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Quote by Stacey Ballis

“There is a huge pot of Sunday gravy on the stove, a rich tomato sauce full of pork neck and sausage and oxtails, fragrant with onion and garlic, and hiding a pound of whole peeled carrots. The carrots are Teresa's family recipe secret for a bit of sweetness without grinding up the vegetable, which changes the texture of the sauce. They'll be fished out at the end, soft and imbued with the meaty savoriness of the sauce, and will serve as a special "cook's treat," drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with coarse salt and ground pepper.”

Quote by Stacey Ballis

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How to Change a Life

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Stacey Ballis

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“By the way, although nowadays your average waiter will no longer flinch when an American or a German asks for a cappuccino after or even with dinner (he knows what side his bread is buttered on, be advised that he thinks it’s pretty disgusting). No Italian would ever drink cappuccino with, or immediately after, a meal and finds the idea repulsive as, at this juncture, I confess, do I.”

“Rosa discreetly wrapped a paper napkin around her canapé- a dry affair of puff pastry and greasy smoked salmon- and deposited it in a wastebasket. She wasn't discreet enough; Alex noticed. "Too bad about the food." "I bet it cost an arm and a leg, too. Boy, these people would probably kill for a piece of pizza right now." Before any important gathering or holiday, her mother used to work on the food for days. Rosa would stand on a stepstool at the counter beside her, shaping meatballs or cutting dough. In the summer, she and Mamma would wrap paper-thin slices of prosciutto around melon balls and served them on toothpicks. There was nothing wrong with keeping food simple.”

“Closer to the sun than any of its surroundings, the town glimmered. The spires looked like the tips of a royal crown. Skilled artisans had built wonderful, terraced homes and small flats overlooking gardens and fields under a clear cloudless sky. The air was filled with the aroma of eggplant parmigiana being roasted and fried garlic from pasta aglio e olio. Every pantry had a tall, glass bottle of local olive oil and a cupboard full of sugo jars.”

“I began by preparing my pasta: my deft fingers forming the intricate shapes of rigatoni, ravioli, spiralli, spaghetti, cannelloni, and linguini. Then I would brew sauces of sardines, or anchovies or zucchini or sheep's cheeses, of saffron, pine nuts, currants, and fennel. These I would simmer in the huge iron cauldrons, which were constantly bubbling above the fire. My pasta dishes, I have to say, were famous throughout the province, and the scent of my sauces carried by the breeze was sufficient to fill a poor man's stomach. I also kneaded bread and produced the finest pane rimacinato, the most delicious ciabatta and focaccia that had ever been tasted in the region. Sometimes I would add wild thyme to the dough, or fragrant rosemary; plucked fresh from the hedgerow, with the dew still on the leaves.”

“The pollo alla Messinese, a sumptuous dish of chicken smothered in a tuna-flavored mayonnaise that I produced, would have fed three hundred guests at a wedding. Unfortunately there was to be no wedding. Following the chicken incident, Mama banned me from slaughtering any more animals, so I turned to the dairy instead. I made salty ricotta by boiling sheep's milk with salt and skimming the whey with a bunch of twigs in the old tradition, just as Nonna Fiore had taught me. The ricotta I too made in great quantities, storing it in barrels in the roof of the cowshed.”