NO THERMOMETERS BUT STICK AROUND FOR THE PASTA

    Last summer, cousin Leonardo was very sick while vacationing in Sicily. His illness seemed very serious and Rocco said, "I'm convinced that if he stays here he may not make it." I chatted with Rocco, who spent many nights by Leonardo's side in a beach chair, along with other patients who shared the room with no privacy dividers. Quoting Rocco: "this place is primitive." Aside from the awful treatment and no answers on Leo's condition, the hospital was lacking in basic essentials, like thermometers! But (and this is a big fat hilarious Sicilian but), when dinner time came, the hospital had no shortage of meals and passed out pasta to everyone, not only the patients but also the visitors! No thermometers, but plenty of pasta to go around. And, "it was pretty good," Rocco said. Only in Sicily. 

LOCAL WEDNESDAYS*: SPINACH GOAT CHEESE FRITTATA

       One of my most cherished possessions is my Grandma Isabelle's recipe tin. I love flipping through her old fashioned "American" recipes that call for lots of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup. The tin is a food network of all of the great recipes she collected from her family and friends over the years and many predate me, like Fez's Spinach Casserole from 1971. There are recipes cut out from old newspapers and magazines, which show food trends of the time, like the article on bulgur wheat from Better Homes and Gardens in 1989. Pizza Bulgur Meatloaf anyone?  

     Recipes I have to try are Cream Cheese Cupcakes, Lentil Frankfurter Soup and Mrs. Keyser's Carrot Pudding, all written in Grandma's perfect handwriting. She was so organized and really had it all together, a trait I wish I inherited. I try to keep my recipe tin up to date, too, in case my Delicious account is lost or my blog disappears into the internet abyss. Going through all those recipes makes me very hungry, so I needed to prepare something to keep me from eating the index cards. (I was a glue eater as a child.) 

      I made this easy Spinach Goat Cheese Frittata, with farmer's market eggs, dairy, spinach and this awesome Queso Blanco garlic and parsley goat cheese from Patches of Star Dairy. It really might be one of my best yet.  

Local Spinach Goat Cheese Frittata

Bag of Spinach, chopped 

1/2 onion, sliced thinly

6-8 eggs

1/4-1/2 C. crumbled goat cheese

1/2 C. milk or cream (soy is okay, too!)

Salt and pepper

In a pan, sautee the onion until translucent in olive oil. Add the chopped spinach, drizzle more olive oil on top and season with salt and pepper. When the greens have wilted, set aside to cool. (Sometimes, I put them in the fridge of freezer.)

Preheat oven to 350. 

In a bowl, whisk together the eggs and milk and salt and pepper. Stir in the cooled spinach and the goat cheese. (You might not need all the spinach; you want a dense amount of spinach with egg running through it. Either way, it will be good, it will just either be more eggy or more spinachy. After a few frittata's you get a feel for the egg/greens ratio.)

Pour the mixture into a heavy duty oven safe greased 8-10 in. skillet. (I coat it with non-stick spray.) You can either start cooking it on the stove top to get nice color on the bottom, then put it into the oven for about 25 minutes until its it firm in the middle, or bypass the stovetop step and stick it in the oven. 

Eat with Italian bread. 

PAULIE GEE VIDEO

It's Never Too Late to Make Pizza: Paulie Gee's from SkeeterNYC on Vimeo.

SICILIAN SUNDAY DINNER: PASQUA 2010

     A few posts back I told you how Nonna caused a ziti fiasco when Francesca was planning the Easter menu that almost made my parents get divorced. At least ziti is the most of their problems. It doesn't help that my Mom is married to a crazy Sicilian either, but somehow those two make it work. They have made up and Rocco has full custody of me again. I am 28 years old. 
    Easter this year, if you are in the Northeast was a glorious day. When you get weather like that on Jesus' favorite day, it makes you almost believe in God. Or you can just move to the west coast and practice atheism in nice weather everyday. Hallelujah! 
    As much as I make fun of my family and exploit them for your entertainment, I wouldn't trade them for another less crazy family. I never feel like I have to go to family functions. Knowing that my family is there motivation enough, because it is always a good time. And the delicious food helps, too.
    Fra as always was the perfect hostess. When we walked in the door, kisses all around and the eating and drinking and craziness immediately began. She is a homemade pizza maker and whipped up all sorts of yummy focaccia's and pizzas for appetizers as well as the meats and cheese and olives you come to expect in a Siclian home.    
    And to get everyone out of her gorgeous kitchen, because we tend to coagulate where the food is, she set up a long table in her sunlit living room. Twenty plus hungry Sicilians in one room and somehow Fra managed to satisfy everyone and keep them (relatively) under control. That makes her a living saint. 
    Take a look here at the menu. Everything was insanely delicious. Since Nonna only brought one tray of ziti for everyone, Fra served it as a side dish to the amazing lasagna she made, and we joked that we all got one zito. (Singular for ziti, would be zito in Italian. But get real, who eats only one piece of pasta? So I don't think the word really exists.) Both pastas were fantastic!
    One super stand out dish that Fra made really blew my mind. It was angel hair pasta wrapped in fried eggplant. What a great idea. Fried eggplant embracing delicious pasta that is smothered in sweet tomato sauce. A match made in heaven. Now I officially believe in God! 
    On the deck cousin Paul did his man grilling duties. He sure loves his meat and his Miller Hi-Life! We all enjoyed the beautiful day out back. Uncle Sal was in full beating up everyone around him mode. He thinks he is "play fighting" but he actually punches really hard. When I told him that he challenged me to punch him as hard as I could. He taunts and teases me ALL the time, so I really could not turn up the offer for a little Sicilian revenge. 
     I felt like Pam on the office when Michael gave her the opportunity to punch him in the face. Unlike Pam, instead of bitch slapping my Uncle, I punched him as hard as I could in the gut. For a sixty plus pasta eating dude he is pretty solid. But of course, my first punch wasn't hard enough for him. So I wailed on him again. All the onlookers, victims of Sal's "rough housing" were thoroughly enjoying the show. The second time, I gave it all I got and I think he tried to hide it but I could see that he flinched a little, and I think I broke my hand. It was so worth it! 

     And this is how my family spends out Easter, a young woman in her Easter dress punching an old man with all the vengeance she can muster up. And eating a lot! And this is why I would never get rid of these crazy people. 
   

LOCAL WEDNESDAYS*: Duck Egg Pasta Carbonara

     So Local Wednesdays (like Sicilian Sunday Dinners) is another attempt to focus Morta Di Fame, give it some structure, a routine. If only I could do that for the rest of my life! Needless to say, if you have visited the Wednesday Farmer's Market at Union Square you know it is the best in the entire city. So, even if I have to get up at 5am to get there before work (who am I kidding?) I'll do my best, then make a meal with ONLY local ingredients that evening. Invite yourself over on a Wednesday (you will have to come to Queens) and enjoy a local meal with me! Or we can do it at your place.
     I am very proud to say that all components of this Carbonara Pasta dish are local, even the pasta was homemade from Knoll Crest Farms. So here is the deal: my dad hates chickens and my mom hates eggs. Hence, I have never eaten this type of pasta and until recently had no idea what it was. Did you say bacon? And eggs? And cheese? And garlic? And fresh ground pepper? On pasta? When? NOW! OKAY! 
    I used duck eggs, which is very exciting! Their eggy robustness took some getting used to. And they were gigantic; the yoke was the size of a ping pong. The shell was really resilient and I almost needed a hammer to break it. But they were beautiful and really delicious. I knew they would be perfect for Pasta Carbonara. 
     This dish is so easy, too. It takes only 20 minutes, I promise! Fry some chopped bacon until crisp, then drain on a paper towel. Meanwhile, boil your pasta. Remove some of the bacon fat from the frying pan and add chopped garlic, fresh black pepper, the fried bacon, the cooked pasta. Turn the heat off. Then crack a few eggs on top and mix into the pasta too cook them. Most recipes call for a swirl so as not to scramble your eggs, but mine were a tad scrambled. Mario Batali, as described in Bill Buford's Heat, separates his yokes and whites, mixes the whites in first, then just drops the raw yokes on top. Add some pecorino romano cheese. Serve warm and gooey with some nice local greens or broccoli rabe.

*All ingredients from the post are made exclusively from local seasonal meat and produce.

HAPPY 1 YEAR BIRTHDAY MORTA DI FAME!

     My first post one year ago was appropriately titled "About this blog," so I figured I would post an excerpt from that post:
"As a child my father would proudly feed me pasta with sardines, broccoli rabe, mussels and any other food by which most kids would be horrified. Children are described as having their father's eyes, but my Dad still says that I have his stomach. Not in appearance, thank God!"
Working on this blog this past year has been amazing. I started this blog as a creative outlet. I really needed it! I watched a lame movie called Running With Scissors about a crazy middle aged horrible poet who was diagnosed by an even crazier psychiatrist as being creatively constipated. While the movie stunk, I liked that idea. Because of this blog, things are certainly flowing.
I wanted to use Morta Di Fame as a platform to explore my writing, my food photography and most importantly food. I wanted to figure out what kind of role food would play in my life and in my career. 
It has opened many doors for me; some very special and personal to me, as well as a lot of professional opportunities. All the while, I have been having a great and delicious time. Morta Di Fame worked! Something works! And people, only a few, actually read it!
Because of Morta Di Fame, I now am a "micro-investor" in a great pizza place in Greenpoint called Paulie Gee's. I have published food photography in Edible Queens, which I am very proud. I have also done food photography for Cello Wine Bar and was the official Press photographer of Fresh the Movie, attending awesome events like a Chocolate and Beer Tasting and a Joel Salatin lecture.
In the last year I cooked non-stop and ate non-stop. I went to Supper Clubs, Take-Downs, Meet-Ups, Festivals, Tastings. Wherever I could find food (and cocktails), I went. My palate has opened up more than I ever imagined. I used to say, "I wish I could eat everything, because then I could go out to eat for a living." I am not quite a restaurant reviewer and probably won't head in that direction, but I eat things I would never have imagined eating before I started this blog: oysters, bone marrow, whole sardines, calf brains, chicken hearts, snails. Bring it on!
What I really have enjoyed most about this experience is how close it has brought me to family and friends. Eating is an experience, best shared with those you love and Morta Di Fame always reminds me of how wonderful and insane my family is and how supportive and loyal my friends are.
Now going into my second year, I plan to really focus on local eating, as I really feel very strongly about and will be doing a Local Wednesdays post each week. I will also write a weekly Sicilian Sunday Dinners post as a way to bring family and friends together and learn now to make traditional Sicilian dishes. Please invited yourself over to these weekly meals. I need someone to help me eat them! And of course I won't forget to write about the crazy antics of Rocco and Nonna. Those stories are really what makes this blog what it is.
(I plan on making a professional push in the direction of food photography and using the photography from Morta Di Fame in my portfolio in order to do high end still life of food for cookbooks and magazines as well as editorial pieces with portraits of chefs and environmental shots of the overall food experience. (Food stylists and chefs let's shoot together!) Aside from lighting food, my strength is capturing the essence of the event of eating. I am moving in a good direction in terms of developing my own unique style as was recognized by my Fresh the Movie client who wanted me to shoot their events in my style. I have a style! I hope this transition will afford me some fun travel, too!) These are my professional goals and if I write them I will stick to them and will review this post in another year and hopefully will have accomplished these goals.
Thanks a lot to everyone who reads and comments and inspires me to cook, take photos and write about it all! Let's enjoy a meal together soon.
Happy Birthday Morta Di Fame!

NY TIMES SOUTHWEST SWEET POTATO SALAD

     Marcy makes Grandpa's NY Times Stew, an unbelievable beef stew, the recipe her dad cut out of the NY Times probably before I was born. I have to keep up with the Wednesday food section; they have such great recipes in there that you want to make over and over.

     Markus reads the times and is a recipe maven, most likely because he is a follow the rules type of person, only crossing the street when the little walk man is blinking. I, who resist all rules am the the bozo who runs across Park Ave. when the red hand warns me to stop only to wait in the lobby for the elevator. We always argue about following recipes. I obviously never do and sometimes it pays off but other times its just a complete disaster. Whenever Markus follows a recipe, it pretty much works out 100% of the time. 

     Like with this NY Times South West Sweet Potato Salad recipe, which funny enough doesn't give exact measures, and when we get sweet potatoes in our share I ask him to make it. He makes it perfectly even though I think he is secretly cursing the recipe. Its peeled and roasted sweet potatoes, black beans, red onion, red peppers, and cilantro dressed with a puree of olive oil, garlic, lime juice and jalapeno. So simple, sweet and nice and spicy from the jalapeno and that fresh garlic kick. I know it will become a staple recipe like Grandpa's NY Times Stew.  

Where's my bag? The Sicilian Clutch

    Sadly, I have been to too many funerals this year. Funerals are never funny... I take that back, when old Sicilian people are in attendance things get ridiculous. My dear Aunt Grace, my cousin Pino's mother recently passed away. She was 90 years old and one of the most awesome people I have ever known. I only have fond memories of her and Pino asked me to deliver the eulogy, which I was honored to do, but let's start at the wake.
   If you are not familiar with wakes, let me explain: you go to the funeral home (either between 2-5 or 7-9) and basically hang out with your family while deceased is lying in a coffin on view. The Village Chapels is the funeral home of choice for our family, and is conveniently only steps away from my apartment. My cousin Paul always jokes when he comes over that he wants to go and have a few drinks over at the Village Chapels, maybe pick out his coffin.
    The protocol at a wake is you walk in, approach the body, pay your respects and say a prayer, then you go to the closest family members of the deceased, who are usually sitting in the front row, and give your condolences. Easy enough. Then you hang around for a couple of hours and everyone comments on the "work" they do on the corpse. Fascinating. Our family wakes are as loud if not louder than our family parties. Sicilian people just can't keep it down, no matter what!
     So I payed my respects and turned expecting to see Pino and his wife Roseanne, but who did I find instead? Nonna, Queen of the roost, sitting there with her leopard print cane looking fine and covered in more gold than Mr. T.
     "Jane!" She always brightens up when she sees me.
     "Nonna, I am so sorry about Aunt Grace."
     "Oh Jane, don't worry. You see ova there," she said," pointing to the casket, "Imma be up there next."
     She said it as nonchalantly as if she were telling me the weather. And she repeated this to every single person who came in. Nuts!
     The charades didn't stop there. Maria Sabella, Uncle Jimmy's sister was visiting from Sicily. She is regarded as "La Discontenta" or the discontented one. She is actually one of the sharpest most hilarious old ladies you will ever meet. Nothing gets past her. I think she actually looked a little too excited to be attending a funeral. Afterall, in Sicily a funeral is as important as a wedding; doom and gloom is celebrated there.
     If you are ever around old Sicilian women, take notice of their pocketbook. Even at family parties they hold their bags as tight as if they are riding on the F train to Coney Island at 4am. On Christmas, when I offer to take Nonna's jacket and purse, she gives me her jacket but will never hand over her purse. I am her granddaughter! She doesn't even trust me. Insanity!
    The morning of the actual funeral mass, per protocol everyone met at the funeral parlor for one last prayer. Its was a sad solemn moment, everyone standing with their eyes closed in silence quietly paying their last respects. All of a sudden, we heard a rumble. Maria Sabella, who has punk rock purple permed hair, came flying into the chapel screaming, "Where's my bag? Where's my bag?" Her tone was of complete and utter panic. You would have thought someone died.
    Everyone turned to look as she was manhandling my cousin Sally and myself, pushing us around to see if we were sitting on her bag, or better yet if we had stolen it. Sally, in an effort to calm her, gave her my purse, hoping it would shut her up. But she didn't buy it and continued to rustle through all the coats and purses until she found hers. Once she did, prayers resumed and Maria Sabella looked a little less discontented.
    Everything went smoothly until it was time for me to deliver the eulogy. I was relieved to speak at the lunch following the burial, rather than in the church. We ate at Scopello and amazing Sicilian restaurant in Fort Green. My first line was an ice breaker "This is probably the first time I am speaking in front of our family without being interrupted." I spoke prematurely because Nonna, Maria Sabella and the rest of the old Sicilians bantered loudly about the bread. And they continued to talk throughout my entire speech.
    Aside from the perpetual Sicilian chirping in the background, it was a great speech. I talked about how Aunt Grace came to this country after so many years in Genoa to start a new life and how my brothers would quiz her for her immigration exam.
    "Aunt Grace, who was the first president of the United States?"
    "Ronald Regan, very nice man."
   I talked about her amazing Calamari Stew and her awesome Pesto Sauce, both which I intend to prepare as a tribute to my great aunt. My fondest memory of Aunt Grace was that she would always come over and give us candies with a conspiring wink.
   When I asked other family members what they remembered about Aunt Grace they all said, "She was strong and tough." She basically didn't put up with a lot of crap; a lady after my own heart.
   So I finished the speech with a quotation from Pino, "My mother, she had balls!" 
   Applause. Except from the elderly Sicilians. Apparently the octopus salad was more important than the eulogy. It was delicious!