Aroma Cucina

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 have 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

Good-bye City Life!

The good-bye season is at end; we’ve said good bye to our US friends and family. It’s so hard to say good bye over and over, it makes us realize what we are leaving behind. We love you all and didn’t get to see enough of you, but that will have to hold us over until we gather around a table again.
We are humbly grateful for all the wonderful friends we have, those who share the good times and the bad times. We will be thinking of you as we sip our first cappuccino in Rome tomorrow morning.
Hey, do you think we can twitter from Montone??

Happy Pesach

 

It’s Passover season and time for my annual rant. Disclaimer: I grew up getting all new clothes for Easter Sunday and I’d trade my Easter basket peeps for licorice jellybeans. I married into a Sephardic Jewish family and over the years I’ve learned how to make a Seder dinner. And I’ve mastered how to make matzoth balls, but these are itsy bitsy little tiny matzoth balls, and you need hundreds of them. These Sephardic style matzoth balls have walnuts in them and are served in a walnut broth, which makes for a tasty soup. This year I got some weird matzoth meal that was pre-salted and after rolling the first 500 hundred balls, I tasted one….pure salt! The whole batch had be tossed and I had to start over. What are another 500 balls when your family is coming over for dinner?

Then there are the ‘prassa’ or leek meatballs. The original recipe I was given, from my precious Sephardic Passover cookbook that has notes in my mother-in-law's handwriting and now in my handwriting, calls for the leeks to be cooked 3 different times. First you boil them, then you fry them, and then you bake them.  Any leek flavor or nutrient was eliminated somewhere between step 1 and 2.

The only dish made quickly is the haroseth, which is a combination of raisins, apple, walnuts and wine. Which brings me to the point of my rant, what’s up with having to eat matzoth? The significance of matzoth is that the Jews were being exiled from Egypt and there wasn’t time for the bread to rise so the Jews invented unleavened matzoth. With all due respect, I could have made 12 loaves of bread in the time it took to make these Passover dishes and to clean up the mountain of pots and pans required. It’s a good thing I love tradition and my family so Happy Pesach to one and all.

Jeffrey’s Pig

 

In Umbria, porchetta is a celebrated dish. It’s a whole pig that is stuffed with wild fennel, garlic, rubbed with salt and roasted, it’s divine, shows up at all celebrations, can be eaten at any time of the day and has made vegetarians turn back into carnivores.  
There is no real equivalent to porchetta in the US, but I think a case could be made for Jeffrey’s Pig.
A few weekends ago, Jeffrey, the famed butcher at the Essex St. market gifted me with a hunk of pig that he had seasoned with his special ‘secret’ marinade mix.  He wanted me to try the way that he seasoned his pork, and he wouldn’t divulge what he used. We lugged home our hunk of meat and tried to analyze what we were smelling: vinegar, pepper, chili?

Friday night the hunk o’ pig came out of the freezer and into the oven. I’m not exactly sure what cut of meat it was: perhaps a shoulder? It had a thick layer of skin and fat with boneless meat attached and I roasted it until the skin was crunchy and the fat had rendered through the meat.
It was the tenderest, softest, most yielding pig I’ve ever eaten…it was practically spreadable. I humbly bow to Jeffrey and his seasoning…it’s magical. You’ve got to love a good butcher!

And check out Jeffrey's Recession Dinner for a tasty way to forget about our woes.

Jeffreys Meat Market
120 Essex St.
New York, NY

Life of a Pork Roast

When I need a something special, I head over to Jeffrey’s Meat Market shop at the Essex Street Market on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. I knew the whole weekend was going to be special, as we had very honored guests coming who really know their food and wine. One of our guests, a very dear friend who was put on a vegetarian diet by his loving wife was very forthcoming when I asked him if he had any dinner requests, he wistfully remarked that he’d really like a piece of meat.  Obviously I was faced with challenges and it was time to visit Jeffrey.

Jeffrey is a local butcher legend. His butcher’s stall is covered with photos of him with celebrities, there are numerous portraits of him painted by adoring customers and everyone has a Jeffrey story or two. A few months ago, he proposed marriage, but negotiations broke down when we realized that we both wanted to sleep on the same side of the bed. He thinks of butchering not as a spectator sport but as something that you must actively engage in. He overheard me explaining to one of the staff butchers how I would like my pork roast and the next thing I know he’s escorting me behind the counter. I want my pork roast cut off the ribs and then tied back on, but Jeffrey has a much more dramatic presentation in mind as he French cuts the ribs and creates a standing pork rib roast. It’s gorgeous, and I’m thrilled to be behind the counter, although the other butchers are less than thrilled that a tourist occupies their sparse workspace. I know in my heart to never piss off a butcher, as they are the wielders of very sharp knives!

(A minor digression: I learned this lesson at an early age. My mother would take me to Bruno’s butcher shop where his wife Jean would do the actual cutting and slicing for the customers. Jean was always screaming at Bruno and threatening him with knives. A trip to the butcher was a harrowing experience as I would watch in wide eyed horror to see if Jean would every really stab Bruno.)

Safely back at home; I went for a classic roast pork preparation. I seasoned the roast with garlic, salt, pepper, fennel pollen, rosemary and thyme and then covered the herbs with a layer of thinly sliced apples. Roasted at 350 for about an hour and a half. I kept the meat covered for most of the cooking time and only uncovered it for the last 20 minutes. The roasting pan was deglazed with a bit of red wine, and the juices poured over the meat, along with a drizzle of pomegranate molasses. The tart fruit molasses works well to accent the richness of the meat. Simple, easy and very satisfying.

The next day, we take our guests on a walking tour of lower Manhattan and of course I want to take them to the Essex St. market. As we are walking up the block, we run into Jeffrey and we compliment him on his gorgeous pork roast. One thing leads to another, and he promises me that if I stop by in a little while, he has a gift for me. He wants me to taste how he seasons his pork.  I now have a large piece of pork marinating in some very fragrant spices and I can hardly wait to roast this baby, but first we need to finish up the leftovers from the weekend!

Jim and Zona, it was a treat beyond words to have you come and visit. Thank you immensely for all the wonderful wines and good times!

Mustardy Mashed Potatoes

Spell check says that ‘mustardy’ isn’t a word, but I think it is. Our kitchen is bare after not being in NY for a month. I had planned to do a good grocery shop yesterday, but being on a bicycle in a snowstorm with heavy groceries didn’t sound like the best of ideas.

Jeff kindly went on foot to fetch some groceries and he came back with 2 potatoes and 2 pork chops and some asparagus. Great, but I don’t even have an onion or head of garlic or fresh herbs or… well, you get the picture. However, after living in the mountains where substitution and creativity is a way of life: no rolling pin around so use wine bottle; a batch of bok choy made Italian style with onion, garlic and guanciale which turned out surprisingly good. And for the record I do not leave home without a hunk of guanciale (cured pork jowl).

So I’m holding the 2 spuds in my hand when it occurs to me that silky, mustardy mash potatoes might be pretty good. I like potatoes and mustard together. Warm crunchy roasted potatoes on top of a green salad are divine.  A plate of boiled, chunked potatoes finished with a spoonful of whole grain mustard is irresistible. (Cut the potatoes up into bite sized chunks, use Yukon golds if you can find them, cook in just enough salted water to cover the potatoes and boil until they are good and mushy and there is virtually no water left. Finish with either a few tablespoons of olive oil or butter and a good size dollop of grain mustard. Serve with roasted or grilled meat).  
Why not mustard mashed potatoes? Using the same method as above (namely a smaller pot and less water than you might normally use) boil the peeled and cut up potatoes until they are soft, which should be about 15 minutes. Whisk together with a small pat of butter, a glug of milk and a good tablespoon of Dijon mustard. Wow. It gives the potatoes a little bit of kick and substance and worked great with a seared pork chop.

For every experiment that works, there are others I’m not so sure of. Like roasted asparagus with blue cheese. The two flavors are so strong and I’m not sure they play nicely together. But when our cat sitting friends leave us a piece a blue cheese in the fridge and that’s all you have, you give it a try. Jeff loved it, me not so much. Anyone else a fan of asparagus and blue cheese? And while I’m on the subject how come asparagus got so cheap in NY in February?? Just another one of the mysteries of life in NYC.

When life hands you sour oranges, what do you make?

Speed shopping, which is a highly developed skill and a recognized competitive supermarket sport, can have its drawbacks.  I had to do a warp speed shop this weekend and bought what should have been blood oranges. The sign said blood orange, and if I’d taken a moment to actually look at the fruit before grabbing it, I would have noticed that it didn’t exactly look like a blood orange. 
Bleary eyed on Sunday morning,  I tried juicing them and that’s when I realized I was dealing with one powerfully bitter and sour juice. Elaine tried to eat one and called it lemon to the 10th power.  These are some kick ass oranges.

Not knowing what else to do with my very expensive and very sour oranges, which I’m pretty sure are Seville sour oranges, I turned them into marmalade.  The oranges were so acidic that peeling 7 or 8 of them puckered my hands as if I’d been in a swimming pool all day.  The ratio is about 1 ½ parts sugar to 1 part orange and it’s still mouth puckeringly sour, but at least it’s edible. I think the marmalade might be good layered into a shortbread cookie or as a thin glaze on roasted duck, but buyer beware, if you see Seville oranges on sale, know what you are getting into.

After taste testing the marmalade, I’m fairly certain I now have life long immunity to scurvy, so no more worries in that department.

God Bless the Southern Hemisphere

   

The Chinatown markets were full of gorgeous fruit this weekend. The flavors just exploded on my winter tongue. I'll never be a die hard locavore.