Aroma Cucina

Spaghetti Puttanesca: Good Spaghetti with the Bad Girl Name

  A simple spaghetti puttanesca, or as it could be translated from Italian:“ slut’s spaghetti” is a combination of homey ingredients that results in pure alchemy. Combine tomatoes, olives, capers, some anchovies, garlic, oregano and these rustic ingredients turn into soothing, comforting, delicious goodness.

 Why name something so purely wonderful after a whore? As with all hand-me-down recipes there are as many theories as there are tangled noodles on my plate.  It was called a call-girl’s spaghetti because:

·       it was quick enough to make and eat between clients

·       it was quick enough to serve to clients when they were hungry

·       prostitutes usually aren’t very rich, e so it’s what they could afford to eat

·       in the 1950’s Sandro Petti, owner of the famous Ischia restaurant Rancio Fellone claimed he invented the sauce when hungry friends arrived after hours and begged  "Facci una puttanata qualsiasi" which roughly translates as “make any bloody thing!”

·       another name for this dish invokes the “figlio d'una buona donna” as in pasta of the son of a good woman, except the meaning of the good woman is ….the same as a puttana and her offspring

·       perhaps the salty, fishy flavor of the sauce is reminiscent of other pleasures.

 

You can ponder the origins of the name while you cook the sauce, which is another one of those “in the time it takes to cook the pasta” sauces.

 All quantities for this recipe are very, very flexible; it’s all about using up what’s on hand. (Don’t you just love a good innuendo?)

 

Spaghetti Puttanesca

1 cup tomato: puree, sauce, canned, chopped or fresh

½ medium yellow onion, diced (In Italy, they are known as cipolla dura, or hard onion, but that might be just too much innuendo)

2-3 cloves of garlic, minced

5-10 roughly chopped olives

1 T of capers

2-3 salted anchovy filets that have been rinsed

½ t dried oregano

Some chili peppers…you be the judge how hot you want your whore’s spaghetti.

1 T butter

olive oil, salt & pepper to taste

 

Put the pasta water on to boil. Don’t forget to salt the pasta water.

Now prep your onions, olives, garlic, and anchovies.

 Soften the onions in a few tablespoons of olive oil ((it’s the only time I’ll use the word soft, ok?), then add everything else except the butter.

 

Cook your pasta, when it’s done and right before you are ready to drain the pasta, add the butter to the tomato sauce and mix well.

(Question: why do recipe instructions always tell you to drain the pasta…what you are going to do, serve it in the cooking water? If you don’t know enough to drain the pasta, I would suggest that someone else be in charge of making dinner.)

 

Place your drained spaghetti in a bowl, add the sauce, grate a little cheese and you are good to go. What you choose to wear while serving spaghetti puttanesca is your call.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Update on the Olive and Grape Compote

Robin Maxwell, author of Signora da Vinci, emailed me this morning on the olive & grape compote recipe and she asked: “Without the oil (you use only a splast) and balsamic vinegar to create a "juice" to simmer in, does it come out dry, or do the grapes produce a juice?  Lately, I've been suggesting using even more oil and vinegar than is stated in the recipe, and also cooking it longer.  One of my readers who tried the recipe used a potato masher to mash the compote after cooking, so that the grapes and olives don't fall off the bread.”

 

My grapes were juicy and tart so I didn’t really need the vinegar and I used a clay pot to roast the compote so things stayed juicy, but I’m going to revise the original post and recipe to include Ms. Maxwell’s comments because this is the kind of recipe that evolves over time as everyone puts their own spin on it.

 

Ms. Maxwell also told me about her upcoming book, O. Juliet, so if you are a fan of historical novels, Florence, romance, Romeo, iambic pentameter, then you should take a look at her new blog.  I’m trying to talk her into coming to Montone where the spirit of our own Braccio Fortebraccio could be the next inspiration for a project.

 

 

Olive & Grape Compote Da Vinci Style

A recipe handed down through the centuries, emerging from the swirling mists of Tuscan history drifted into my kitchen. OK, maybe not really, but I did get inspired by the olive and grape recipe found in “Signora da Vinci” a fictional novel about DaVinci’s mama. If you can suspend belief and surrender to the central concept that it’s written from Leonardo’s mother’s perspective, it’s a fine read. Who wouldn’t enjoy spending some time with the Medici’s and their friends?  All through the book there is mention of this wonderful olive and grape compote and at the end, the author, Robin Maxwell, kindly supplies the recipe.

 

I tweaked it a bit, and it’s a good thing to have a batch stashed in the fridge for visitors, a quick snack, apperitivo time, a holiday cheese tray or a midnight nibble.  Guess you could call it versatile.

 

Olive & Grape Compote

½ pound of red seedless grapes

¼ pound black pitted Kalamata style olives

1 fresh thyme sprig

2 cracked cloves of garlic

1 tiny chili pepper (optional, if you go the chili pepper route, you want just a wisp of heat to mingle with the sweet and salty, it’s all about balance now isn’t it?)

Olive oil, salt, balsamic vinegar

 

Slice the grapes in half; rough chop the olives and place in a roasting dish. Remove the skins from the garlic and give the cloves a good smushing crack with the side of your knife, and toss in with the fruit. Add the crumbled dried chili pepper if you are using it. Strip the thyme branch of its little leaves and sprinkle over the grapes and olives. Add a tiny sprinkle of salt, splash of olive oil and roast in a 325F/165C oven and bake until the grapes and olives have collapsed, about 40 minutes.

*Edit to add: As per Ms. Maxwells' suggestion: add some balsamic vinegar to the compote if it needs a little acid or if it seems dry, add extra olive oil and a bit more vinegar. 

I roast this compote in a a clay pot so it tends to stay juicer and if you're grapes are tart...be careful with that vinegar.

 If you pack the hot compote into very clean canning jars you can then store the compote in the fridge for a few weeks to have on hand for emergency feedings. Or put into a regular jar and eat it quicker.

 

To serve:

Warm up the compote by placing it in a small oven proof dish in a cold oven, turn the oven on to 250F/120C and remove when it’s warm….about 10 minutes, depends on how quickly your oven heats up.

Serve on thin slices of toasted garlic bread. Slice the bread, and place in the oven at the same time as the compote. When the bread is crisp, remove, lightly rub with a peeled garlic clove and drizzle the bread with a bit of olive oil. Serve on the side with the compote.

A bit of soft goat cheese would be pretty tasty with this compote.

 

It’s delicious and think how happy Leonardo would be knowing you made his mama’s compote?

Food, elephants and the carpenter theory

Seven blind men go to ‘see’ an elephant, they touch one part of the beast and come back and describe it as if that one part is the whole animal. The carpenter theory: because he has a hammer in his tool belt, the hammer is the go-to tool to fix all things.

 

Since I’m back in NY, I’ve been to two ‘food politic’ events: a screening of Food, Inc. and this morning’s unveiling of the blueprint for  New York’s FoodWorksNY program and the F.R.E.S.H.  supermarket initiative. The blind men with hammers were present at both events.

 

After watching Food Inc., there was a Q&A section and the questions were so far ranging, I wondered if we had all watched the same film: the impact of Nestle micro-loans, do growth hormones affect obesity, were the tainted pistachios really repackaged, why can’t the media cover more holistic stories, should home ec be reintroduced into schools, is TV’s Top Chef part of ‘the problem’, we are all ill because we eat animal products etc etc. I started writing down the question topics because I was fascinated by all the different elements that people saw as being THE defining issue of our ‘food problems’. Everyone represented one small part of the Food World, and no one seems to be filling the void as a guiding light spokesperson. (Really, who would want that job?? Making peace between vegans and the Beef Council…I don’t think so.)

 

This morning’s event was described as City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn will “deliver a major food policy address.”  “Speaker Quinn will discuss the future of New York City’s food system, and ways she and others are working towards developing a more sustainable system that also creates jobs for New Yorkers.”  -Taken from The Council of the City of New York’s Office of Communications, Media Advisory.

 

Well, that sounded good enough to get me out of bed early on a Monday morning and to be up at the New School by 9:00 am. There was an amazingly lavish breakfast buffet, and I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves but remember healthy eating, local, seasonal and sustainable were all topics for the meeting.

 
 
 

I got a little twitchy when I saw that one of the movers and shakers for this new initiative is Bruce Both, President of the UFCW Local 1500 that represents supermarket workers. I’m all for protecting the rights of workers, but I was skeptical that his motivation would be the same as the grass fed beef farmer and the press release didn't mention anything about supermarket workers. Sure the union guys wants to create jobs in supermarkets, but is it the UFCW’s mission to help New Yorkers realize that a potato chip is not a fresh vegetable (even though the work fresh is printed right there on the bag)? This quote is taken directly from the UFCW’s blog: “She [Christine Quinn] also touted the expected passage of F.R.E.S.H., an initiative aimed to bring more supermarkets to NYC’s low-income communities.”  Nope, he’s not worried about what’s on the supermarket shelves, he just wants supermarkets.

 

Peggy Shepard, Executive Director for We Act for Environmental Justice probably brought the most tools on her carpenter’s belt. Sharp, articulate, direct and engaging, she laid out the challenges of living in a neighborhood of color, where there is a KFC but no permanent farmer’s market. If there were anyone that I’d like to share dinner and a debate with, it would be her. She described a pattern of environmental racism that would challenge anyone to eat healthy.  Again, I can see the supermarkets responding to this persuasive woman, but I still see aisles of processed food, not vegetables.

 

I rode my bike up to the Harlem Fairway yesterday and stood in wonder at $2.49 grapefruits and that’s for just one grapefruit. And in order to get to the grapefruit section you must first navigate the Aisle of Chips and Cookies at the entrance. It’s formidable… I confess to keeping my eyes on the ground lest I be seduced by the selection of potato chips. I’m not that strong.  So, bring on the supermarkets, but how much has the neighborhood gained by kicking out the KFC?

 

 
Dan Barber, of Stone Farms spoke next and he compared what is going on now in the food world to Black Sunday of April 14, 1935. After years of dust storms, the mother of all dust storms picked up 100,000 acres of available topsoil and blew it from the Great Plains all the way to Washington DC where coincidentally Congress was debating if they should sign the Soil Conservation Service bill. As the dust darkened the windows and choked off all further debate, the Congressmen signed the bill.  The comparison was that we are standing in the midst of a decaying food bowl and that perhaps the initiatives being voted on this week would help us on the road to healthy, enjoyable eating. Chef Barber was the only one to address my concern: we can give people supermarkets, but they still aren’t cooking. Until people return to the kitchen they cannot take command of their personal food world.

 

Finally Speaker Quinn delivered a rousing speech that clearly demonstrated her genuine passion and zeal for creating jobs in NY and feeding people. She believes the F.R.E.S.H. initiative and FoodWorksNY are valuable holistic tools for helping New York Citizens. She believes this with all her heart, but maybe these initiatives are missing some key ingredients. Citing an example of how to bring local produce to our school children, she praised the benefits of a wash-cut-bag facility that could process romaine lettuce. Ms. Quinn seems to think that we can replace California romaine with NY romaine all during the school year, which would be OK if we had the same climate as California. They’re growing romaine in California because it’s naturally easier to grow it there, and if you factor in the cost of maintaining a heated greenhouse and above average irrigation requirements v. consolidated shipments and economies of scale, I wonder which is actually greener.

 

One suggestion is to stick with what is local: namely dark leafy greens that survive pretty well, at least until it snows.  My other suggestion is to eliminate the wash-cut-bag facility all together, and literally wash and prep the natural produce onsite. Kids would see the vegetable crates lined up at the side door. They would physically see the whole broccoli plant, not just the tips. Science projects would make use of composting. And somebody, somewhere in the kitchen would actually have to cook instead of opening a can. It’s mind bending to think of all the positive reinforcement that could come from handling raw produce. Life style classes would be mandatory and everyone gets a turn in the kitchen. Those who like it, get to stay for extra credit. Oh, if only I was queen of the universe there would be a dish rag and a sharp knife in everyone’s tool kit.

 

Of course, actually cooking and getting people back into the kitchen is the hammer that I carry in my tool belt and I really do try to see all sides of the various elephantine food debates.  I know home cooking isn’t going to solve everything that’s wrong with our food culture, but I do believe that until we make an apple as appealing and affordable as a Coke, we’re spinning our wheels. I think we need more Cooking Activists, and honey, I am not talking about Paula Deen, so quit hanging out on the computer and go make something in your kitchen.

Roasted Chicken Bits, Olives and Tomatoes

I confess. I hang my head in shame. I’ve completely fallen off the local and in-season wagon. I bought tomatoes, not only that but I bought tomatoes with a bar code! I couldn’t help myself, I missed having tomatoes so much, I caved. I’ll never achieve sainthood, but I have figured out a way to make winter tomatoes taste good. Not those big round tomatoes, which are hopeless, but the smaller grape tomatoes as they have a more intense flavor.

 

The other advantage to this dish is that you set it up in about 10 minutes, into the oven for 40 minutes and you’re done. No fuss and very little mess.

 

Roasted Chicken Bits, Olives and Tomatoes

Chicken thighs for 2, about ¾ of a pound, more if you’re extra hungry

15 grape tomatoes

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and thinly sliced

1 handful pitted black olives

¼ t dried oregano

Olive Oil

1 glug of red wine

Lemon Wedges

Salt, Pepper, 2 T flour for dredging.

 

Turn oven on to 350F/180C

Chicken thighs taste better than chicken breasts, try them, they’re also cheaper than chicken breasts. Cut the thighs up into small chunks and lightly flour the pieces.

Brown the pieces in a few tablespoons of olive oil.

 

While the chicken is browning, peel and sliver the garlic and place into a small roasting pan (preferably clay), add the tomatoes and oregano. When the chicken pieces are nicely browned, pour them into the roasting pan, deglaze the pan with a small shot of red wine, mix together and put in the oven. No, I didn’t forget about the olives. About 10 minutes before the chicken is done, add the olives. The olives are a much stronger flavor and adding them later will keep the flavor more separate rather than totally integrated. Gives you flavor variety from bite to bite.

Serve with some lemon wedges and a crisp white wine and maybe some bread to soak up the juices.

 

P.S. Roasting the little grape tomatoes with the garlic and oregano makes a nice side dish all by itself. Put the tomatoes in a small roasting dish, add some garlic, sprinkle of salt and oregano, splash of olive and roast until they soft but not totally mushy. Works well with a simple piece of grilled meat.

 

A Montone Calendar for 2010

I'd like to share a labor of love with you. I've put together a calendar for 2010 with photos of our beloved Montone, lots of food, and a little bit of New York. It's available through Lulu.com...click the link at the left. I promise there are no incriminating photos of anyone! And you know I've got them!

Roast Pear Salad with Blue Cheese

Life gets hectic this time of year so it’s time to rely on quick, easy, satisfying and easy to clean. If it’s going to be dinner, then it needs to satisfy

 

1 Pear, a firm pear, not over ripe

Salad greens for two, a mild green like baby romaine works well

Vinaigrette (olive oil, vinegar and mustard)

3-4 oz blue cheese like Gorgonzola or Bleu d’Avergne

Optional: pomegranate arils, walnuts, bacon or pancetta bits

 

Preheat oven to 180C/350C

Slice the pear in half and scoop out the seeds and core, leaving a half circle. Taking half of the cheese, press the cheese into the pear, keeping the cheese within the confines of the scooped out area. Roast the pear until the cheese is melty and bubbly, about 15 minutes.

 

Meanwhile wash your salad greens. I don’t care if the bag says triple washed; wash the greens anyway. 

Make your vinaigrette: 3 parts olive oil to 1 part vinegar and 1 teaspoon of grained mustard.

 

Prepare your optionals: toast the walnuts, fry the bacon or pancetta, separate the arils from the pomegranate.

 

When the pear is ready, toss the salad with vinaigrette, add your accoutrements (that would be the walnuts etc.), open a bottle of wine, put on a good movie on and enjoy.

 

Thanksgiving Traditions

I hope everyone had a very fun and tasty Thanksgiving weekend. For those of you not in the States: it’s a marvelous holiday that still hasn’t been overly tarnished by commercialism. Friends and family meet for a meal, and that is what Thanksgiving is all about.

Our Thanksgiving was a happy marathon of seeing family and friends, drinking amazing wines, preparing and eating some seriously good food.

 

We try to observe and uphold tradition in our family and two things that are absolute necessity are  Oysters Rockefeller and toys at the table.

We’ve progressed from hanging spoons on our noses to blowing up latex gloves and putting them on our heads, I really don’t know how to describe the mayhem that was caused by the walnuts with the condoms inside and there isn’t much that can top the hillbilly fake teeth, although this year’s fake mustaches and red wax lips were pretty hilarious. Picture a large table of food, mashed potatoes piled high, sweet potatoes covered in walnuts, juicy turkey, gravy, ok you get the picture. Everyone comes to the table and immediately dives for their red wax lips.   

 

Although to be fair, the other cause of frenzy in our family is the Oyster Rockefeller feast. My cousin makes THE best oyster Rockefeller in the universe. Really.

Goes like this:

     1)   Procure a lot of oysters.

     2)   Wake up early on Turkey Day and scrub a lot of oysters. This is a labor of love, lots of cold  water and grit.

     3)   Assemble shucking team in the basement, near the woodworking equipment.

     This is an all male team and it was a proud day, a few years back, when my son made the team.

     4)   Designated Swamp Girl and Cheese Girl must be in position.

      Swamp is the mixture of chopped spinach, garlic, walnuts and sour cream that gets  placed in precise amounts on top of the opened oyster.

       Cheese Girl sprinkles the cheese on top of the swamp and takes   care of oyster baking tray management.

      Cheese Girl must be young and pretty. Alas, my cheese days are over and I’m now Swamp Girl.

     5)   Trays of oysters go into the oven until the oysters are bubbling hot.

     6)   Everyone gathers around, burning their fingers on the shells, and slurping

      down the delicious contents.

Is it true that laughter aids digestion?

 

 

The Saturday after Thanksgiving is developing into the Anti-Turkey festival. All the people who couldn’t gather on Thursday gather on Saturday for a lobster feast. Of course this involves the ritual of hypnotizing all of the lobsters so that they will be relaxed, happy and tender. This year, we were also treated to a truly outstanding ceviche, and I vote this gets added to the annual, traditional Anti-Turkey menu.

 

All of this is just my way of saying that I’m thankful, happy and grateful to have my family, to share laughter and to embrace tradition.

 

 

 

A strega without her broom.

A strega is a witch and I’m feeling like a strega without a broom.  No, I'm not talking about cleaning; I’m talking about not having my familiars about, my spices, herbs, oils, vinegars, my tools of the kitchen trade.

Coming back to NYC, to an empty kitchen is one thing. But as I go around the kitchen seeing what I need to start cooking again, I’m realizing what a disconnect the average US person has from their food supply. I’ve gotten used to getting my eggs from Bruce’s obliging chickens, I reach for chili peppers that I grew and dried, I have jars of summer produce and I know I shared the same hot summer sun as that basil, buying cheese isn’t a plastic shrink wrapped affair, it’s a trip to the cheese maker, which involves having a long chat about life and only then do I get the carefully wrapped piece of cheese.  It sounds so romantic and nostalgic, but that’s because how many of us feed and clean out a chicken house, or get up pre-dawn to milk sheep? Romance is more fun that reality which is why we make love in the dark. The older you get, the darker the room…but I digress.

 

Romanticism aside, I was physically connected to my food and now I’m in the city buying food that I don’t know anything about it. According to the last US Census in 2000, 80% of us live in urban areas. Since you are reading this, it’s safe to assume you care about food and know what time of year tomatoes are at their peak. It’s also a reasonable bet that you are in the minority. After a screening of the film, Food Inc., at the New School, there was an excellent discussion panel led by Jill Richardson, and she told of talking to people who literally thought that spaghetti was a plant, or that pumpkins grew on trees. Sounds ridiculous, but what if you never had any opportunity or reason to know better? It’s like having street smarts: I don’t walk around with my handbag open or put it on the back of my restaurant chair, but that nice lady from a small town in Iowa who is an instant target for an urban pickpocket, how should she know better?  Tomatoes are always in the supermarket, apples are always in the supermarket, and cherries appear at Christmas time, how would someone know the season for these fruits?

 

Food Inc. is a cornerstone film in the way that Inconvenient Truth was. It’s a wake up call to everyone that we need to look at what’s going on with our food sources and the culture of eating. The film attempts to highlight many of the key areas of concern: industrialized meat operations, consolidation of crops, exploitation of workers, obesity, fuel and water consumption, cheap junk food versus expensive healthy food, the implications of patenting seeds, etc. etc. etc. etc. But, the part that struck home for me was the family that ate dinner together….in their car, after getting a drive through hamburger meal.  The mother’s reason was long working hours so cooking was impossible and it was cheaper.  She also had been under the impression that a drive-thru burger meal was healthy.  The camera then follows them into a supermarket where we see that chips and soda are much cheaper than some broccoli.

 My heart broke.  I think the family may have been Mexican-American, so somewhere in that mother’s history is a long and beautiful culinary tradition. Where did it go? How did it get lost? What happened that we are so disconnected from our food? What legacy will she give to her daughters?

After the film and the panel discussion with Peter Pringle, Bryan Walsh and Marion Nestle,  there was Q&A time and one audience member made a staggering point: food memories are a very strong touchstone. If the times you remember eating as a family are shared at a McDonalds, then the smell of McDonalds will always be warm and fuzzy and comforting.

 

There is no magic bullet cure, we are talking about a systemic multi-generational disconnect from our food, loss of cooking skills and the benefits of dining together.

The film cobbled together some band-aid slogans as a tagline to make us all feel better: Eat organic. Plant a garden. Etc.

These are noble sentiments, not a guide to a return to respecting our food.

The last audience member asked a simple question of the panel, “What can I do?”  And a very wise Marion Nestle replied, “Pick one cause.” She’s right; no one person can provide us with solutions. Stonyfield's Organic Yogurt is now available at Wal-Mart; that was Gary Hirschberg’s small step towards bringing a good product to many.

My battle? Bringing people back together to the dining room table and letting people know that cooking isn’t so hard.

 See the film. Make some choices of your own.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

City Life

I've traded in my garden clippers and my canning pot for some heels and a cocktail! Although a Manhattan may have been more appropriate, we decided to celebrate our re-entry into city life with a Champs Elysee.

1.5 oz Cognac

.5 oz green Chartreuse

.25 oz lemon juice

1/8 oz simple syrup & 2 dashes Angostura bitters

Shake Stir Shoes Optional