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Boost Your Self Esteem

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Stephen Richards

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“Angelina, I adore you...," crooned Louis. Then the New Orleans Gang picked up the beat and King Louis sang, "I eat antipasto twice, just because she is so nice, Angelina..." Fresh pasta time. Angelina cracked three eggs into the center of a mound of 00 flour, in time to the music, and began teasing the flour into the sticky center. With a hand-cranked pasta maker, she rolled out the dough into long, silky-thin sheets, laid them out until they covered the entire table, then used a 'mezza luna' to carefully slice wide strips of pasta for a new dish she wanted to try that she called Lasagna Provencal, a combination of Italian and French cheeses, Roma and sun-dried tomatoes, Herbes de Provence, and fresh basil. It was a recipe for which she had very high hopes. Angelina started assembling her lasagna. She mixed creamy Neufchatel, ricotta, and a sharp, grated Parmigiano-Reggiano in with a whole egg to bind it together. She layered fresh pasta sheets in a lasagna dish, coated them with the cheesy mixture, ripped in some fresh basil and oregano and sun-dried tomatoes. She worked quickly, but with iron concentration. "I'm-a just a gigolo, everywhere I go...," sang King Louie. For the second layer, she used more pasta topped with Gruyere and herbed Boursin cheese. The third layer was the same as the first. For the fourth layer, she used the rest of the Boursin and dollops of creme fraiche, then ladled the thick, rich tomato sauce from the stove on top and finished it with a sprinkling of shredded Gruyere. She set it aside for baking later and felt a flush of craftswomanly pride in the way it had all come together.”

CookingIngredientsHerbsPastaItalian CookingLasagnaCheesesAngelina D AngeloKing Louis
Book:Angelina's Bachelors
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“I popped the tape into the VCR and watched a pretty, middle-aged Italian woman in a flowered housedress and frilly apron hold up various fish and shellfish as she spoke to the tape in rapid, enthusiastic Italian, espousing the virtues of the seafood. She was standing at a battered wooden table in what appeared to be her own kitchen. After she finished showing off the fish, she beheaded and eviscerated them, and then washed them in a chipped white enamel bowl full of water that sat on the table. She put the cleaned pieces on a brightly painted platter, chosen, I'm sure, with less deliberation than our Jonathan would have required. She poured olive oil into a large, slightly dented pot that sat on a small two-burner stove and then in a flash chopped a couple of onions and a good amount of garlic and put them in the oil. While the aromatics became, well, aromatic, she cut up a half dozen fresh tomatoes and a healthy amount of herbs and added them to the pot. She stirred everything around, and before long she had all the fish and shellfish in the pot.”

VideoSeafoodItalian CookingRavenna
Book:Last Bite
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“My mother had just finished kneading a large mass of pasta dough and was patting it into a nice round ball before putting it aside to rest. That meant ravioli. We always began Sunday dinner with either ravioli or lasagne. The homemade pasta meant ravioli, because we buy the large sheets of dough for lasagne from Constantino's. Sitting on the stove, waiting for the oven to get up to temperature, was a roasting pan holding a large pork roast studded with garlic, glistening with olive oil, and surrounded by rosemary sprigs.”

Italian CookingRoastRavioli
Book:Last Bite
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“He took a moment to regain his composure, but he got it right on the next take and finally began to make the Bolognese sauce. The pan on the stove had butter that we had already partially melted, and he poured in some olive oil. Then he stirred in the previously identified chopped vegetables, and after several minutes (which would later be edited out), the vegetables were translucent. When he added the finely chopped beef, Sally told the viewers, "You could also use a very good grade of hamburger." He poured in some milk, let it evaporate, and then added crushed tomatoes, red wine, and broth. "Now you must cook the sauce two, three hours until it is done," he said. The cameras stopped and we swapped the pan for an identical one with a finished sauce. We also poured boiling water and cooked spaghetti into the pot that had been sitting empty on the stove.”

IngredientsImprovisationSauceItalian CookingSally WoodsBolognese
Book:Last Bite
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“Do you make pizza dough?" "Yes." "This is the same thing. Very easy." When the yeast was foamy, she added flour, olive oil, and salt and handed me a large wooden spoon. "Now you stir it hard until it comes together. Then we knead." She floured the counter and I stirred until the ingredients came together and then turned the dough mass out onto the flour. Rosa divided it in half and we each kneaded a piece until it was smooth. We shaped them into balls, and Rosa covered them with a kitchen towel. "Now we prepare the fillings," she said. She went into a large pantry and returned with a basket filled with Italian salamis, ham, cheeses, red bell peppers, broccoli rabe, and fresh arugula. Just as Sally had said on the promotion show, "Casey Costello was cooking right in the kitchen with a real Italian," but it was no different from cooking with Mom or Nonna. The ingredients were the same, and Rosa, like my mother and grandmother, used no recipes. She knew her way around her ingredients and seemed pleased that I did as well. I realized that more than the country, more than the language, the food connected me to my heritage. I oiled the peppers and put them in a hot oven to roast. When they were charred, I removed the stems and seeds and cut them into thin strips. I laid them on a dish and put a little olive oil, salt, and vinegar on them. She peeled the stems of the broccoli rabe then cut it into two-inch pieces before blanching it for a minute and then sautéing it with olive oil, garlic, and hot pepper. I washed the arugula, removed the tough stems, and dried it. We put the fillings on platters. The colors were dynamite.”

IngredientsDoughItalian CookingFillingsCasey Costello
Book:Last Bite
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“She soaked, washed, and trimmed three artichokes, baby purple Romagnas, which would sadly lose their beautiful hue once they hit hot water, then washed and peeled a bunch of pencil-thin asparagus. She pulled out several small zucchini and sliced them into translucent moons. She washed three leeks, slicing them down their centers and peeling back each layer, carefully rinsing away any sand, then chopped the white, light green, and some of the darker parts into a fine dice. She shelled a couple handfuls of spring peas, collecting them in a ceramic bowl. She chopped a bulb of fennel and julienned one more, then washed and spun the fronds. She washed the basil and mint and spun them dry. Last, she chopped the shallots. With the vegetables prepped, she started on the risotto, the base layer for the torta a strati alla primavera, or spring layer cake, she'd been finessing since her arrival, and which she hoped would become Dia's dish. She'd make a total of six 'torte': three artichoke and three asparagus. The trick was getting the risotto to the perfect consistency, which was considerably less creamy than usual. It had to be firm enough to keep its shape and support the layers that would be placed on top of it, but not gummy, the kiss of death for any risotto. She started with a 'soffritto' of shallot, fennel, and leek, adding Carnaroli rice, which she preferred to arborio, pinot grigio, and, when the wine had plumped the rice, spring-vegetable stock, one ladle at a time. Once the risotto had absorbed all the liquid and cooked sufficiently, she divided it into six single-serving crescent molds, placed the molds in a glass baking dish, and popped them all in the oven, which made the risotto the consistency of a soft Rice Krispies treat. Keeping the molds in place, she added the next layer, steamed asparagus in one version, artichoke in the other. A layer of basil and crushed pignoli pesto followed, then the zucchini rounds, flash-sauteed, and the fennel matchsticks, cooked until soft, and finally, the spring-pea puree. She carefully removed the first mold and was rewarded with a near-perfect crescent tower, which she drizzled with red-pepper coulis. Finally, she placed a dollop of chilled basil-mint 'sformato' alongside the crescent and radiated mint leaves around the 'sformato' so that it looked like a sun. The sun and the moon, 'sole e luna,' all anyone could hope for.”

IngredientsVegetablesHerbsFood And WineItalian CookingItalian CuisineSun And MoonGeorgia GrayTorteSlice And Dice
Book:Georgia's Kitchen
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“Her grandmother's cooking area was small- a tiny sink, no dishwasher, a bit of a counter- but out of it came tortellini filled with meat and nutmeg and covered in butter and sage, soft pillows of gnocchi, roasted chickens that sent the smell of lemon and rosemary slipping through the back roads of the small town, bread that gave a visiting grandchild a reason to unto the kitchen on cold mornings and nestle next to the fireplace, a hunk of warm, newly baked breakfast in each hand.”

GrandmotherChildhood MemoriesItalian CookingAntonia
Book:The School of Essential Ingredients
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“Then together we prepared a magnificent tonno alla Siracusa, fresh from the sea. I showed l'Inglese how to slice little incisions in the fragrant flesh of the fish and fill them with a mixture of crushed garlic, cloves, and coriander. I loved the way he wielded a knife with the flamboyant gestures of his beautiful hands. Everything this man did with his hands had me fascinated. Once the fish was well stuffed with the garlic mixture, we added it to the pan containing the onions we had already softened. Tomatoes, white wine vinegar, and oregano were added next, and while the dish cooked it fill the air with a sumptuous aroma of garlic, herbs, and wine. This heady cocktail stimulated the passions of the hungry and impatient cooks.”

SeafoodItalian CookingRosa FioreL Inglese
Book:La Cucina
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“I think of them again now as I warm meatballs in sauce on the camp stove. This is Aunty Connie's recipe, using pork mince and pecorino. The simple tomato sauce is so cluttered with meatballs you could stand the spoon up in the bowl. Aunty Connie's theory is that meat should be included in every meal to help children grow, and whenever we visited her as kids we came home with our stomachs at bursting point. She makes beautiful veal dishes, such huge piles of pasta they threaten to break the serving dishes, prosciutto sliced thin as lace so you can see through it, and polpette. Meatballs, meatballs, meatballs. I flick off the camp stove. The pot sends up curls of steam and the scent of pork and fennel and tomatoes simmered till sweet. I breathe it in, pushing cannoli, cassata, and cookie fantasies to one side.”

PastaItalian CookingMeatsMeatballsVeal
Book:Season of Salt and Honey
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