hot water. This function uses vapor pressure and that is how the Bialetti Moka also works.
Italians value aesthetics. And we are hopeless romantics. So learning Alfonso’s vision for the Moka design was inspired by the robust figure of his wife, does not surprise me. The 8-sided shape mimics the silhouette of his love – her broad shoulders, narrow waist, her arm on her hip (handle) and her pleated skirt.
It’s simple to use. Unscrew the top, place the water in the bottom chamber, pack the coffee in the filter, close and place the pot on the stove at low heat. Open the top and you can see the coffee coming through the receptacle in a stellar performance. Once you hear the “sizzling” sound end, the coffee is done.
Moka is named in honor of the city Mokha in Yemen, famously known for its delicious coffee. Coffee brewed in a Moka pot is very strong. It’s espresso-like texturally but lacks the foamy quality and richer taste. The Aluminum vessel keeps the coffee steaming hot. If I’m in a hurry in the morning, I add water to cool it down. And so you now have an Americano. But the best for me is when I have time to savor the ritual of making this traditional Italian caffè. It evokes a feeling of simplicity. A conventional way of living sounds right to me these days. To be sure, I’ll never again go back to a coffee pot made of plastic.
Since ordering my Moka, I’ve discovered specialty designs – a red one (to match my kitchen) a cute vintage green pot, a red and green Italian flag version that would be perfect for Christmas time, and good Lord… a Dolce & Gabbana Bialetti, inspired by the carretto siciliano – the elaborate, colorful donkey-drawn carts native to Sicily. I can’t handle this beauty… How many Bialetti’s is too many?
Source: bialetti.com, Wikipedia
