FOOD ON THE FOOD

How To Salvage a Mistake

Well.  I had planned to share with you a very special and virtually-unheard-of family recipe for spiced tomato jam, but apparently tomato jam is all the rage this year, what with both Mark Bittman and Amanda Hesser beating me to the punch.  And with a lineup like that, you have to wonder what in the world I could bring to the table that they couldn’t.

Mistakes, that’s what.  Mistakes and I will always have each other.

My mom’s recipe was simple enough.  Not something you could easily screw up.  So although I hadn’t ever made it before or even tasted it since childhood, I laughed, hahahahaha, as I wandered down the baking aisle and grabbed a box of that powdered gel stuff the recipe called for.  And when I got home, I snickered about all the crazy shit I’d have to make up for this post since nothing remotely interesting was going to happen.  Hooohooohooo, slapping at my knee as I dumped the powdered gel stuff into the pot of simmering tomatoes.

Hmmmm.  Why is it clumping up like that?  Gross.  It looks like I tried to cook a jellyfish.  It’s almost like what happens if you dump gelatin into hot liquid without dissolving it first…

Fuck! 

The English writing on the box confirmed my worst fears.  I had used gelatin instead of pectin.  What’s the difference, you might ask?  Well, pectin isn’t made from crushed-up, boiled-down animal bones, for one.  Pectin is plant-based and not quite so…gelatiny?  It’s a kinder, gentler jelling agent.  Anyway, I don’t know what happened.  My hand automatically goes straight for the animal product.  I can’t control it.

The “jam” ended up tasting great, just like what I remember, but the texture is creepy.  It’s way too firm to spread, which kind of defeats the purpose of a jelly.  It’s even too dense to qualify as a Jell-O mold (thank god), so here’s what I decided.  Get yourself some Manchego cheese and slice it into thick pieces.  Scoop out a big glob of this tomato concoction, slice it (yes, you can totally slice it), and place atop cheese.  Voila.  It reminds me of the quince paste the Spaniards like to eat on their Manchego for dessert, except with autumn spices.  And less quince.  It was truly delicious, much less creepy in this format, and I’m looking forward to trying it with other cheeses, too.

Or, here’s another idea.  Make it correctly.

Spiced Tomato Jam

Sure-Jell is pectin.  Sure-Jell is not gelatin.  Double-check your work.

2¼ lb. tomatoes
1½ tsp. grated lemon rind
¼ cup lemon juice
½ tsp. allspice
½ tsp. cinnamon
¼ tsp. ground cloves
1 box Sure-Jell
4½ cups sugar

Into a pot of boiling water, gently place 3 pint jars and their lids for 5 minutes to sterilize them.  Let dry on a dishtowel.

Scald tomatoes in boiling water for 30 seconds and then dunk them in a bowl of ice water to cool.  Peel and discard skins.  Chop tomatoes roughly (no need to remove the seeds).  In a large pot, simmer tomatoes for 10 minutes.  You should have about 3 cups of cooked tomatoes.  Add lemon rind, lemon juice, spices, and pectin.  Cook over high heat until mixture comes to a hard boil.  Immediately add sugar and bring to a full rolling boil (a boil that cannot be stirred down).  Boil hard 1 minute, stirring constantly.  Mixture will threaten to overflow the pot’s edges, which is why you need a large pot.  If you’re freaking out, grab oven mitts and, while stirring, remove the pot from the heat to let the foam subside a bit, but keep it boiling as hard as you can for that minute. 

Remove from heat, skim off foam with a metal spoon.  Ladle into sterilized jars, leaving ¼-inch space at the top.  Seal jars and place them in a pot of boiling water for 15 minutes.  Let cool on rack.  After half an hour, shake to prevent fruit from floating to the top.  Store in a cool place.

Cookbook Friday: Jam and Apple Butter

On the farm where my great grandmother, Ethel Shepherd, grew up (between Price and Brush Mountains in Virginia), there was fruit aplenty in the summertime.  There were wild blackberries in the pasture fields, and pear, wild plum, and cherry trees nearby.  They also had a small apple orchard.  Sometimes, they would even borrow a team of horses and wagon to go up the mountain for the day to pick huckleberries, packing sandwiches and water for lunch. 

The fruit was eaten fresh in season, and then canned, dried, or preserved to enjoy the rest of the year.  Here were her techniques for making jam and apple butter:

Jam

Preserves were made by measuring one cup of fruit to one cup of sugar, and boiling in an open pot until thick.  To judge thickness, put a spoonful on a saucer and let cool to see how it sets.  This requires twenty minutes minimum for strawberries, and more for other things depending on the ripeness of the fruit.

Apple Butter

Making apple butter presented an occasion for neighbors to get together.  Peeled apples were cut into snits (small sections).  The next day, the 40-gallon copper kettle was set up over an open fire with several gallons of cider in it.  The apples were dumped into the kettle and cooked to a mush.  Then, the sugar and spices were added and it was cooked some more.  It had to be stirred constantly.  The stir was ten to fifteen feet in length, with a crossbar on the handle.  The stirring was done by two people at a time, preferably a courtin’ couple.  If they hit the handle on the kettle with the stir, they got to kiss!

And you’re buying your apple butter at the store!

Cookbook Friday: Butter and Cottage Cheese

            

Willie Mae and Ethel Shepherd (my great grandmother) in 1906 in Price’s Fork, Virginia.

Pearl [Price] and Zack Shepherd had three daughters, Willie Mae, Ethel, and Claribel.  And on their farm, they had a cow (e-i-e-i-o).  They did have one, actually, and Ethel remembered going to the barn with her sisters, each with a half-pint tin cup to fill with fresh, warm milk.  Her mother would then use some of the milk to make butter and cottage cheese.  Here was the basic process in my great grandmother’s words:

Butter

Butter was made from the cream skimmed off the crocks of milk.  Two or three gallons of cream were saved in a big jar, which you would let stand in a warmer temperature to sour to a clabber state.  Then, it was put into a five- or six-gallon wooden churn.  Someone, preferably a teenager, would churn it to butter.  That meant lifting the dasher by the round disk or crosspiece on the handle, and beating it up and down in the cream until butter appeared.  You then had both butter and buttermilk.  Next, you put the butter in a big bowl and poured cold water over it to rinse the buttermilk out.  Finally, when it was free of milk and firm from the cold water, you put in salt and formed it into one-pound prints using a butter printer.  Old printers were round and made a design on the butter.  I used a rectangular-shaped printer so that the butter could be sliced into quarters, like butter comes packaged today.

Cottage Cheese

Cottage cheese was made by using the milk left after the cream was skimmed off.  You left it out to get warm and sour.  Then, you put it into a kettle and set it on the stove, just long enough for it to separate into curds and whey rather than to get hot.  It was strained through a cheesecloth bag, and hung up to finish dripping until fairly dry and solid.  To prepare this for the table, you added cream, salt, and pepper to the crumbled-up cheese.

I’ve made butter before, but not by this particular method.  It’s what you get if you whip cream with an electric mixer for too long—little waxy flecks of butter.  I discovered this in culinary school, where I was a star pupil. 

But, today’s cream that you get at the store won’t sour.  Raw cream or milk straight from the cow will naturally sour as the existing bacteria consume the lactose.  Pasteurization, however, kills all that bacteria.  Ultra-pasteurized cream goes straight from fresh to rotten, at which point you can’t use it.  So these instructions aren’t intended to mean that you can take your rotten cream and turn it into something.  Please don’t write me and tell me you did this.  Store-bought heavy cream can be used as is and makes a pleasant, albeit bland, sort of butter.

As for the cottage cheese, if you have access to raw milk, let it sour and proceed.  The lactic acid formed by the bacterial action will cause the milk to separate into curds and whey on the heat.  With pasteurized, store-bought milk, though, you’ll need to add acid from another source to make that separation happen (vinegar, yogurt).  I may try it this week and see how it goes. 

But while we’re on the topic of raw milk, has anyone tried it?  I never have and must admit a certain curiosity.  If anyone has some in a five-mile radius of my house, call me.

Next Recipe: Jam and Apple Butter

     (Previous Recipe: Virginia Cured Ham)

Cookbook Friday: Virginia Cured Ham

Zack Shepherd circa 1900 in Virginia.

This is Zack Shepherd, my great great grandfather, looking a little freaked out.  Don’t worry, Zack, we’re all friends here.  He was born in 1868 to Ballard Shepherd and Virginia Surface, who were both of German stock (their family names were anglicized from Scheppert and Zerfass, respectively).  In 1899, he married Pearl Price and they lived near their families in Price’s Fork, Virginia. 

Zack worked as a farmhand all his life, working dawn to dusk for the Flanagans, three brothers who owned five hundred acres along New River.  On his way to work, Zack would set fish traps in the river (long, barrel-shaped contraptions with a funnel opening at one end) or a trot line (a heavy line with hooks at various points, anchored to a tree on each side of the river), and check them on his way home.  He also carried an old shotgun with him to and from work because the cornfields along the river attracted wild ducks.  Sometimes he would bag three or four ducks as he walked home in the evening, which Pearl would roast in the oven like a turkey.

However, most of the family’s meat came from their pigs.  Zack butchered one or two each year.  This is his method for curing ham, as remembered by his daughter, Ethel Shepherd, my great grandmother:

Virginia Cured Ham

To cure ham or any hog meat, he would turn the meat out, skin side up, on a large table, and let it drain for several hours or a day.  You then turn it over with the skin side down and cover it completely with salt.  You renew this every so often, and also sprinkle black pepper on it.  After the salt has gone into the meat, you put some brown sugar on it.  It is left to cure for about six weeks.

If you want to smoke cure it, you then hang it up in the smoke house over a pit above hickory chips or wood that is burning to create smoke.  Or you can get a smoke cure at the store to put on the meat.  Some people put red pepper or saltpeter on the meat to keep flies from contaminating it.  It is bagged with heavy cloth bags or brown paper bags, and hung by wires down from the ceiling of the building so that the mice can’t get at it.

So, no, I haven’t tried this one, yet.  But when I do, you’ll be the first to know!

Next Recipe: Butter and Cottage Cheese

     (Previous Recipe: Fried Apple Pies)

Cookbook Friday: Fried Apple Pies

Pearl [Price] Shepherd circa 1900 in Price’s Fork, Virginia.

Remember that little girl in last week’s post?  Here she is all grown up.  Ain’t she purty?

In 1899, Pearl Price married Zack Shepherd, who we’ll meet next week, and they had three daughters: Willie Mae, Ethel (my great grandmother), and Claribel.  They lived on a small, half-acre farm between Price and Brush Mountains in Virginia.  The land was quite fertile and they grew potatoes, corn, beans, cabbage, beets, turnips, and sweet potatoes, among other things.  They also had a cow, some pigs, and a small orchard of fruit trees. 

As I mentioned before, a lot of my great grandmother’s early recipes aren’t too terribly detailed, including this one:

“My mother [Pearl] used dried sour apples to make fried pies.  She cooked the apples, mashed them, and added spice, cloves, and sugar.  Next, she took a ball of biscuit dough and rolled it out round.  She spread the apple mixture on one half, and folded the other half over it.  Then, she fried it to a golden brown.  Boy, were they good!”

For most of these sorts of recipes, I’m leaving you to your own devices because that's just the kind of friend I am.  Plus, these excerpts are really more about preserving the history than actually replicating the dish.  But in this particular case, since I’ve made these fritters a bunch of times and I love them, it’s really the least I can do to share what I did (which I never wrote down so I had to make them again this week, hence my tardiness with the recipe).   But don’t get used to it.  I plan to revert back to my usual lazy self next week.

 

Fried Apple Pies

Instead of dried apples, I used fresh tart apples for the filling.  The biscuit dough is an adaptation of my Great Aunt Claribel's recipe.

Filling
3 tart apples, like Granny Smiths or McIntoshes or both
¼ cup sugar
½ tsp. cinnamon
Pinch cloves

Biscuit Dough
2 cups flour
1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
3 Tbsp. shortening or lard
¾ cup buttermilk (and, perhaps, a tablespoon or two more)
Oil, shortening, or lard for frying

Peel, core, and dice apples.  In a small bowl, mix together sugar and spices.  Set aside 1 teaspoon of sugar mixture to sprinkle on finished fritters.  Add the apples and remaining sugar mixture to a small pot.  Cook over medium heat, stirring, until the apples start to release their juices.  Cover, reduce heat to low, and cook until softened, stirring occasionally, about 10-12 minutes (you may need to add a bit of water during the cooking process if it gets too dry).  Let cool.

In a medium-sized bowl, sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.  Rub shortening into dry ingredients with your hands until pieces are smaller than pea-sized.  Add buttermilk and fluff with a fork to combine.  If dough is too dry to hold together, add a bit more buttermilk.  Bring dough together with hands and knead a few times until cohesive.  Break off pieces about golf-ball-sized and roll out into circles with a rolling pin.  Place apple filling in the middle of the dough circle (a bit off-center), then fold over one side and seal, pressing edges together with your fingers and crimping with a fork. 

Heat oil, shortening, or lard until hot (375°F if you want to get technical about it).  Fry until golden brown on each side and drain on paper towels.  Sprinkle with reserved spiced sugar immediately, and eat as hot as you can manage.

Makes at least 1 dozen.

Pearl [Price] Shepherd
Price’s Fork, Virginia
1879 – 196?

*Real Southerners, feel free to correct my biscuit technique.  There’s no substitute for experience.

Next Recipe: Virginia Cured Ham

     (Previously: Intro to Appalachia)

Cookbook Friday: Intro to Appalachia

The Price family in the 1880s.  From left to right: Mary “Pearl” Price, John Preston Price, Eliza Ellen [Cook] Price, and Lilly Catherine Price.  Photograph from Sandra [Hunt] Alger.

Is that a cool picture or what?  I’m not sure I would have believed that the 1800s actually existed if not for this family photo (I don’t believe everything I read).  And now, here they are, just thrilled to be on the Internet. 

I was trying to envision what the photographer had said to them right before snapping this photo:

Him: Okay, big smiles, everyone.  Say Muenster cheese…

Them: … (no smiles, only dour expressions)

Him: It’s okay, no one’s looking.  You can smile a little.  Someday, your picture is going to be up for the whole WORLD to see.

Them: … (only looks of suspicion)

Him: You’re right.  Let’s not overestimate her readership.  Five people will see it.  Maybe six.  But, not even a teensy-weensy hint of a smile for your descendants whose pampered lives are the result of your relentless toiling?

Them: … (utter disgust, girl on right shakes head)

Him: Yeah, I hear you.  Screw ‘em.  (snap)

Anyway, the little girl on the left was my great-great-grandmother, Pearl Price.  Mary was her given name, but her father always called her “my pearl,” so that’s what she went by.  She was born in 1879 to Eliza Ellen [Cook] and John Preston Price.  The name Price was anglicized from Preisch, and the family was traced back to Offenbach, Germany (just across the river from Frankfurt). 

The first Preisches had arrived in Philadelphia in 1738, traveled south, and then eventually settled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of southwestern Virginia (not far from the West Virginia line).  Pearl and her family lived in the area now known as Price’s Fork, just outside Blacksburg and the Virginia Tech campus.

Most of my early recipes are from Pearl’s daughters, Ethel (my great grandmother) and Claribel.  A lot of them are just methods, without specific amounts or any of the exhaustive detail we’ve come to expect in a recipe.  I get the impression people didn’t have much time for measuring back then, what with all the endless chores.  Boy, was I born at the right time.

And speaking of lazy, I said I’d have a recipe for you today, but look, we’re out of time.  Next week, I swear. 

Cookbook Friday Returns: The Appalachians

Well, two months later than planned means right on schedule. 

If you’ve been with me for a while, then you know I have a thing for family history (my own, mostly) and old recipes.  A fascination with how food and family life have intersected over the generations.  So, I posted recipes and stories from the Italian side of my family last year.  Now, I’m doing the same thing with the Appalachian side.

Growing up in the North all my life, it came as a surprise that many of my ancestors were from the South.  Sure, my maternal grandmother made fried chicken, but didn’t everybody’s?  I vaguely knew she grew up in Virginia even though she had lived in Connecticut for as long as I could remember.  Still, Virginia’s just barely over the Mason-Dixon line.  Does that even count as Southern? 

Also, I had thought these Southern relatives were of British descent, and some turned out to be, but most of them were Pennsylvania Dutch, which, come to find out, is German.  Did you know this?  In German, the word for German is Deutsch, so it only took a couple of New World misspellings to get to Dutch.  And it turns out that the Pennsylvania Dutch weren’t married to Pennsylvania, either.  Some migrated south to the Virginia mountains.  It can give a girl a bit of an identity crisis.

I’ll be honest, my first thought about the German thing was: Does this mean I’m a Nazi?  But, then I came to my senses.  Of course, it doesn’t.  What makes me a Nazi is my staunch unwillingness to diverge from my set plans (though my plans tend to be of a more benevolent nature).  And it does go a long way toward explaining my unnatural love for sauerkraut.

You find out lots of interesting things when you dive down the rabbit hole of genealogy.  Things you’d like to know, and things you might have been better off not knowing.  Like incest (not uncommon, by the way, in small, remote communities where everyone’s kind of swimming in the same gene pool).  And slave-ownership.  So, of course, with regards to the latter, I couldn’t help thinking: Does this make me a racist?  After further reflection, I realized, no.  What makes me a racist is my sudden dearth of black friends.  Oh, and things like this.  So, yeah. 

Unlike the Italian side of my family, in which I was a participant in the family culture, I was less involved with the Southern side.  They were quieter folks.  We visited less often because they were further away.  So I’m more of an outsider looking in.  Luckily, my mom transcribed many of my great-grandmother’s stories before she died, and there’s a lot of interesting stuff in there.  I also have a great-aunt who still lives in Virginia, but I don’t know how often we’ll be hearing from her.  She is a good and God-fearing woman, and I’m not sure she has the stomach for my blog. 

Anyway, the recipes start next week.  Any Appalachians in the house? 

Cookbook Friday: Tortiere

                   

This is my grandmother, Dora [Barbaresi] Donroe, at my wedding in 2000.  She hates this picture because she thinks it makes her look old.  But, I love it because this is mostly how I’ve always known her.  She forgets that I wasn’t around when she was young, stick thin, and flawlessly beautiful.  As much as I love the old pictures, I barely recognize her. 

I knew her in the later stages, still fiercely independent with a wicked sense of humor, but capable of more love than I thought humanly possible.  She has a favorite skin cream, which she uses liberally, that kept those wrinkles at bay for as long as nature would allow.  But, I wouldn’t trade in a single one of those wrinkles because there’s a story behind each one.  (Although, now that I’m getting of an age, maybe I should find out what brand it is.)  (So, then, I guess it is actually possible to miss your own point.)

Growing up, Nonni got me hooked on crossword puzzles, Alfred Hitchcock, and seven-layer cookies.  We’d spend hours wordlessly working on nine-million-piece jigsaw puzzles.  She had a weakness for scratch tickets.  I had a weakness for chocolate.  We worked out an arrangement.  If you were sleeping over and she heard you cough, she’d crank the heat up to 85° until you woke up thinking you were dying in the Sahara.  Then, when you finally cooled off and fell back asleep, she’d be up banging pots and pans at 5 a.m.

If you piss her off, you hear about it.  If you make her happy, you hear about that, too.  She isn’t perfect.  And you wouldn’t want her to be.  This is starting to sound like a eulogy.  Fear not, she’s alive and well.  But, why wait for a funeral? 

Here, have some chicken.

Tortiere

Unrelated, as far as I know, to the French-Canadian meat pie by the same name, this Italian peasant dish is equally hearty.  Serve with plenty of Italian bread to mop up the juices.

¼ cup olive oil
1 onion, sliced thinly
1 medium package boneless chicken breasts, cut into thirds
2-3 potatoes, cut into medium cubes
3 cups Nonni’s homemade tomato sauce
1 15-oz. can peas (you can substitute frozen peas, but they won’t taste murky enough)
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 300°F.  Pour oil onto the bottom of a 9x11-inch baking dish.  Add onions, then arrange chicken breasts on top and potatoes around them.  Sprinkle salt and pepper, and add just enough tomato sauce to cover the chicken.  Bake uncovered until chicken is cooked through and potatoes are tender, maybe 2 hours (depends on how big your chicken and potato pieces are).  Then, take the can of peas, water and all, and throw them in the pan as soon as it comes out.  Let sit a few minutes to warm the peas. 

Dora [Barbaresi] Donroe
New Haven, Connecticut
1918 -

And that's the end of the Italian Cookbook Friday, folks.  (If you missed the beginning, it starts here.)

Cookbook Friday: Status Update

Have you ever been in the process of saying goodbye to a bunch of people, but somebody keeps missing the cues?  You’ll be all, “Okay, so, I’ll see you later,” and then someone asks a question that launches a whole new conversation, so then you have to start again from the top, with a few steps back this time, and an “All right, then, thanks again.” 

Well, that’s kind of how I feel about ending the Italian section of Cookbook Friday.  The gas light has been on for a while and all signs point to the next off-ramp, and yet I keep driving right on by.

As my own blog editor, I’m saying we’re done with the Italians.  It’s been almost a year since I started posting excerpts, and prospective publishers say I’m supposed to be making some kind of progress on the manuscript.  I thought the blog would help me stay on track, but now the blog is just distracting me.  Which is fun (la la la laaaaaaaa), but let’s just say the manuscript isn’t writing itself the way I’d hoped it would.

So, let’s do one last recipe from the Italian side next week in homage to Nonni.  Because we all know that the only reason anybody reads this blog is to look at pictures of my hot grandmother.  (Stop looking at her like that.  I’m serious, I’ll kick your ass.)  Then, I’m taking a break from Cookbook Friday so I can rework this $%&*@ book proposal (I was going to say motherfucking, but since this is a family cookbook, I thought better of it). 

If all goes well, we’ll start in with the Appalachians sometime in February.  That’s right, more hot grandmothers coming up.  I know “hot Appalachian grandmother” sounds like an oxymoron, but, guess what, it’s not!  So, ya’ll come back now, you hear.  (Do Appalachians even talk like that?  Maybe I need to do more research.)

Cookbook Friday: Yankee Stadium

My dad, employing his usual tact, mentioned that I forgot to post the story he wrote about his first trip to Yankee Stadium as a kid.  And it’s true.  I did forget.  This was supposed to go with his other stories about growing up in New Haven in the 1950s: bringing home the Italian bread, the cherry tree in his backyard, and his love affair with baseball cards. 

But, the Internet is a flexible and forgiving medium, so I’m posting it out of order.  I’m sure we’ll all survive.  Well, all except, perhaps, a certain Red Sox fan who shall remain nameless.  Here it is:

New England is Red Sox country.  Or, at least, most of it is.  But, if you were a 10-year-old boy growing up in southern Connecticut in the late 50’s and the only baseball games your outdoor TV antenna could pick up were Yankee games, well, you tended to be a Yankee fan.

I loved baseball.  My dad who had played some amateur ball in his younger days also loved the game but hated the Yankees (they were too successful!).  His hatred of my team and his well-known reluctance to part with money always tempered any hopes I had that I might ever see a Yankee game other than on television.  So, it was with shock, exhilaration, and pure joy that I received his news one summer day in 1958 that we were going to a Yankee game at Yankee Stadium that weekend. 

What a day that was!  We traveled by train and I remember my excitement at seeing the facade of Yankee Stadium for the first time.  As my dad took me around the outside of the park, I thought he was giving me a tour.  I soon realized that he was looking for an opening in the perimeter fence through which he could sneak me in and save the cost of a ticket (did I mention that my dad was tight with a buck?).  I was mortified.  All I could see was my being arrested and thrown in jail!

Fortunately, the Yankee organization wasn’t one to allow for dilapidated fencing around the park, so after a while, my dad resigned himself to paying for two tickets.  With the turnstiles and the fear of incarceration behind me, I walked up the ramp into the light of the grandstand area.  I can never hope to better Billy Crystal’s description of a kid’s first glimpse of the field at the stadium.  And, yet, even Billy’s words don’t really do it justice. Words like “majestic” and “marvelous” come to mind before they are unceremoniously discarded as inadequate.

I don’t remember who the Yankees were playing that day but I do know that they won the game, and that I came away with both a Yankee pennant and a Yankee cap.  As for my dad and me, we, unfortunately, were never as close as a father and son could hope to be.  But, our love of the game was the one thing we always had in common.  And the memory of that one golden day in the Bronx!

Freddie Donroe
New Haven, CT – Worcester, MA
1948 –

Next Recipe: Tortiere

     (Previous Recipe: Beanie Weenies)

Cookbook Friday: Beanie Weenies

It has come to my attention that my Dad gets jealous when I write about anyone else but him on this blog.  This includes my “no-good husband.”  As well as “complete strangers.”  And especially doesn’t rule out “girly vegetables.”  How you can be jealous of a parsnip is beyond me.

So, fine, Dad, I’m writing about you.  You who gave me life and a conscience that burdens me daily.  Thanks a lot.

I was trying to spare you this next recipe from the family cookbook, but my dad feels it’s important.  In fact, it will probably give you some insight into how I might have inherited my love of hot dogs.  It might also give you a frightening peek into the life of a bachelor.  That’s right, ladies, all this can be yours.  You can put your phone numbers in the comment section.

So, without further ado, here's my Dad.

This is Freddie Donroe, third from the left, as a navigator on a (what kind of a plane is that?) in the Air Force in the early 1970s. 

Then, it was off to Vietnam.  Despite his nickname, Wrong-Way Al, he didn’t die.  (YAY!!!!)

I was born at some point after his return.  I’m a little fuzzy on the details of my birth, but I know it took place at a naval hospital in Kittery, Maine.  I imagine the accommodations were luxurious.  I didn’t think the Navy would let the Air Force use their hospitals, but I guess even hardened military men are afraid of laboring women. 

The rules at the time were that the dads were not allowed in the delivery rooms.  No siree, they were required to do the manly men’s work of smoking cigars in the waiting room.  But, not my dad.  They tried to kick him out but he refused, and when push came to shove, he pulled rank.  The doctor was a measly lieutenant or something, while my dad had worked his way up to Even More Important Guy.  As a reward, he got to stay and witness that living hell.  I’ve been a Daddy’s girl ever since.

Here’s his signature dish. 

Beanie Weenies

Can of beans
Hot dogs (preferably thawed)

Open can.  Pour contents of can into microwaveable dish.  Cut hot dogs into half-inch sections and put into dish.  Stir until you achieve a lumpy consistency.  Microwave on high for about 4 minutes.  Remove Beanie Weenies from center of dish, avoiding the burnt layer around the edges.  Add ketchup to taste.

Freddie Donroe
New Haven, CT – Worcester, MA
1948 –

Next: Yankee Stadium

     (Previous Recipe: Seven-Layer Cookies)

Cookbook Friday: Seven-Layer Cookies

What day is today?  Crap.  Let’s make this quick.

If these cookies look familiar to you, it’s because they’ve already been around the blogosphere here, here, and here.  They go by many names, including seven-layer cookies, Hello Dolly bars, and magic bars, but whatever you call them, they’re damn good. 

Nonni always made these for Christmas and, now, so do I.  Santa seems to enjoy them.  Plus, they’re the easiest cookies to make ever.  I’m not sure eating 17 of them all at once is a good idea, though.  I’ll let you know in about 20 minutes.

Seven-Layer Cookies

Seven ingredients, seven layers.  Although, there’s been some debate about whether the condensed milk should count as a “layer.”  I think I need to get some other hobbies.

1 stick butter
1½ cups graham cracker crumbs
1 cup butterscotch chips
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup walnuts
1 cup shredded coconut
14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk

Melt butter and mix with graham cracker crumbs.  Press into bottom of 8x8-inch pan. Sprinkle chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, and walnuts over crust.  Sprinkle coconut over the top.  Pour condensed milk evenly over everything.  Bake at 350°F for 25 minutes or until coconut gets brown and toasty in spots.  Cool slightly, then cut into small squares.

You can also use a 9x13-inch pan.  The cookies will be flatter but you’ll end up with more.  Nonni always made these dense, towering cookies, and so that’s what I like.

Dora [Barbaresi] Donroe
New Haven, Connecticut
1918 –

Next Recipe: Beanie Weenies

     (Previous Recipe: Raisin Cheesecake Cookies)

Cookbook Friday: Raisin Cheesecake Cookies

These are one of my faaaaavorite cookies (maybe even more than these).  I didn’t even know they existed until Nonni pulled them out of the fridge one day a few years ago and I was all “where have you been all my life?”  Better late than never.

Fabulous as these are, I can only imagine how much better they would be if you soaked the raisins in a little something.  I always forget to do this when I’m making them, which makes no sense, so I’m planting that seed in the hopes that you might take more initiative.  Maybe a little brandy or rum.  Even bourbon.  Watcha got? 

You can get the raisins good and drunk because there’s no way your kids are going to eat these.  They’re NOT cookies, declared the Preschooler.  The Toddler spit out his mouthful in solidarity.  Excellent.  More for me.  And if your husband should happen to hate raisins, well then, even better.

Raisin Cheesecake Cookies

If you’re anything like me, you will be tempted to eat these right out of the oven.  Don’t do it.  They’re better cold and you’ll regret that you ate most of them at less-than-optimal deliciousness. 

1/3 cup butter, softened
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 cup flour
½ cup raisins
½ cup walnuts
1 8-oz. package of cream cheese
½ cup granulated sugar
1 egg
2 Tbsp. milk
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
½ tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Have an 8”x8” pan at the ready.

Cream butter and brown sugar until fluffy.  Add flour, raisins, and nuts, and mix until crumbly.  Take half and press lightly in pan.  Bake for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, mix the cream cheese and sugar.  Add the egg, milk, lemon juice, and vanilla, and blend until smooth.  Once the crust comes out of the oven, pour in filling, and sprinkle remaining crust on top.  Bake 25-30 minutes.  Let cool and then chill.

Dava [Barbaresi] Catone
New Haven, Connecticut - Hamden, Connecticut
1921 – 1998

Next Recipe: Seven-Layer Cookies

     (Previous Recipe: Chocolate Balls)

Cookbook Friday: Chocolate Balls

Well, that’ll teach me to post on three hours of sleep.  Nice.  That’s okay, it’s only the Internet.  It’s not forever.  Sooner or later, al-Qaeda will succeed in its plot to blow it up into much, much smaller nets.  Either that or the Iranians will slowly start unraveling its frayed edges with their many forks.

But, you came here for a belated cookie recipe, and a cookie recipe you shall receive. 

As you know, I had some problems with the recipe last weekend.  Fifty percent of those problems have been resolved and that’s good enough for me.  The chocolatiness has been dramatically improved.  However, the cookies are still not ball-shaped in the strict sense of the word. 

I tried refrigerating the dough.  That didn’t work.  I formed them into balls and then froze them.  That helped a little.  Not a lot.  They still ended up looking more like chocolate snickerdoodles, which isn’t the worst thing in the world.  As Inne of Vanille & Chocolat suggested, if you want something perfectly spherical, just sandwich two of them together with frosting. 

That’s damned right.

Chocolate Balls

Who really cares what they look like, anyway.  They’re good.

1½ stick oleo (or butter)
¾ cups brown sugar
2 oz. semi-sweet chocolate, melted
¼ cup milk
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
2½ cups flour
½ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt

Icing
1 cup confectioner’s sugar
½ cup cocoa
5 Tbsp. milk

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, cream oleo (or butter) with brown sugar.  Add melted chocolate and mix well.  In a small bowl, mix together milk, egg, and vanilla.  Add to the sugar mixture and blend until it really just looks like you’re not making any progress at all.  It’ll look gross; it’s just temporary.

Add flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Stir until incorporated.  Form into small balls (smaller than a golf ball, bigger than a marble).  Bake 10-13 minutes, until tops start to crack.  Cool.

For icing, mix together confectioner’s sugar and cocoa.  Add milk as needed to get an icing that coats well without being gloppy.  You may need to thin it with more milk as you go along.  Dip tops of cookies into icing and let sit until firm.

Dava [Barbaresi] Catone
New Haven, Connecticut – Hamden, Connecticut
1921 - 1998

Next Recipe: Raisin Cheesecake Cookies

     (Previous Recipe: Anginettes)

Cookbook Friday: Anginettes

Ah, Thanksgiving.  A day to rehash all of the old family stories over and over and over again until you have no other recourse but to compile them all into a family cookbook on your blog.  Right? 

We had a nice Thanksgiving in New Haven with Nonni, my dad, my great uncle Joe, and great aunt Reggie.  After all of my turkey talk, there was no actual turkey consumed.  There never is at Nonni’s.  She’ll usually make some kind of pasta first course (manicotti, this year), some kind of meat (like porchetta), roasted potatoes, some kind of stuffed vegetable (like stuffed mushrooms, if that counts as a vegetable), and maybe a few other things.  Then, the obligatory trio of pies: pumpkin, cheesecake, and perhaps rice.  And, if you’re my dad, you’ll top that off with four of five Klondike Bars from the freezer after everyone leaves.

With her 89th birthday approaching next week, Nonni’s slowing down just a bit.  Meaning that when I dare to contribute some squash and cranberry sauce to the spread, she still gets super-pissed, but I can totally outrun her. 

Right after dessert, the Toddler stopped his yelling so we knew something was wrong.  He spiked a fever soon afterwards.  Worried about Nonni’s octogenarian immune system, I suggested she might not want to kiss the Toddler good-bye and risk catching whatever bug he might be carrying.  Her response: “That’s true.  If I get sick, I might not be able to get pregnant.”

That’s what I get.

Anginettes

These frosted citrus cookies are kid magnets.  Must be the sprinkles.  Both Nonni and my great-aunt Dava always had these around for us kids around the holidays. 

½ cup shortening (or butter, softened)
½ cup sugar
2 large eggs
½ cup orange juice
½ tsp. orange extract
3 cups flour
1 Tbsp. baking powder

Icing
1 cup confectioner’s sugar
½ tsp. lemon extract
½ tsp. vanilla
2 Tbsp. milk
Colored sprinkles

Preheat oven to 400°F.  Grease cookie sheets, or line with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, cream together shortening (or butter) and sugar until fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Add orange juice and orange extract, and mix (if using butter, it may congeal unattractively during the mixing process, but it doesn’t matter).  Sift together flour and baking powder.  Stir into wet ingredients until combined. 

Drop by smallish tablespoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet.  Bake 10-12 minutes.  Remove just before they start to take on color.  Cool.

For icing, mix confectioner’s sugar with lemon extract and vanilla in a medium bowl.  Add about 2 Tbsp. of milk and whisk until smooth (you want it thick enough to cling to the cookies without being gloppy; if it’s too thick, add milk a few drops at a time or you risk thinning it out too much).  Dip cookies top-down into icing and set on a rack over a rimmed baking sheet lined with parchment paper to contain the mess.  Shake colored sprinkles over the top before the icing dries.  Let stand until set.

Makes about 30.  Recipe can be doubled.

Dava [Barbaresi] Catone
New Haven, Connecticut - Hamden, Connecticut
1921 – 1998

Next Recipe: Chocolate Balls

   (Previous Recipe: Bambury Tarts)

Cookbook Friday: Bambury Tarts

Now that my rising stardom has plummeted violently back to earth, I'll be better able to concentrate on doing what I do best: boring you with family recipes.  So, here’s another picture of my great aunt Dava [Barbaresi] Catone on the far right with her husband Joe.  My grandmother and grandfather, Dora [Barbaresi] and Albert Donroe, are third and fourth from the left.  This picture was taken at some point, someplace, with some other people.  How’s that for documenting history?

Bambury tarts are another cookie from Dava’s famous cookie trays, and one that presents particularly well for the holidays.  I believe these are a riff on Banbury tarts, the English tea pastry filled with lemony mincemeat, but for which other fillings have evolved over the years and oceans.  Here, it’s raspberry jam nestled in a nest of shredded coconut.  Bambury may, in fact, be a misspelling, but I’m keeping it because American recipes often reflect an evolution of ingredients, techniques, and interpretations.  In this game of Telephone we call life, it’s only fun when the end result is different than what you initially started with. 

Bambury Tarts

It was funny to watch the Toddler try to suck the jelly out of the middle of these, until he realized that the cookie part isn’t half bad, either.

1 cup margarine (or butter)
½ cup sugar
2 eggs, separated
2 tsp. vanilla
2 cups flour
1 cup shredded coconut, packed
¼ cup red raspberry jam

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.

Cream margarine and sugar.  Add egg yolks and vanilla, and blend well.  Mix in flour until just combined.  Form into small balls.  Dip in slightly beaten egg whites, and roll in coconut.  Bake 5 minutes and remove from oven.  With a knuckle, nudge a small dent into the center of each cookie (yes, it’s hot; don’t be a wuss).  Spoon a dollop of jam into each well and bake another 15 minutes.  Cool.

Makes about 3 dozen.

Dava [Barbaresi] Catone
New Haven, Connecticut - Hamden, Connecticut
1921 - 1998

Next Recipe: Anginettes

     (Previous Recipe: Pecan Tassies)

Cookbook Friday: Pecan Tassies

I found this 1940's picture of my great aunt Dava [Barbaresi] Catone, so I thought I’d post it even though it’s out of chronological order.  Dava is holding my Aunt Margaret, who was the daughter of her sister Dora [Barbaresi] and Freddie Donroe, before her baptism (I’m guessing it was before the blessed event since the baby seems peaceful and blissfully dry about the head). 

Dava was Margaret’s godmother, but what makes this picture astoundingly prophetic is that Margaret’s godfather, standing next to Dava, was her father’s brother, Albert Donroe.  Soon after, he became Margaret’s stepfather when his brother was killed in World War II.  Confused, yet?  The backstory is here, in case you missed it.  If that doesn’t help, maybe a cookie will.

Back to Dava.  Pecan tassies were among the fabulous cookies that she produced by the bushel for various family gatherings.  Others included: chocolate spice cookies, coconut meltaways, and chocolate chip cream cheese cookies.  More to come. 

These particular cookies are like bite-sized pecan pies, though I’d recommend spreading out the enjoyment over more than one bite or they’ll be gone WAY to fast.  That’s just me.  Baked as they are in miniature muffin tins, using paper liners will spare you some cursing later on when you try to pry them out.  Especially if you’re making them for something like a baptism (pssst…priests don’t like the cursing). 

These are one of my favorite Dava cookies.

Pecan Tassies

Crust
2 sticks oleo (or butter)
2 3-oz. packages of cream cheese (or shave 2 oz. off of an 8-oz. package)
2 cups flour

Filling
3 eggs
1 lb. brown sugar
3 Tbsp. melted oleo (or butter)
½ tsp. vanilla
1¾ cup chopped pecans
Dash salt

Preheat oven to 350°F.

For crust, cream together oleo and cream cheese in a large bowl.  Add flour gradually and mix with a fork.  Chill 2 hours (much longer and it will get annoyingly stiff).  Place a piece of dough the size of a walnut in muffin tins.  Does anyone know how big a walnut is anymore?  Think cherry tomato.  Press dough ball so that it forms a cup against the bottom and sides of the muffin liner.  The deeper the depression, the more filling can fit inside.  I’m just saying.

For the filling, beat eggs in another large bowl.  Add brown sugar, oleo, vanilla, and salt.  Sprinkle a few chopped nuts on the bottom of each dough cup, spoon filling almost to the top, and sprinkle with more nuts.  Bake at 350°F for 15 minutes, 325°F for 10 minutes.  Cool.  Remove from pan.

Makes four dozen.

Dava [Barbaresi] Catone
New Haven, Connecticut - Hamden, Connecticut
1921 - 1998

Next Recipe: Bambury Tarts

     (Previous Recipe: Chocolate Chip Cream Cheese Cookies)

Cookbook Friday: Chocolate Chip Cream Cheese Cookies

Need I say more? 

If there are two things I love, it’s chocolate chip cookies and cheesecake.  My Great Aunt Dava [Barbaresi] Catone, in all her brilliance, decided to combine the two.  What you end up with is something that leaves Husband with only expletives to describe its deliciousness.

The original recipe calls for prepackaged cookie dough, but if you like to make more work for yourself, one recipe of Toll House cookies yields enough dough for both layers.  Simply divide dough in half, roll into two logs, wrap in wax paper, and refrigerate until firm enough to slice.  Alternatively, just slap half of the dough into the pan and spread with a spatula.  For the top layer, spoon teaspoon-sized blobs at regular intervals over the cream cheese filling.  There will be some cheese seepage, but really, isn’t that the best kind?  A dusting of confectioner’s sugar and they’ll be good to go.  And go they will.

Chocolate Chip Cream Cheese Cookies

2 8-oz. packages cream cheese, room temperature
¾ cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 18-oz. tubes chocolate chip cookie dough
Powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Grease a 9 x 13-inch pan.

Slice cookie dough into ¼-inch thick rounds.  Arrange closely on bottom of pan, pressing to fill in the gaps.  In a large bowl, cream the sugar with the cream cheese until fluffy.  Add eggs and vanilla, and mix well.  Pour cream cheese mixture over cookie dough.  Slice second roll of cookies and place over top of cream cheese.

Bake for 45-50 minutes, until puffed, golden, and center has set.  Cool.  Cut into 1-inch squares and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Dava [Barbaresi] Catone
New Haven, Connecticut – Hamden, Connecticut
1921 - 1998

Next Recipe: Pecan Tassies

     (Previous Recipe: Coconut Meltaways)

Cookbook Friday: Coconut Meltaways

So, about these cookie trays that my great-aunt Dava [Barbaresi] Catone made for special occasions, I don’t really have any stories about them.  If there were any shotgun weddings that had Dava cursing and baking all night long, I don’t know about them. 

Many of the cookies she made weren’t Italian, including this one with shredded coconut.  Think Russian tea cake if Russia had a timeshare in the tropics.  Instead of powdered sugar, Dava applied an icing that she tinted mint green and then sprinkled more coconut on top.  You’ll have to use your own good judgment on the icing; mint green might not win you any friends these days.

Anyway, Dava’s original recipe calls for oleo (margarine).  The prevailing wisdom at the time was that margarine was better for you than butter.  The prevailing wisdom today is the opposite.  Welcome to the cycle of life.  They’ll be good either way.

Coconut Meltaways

Husbands and toddlers love these cookies.  Chopped macadamia nuts would also be great in the dough or sprinkled on top.

1 cup oleo (or butter)
5 Tbsp. powdered sugar
2 cups flour, sifted
1 cup shredded coconut
1 tsp. vanilla

Icing
2 Tbsp. oleo (or butter)
1 cup confectioner’s sugar
2 or 3 Tbsp. milk
¼ tsp. vanilla
Green food coloring
Chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, cream oleo and sugar.  Stir in flour, coconut, and vanilla until blended. Chill dough 20 minutes or until firm enough to handle.  With your hands, roll dough into 1-inch balls and place an inch apart on cookie sheets.  Bake about 15 minutes (it took a bit longer in my oven), until dough just begins to crack.  Cool.

For the icing, cream together oleo and sugar in a small bowl.  Add milk and vanilla, and mix well.  Add just enough tint to make a mint green color, and stir until you don’t care that the lumps are still there.  Spoon over cookies and sprinkle with shredded coconut or chopped nuts.

Dava [Barbaresi] Catone
New Haven, Connecticut - Hamden, Connecticut
1921 - 1998

Next Recipe: Chocolate Chip Cream Cheese Cookies

     (Previous Recipe: Chocolate Spice Cookies)

Cookbook Friday: Chocolate Spice Cookies

It’s been a while since our last Cookbook Friday, so let’s ease into it with a cookie recipe.  In fact, let’s just finish off the year right with nothing but cookie recipes.  My family has a ton of them and the holidays will be upon us in no time flat.

I’m guessing this photo was taken in the 1950s.  Inside the car in the center is my Great-Aunt Dava [Barbaresi] Catone.  To the left is my grandmother, Dora [Barbaresi] Donroe, and to the right is what would appear to be the Wicked Witch of the West, but, in fact, was a close family friend, Emma, with an unfortunate hat.  It’s happened to all of us at one time or another, my pretties.

Dava was a star baker, and she used to make amazing assorted cookie trays for weddings and other special occasions.  These chocolate spice cookies were a favorite: a sort of soft chocolate biscotti.  Scratch that: chocolate-FROSTED chocolate biscotti (biscotti just got doubly better).

Cooking time is important.  Unlike regular biscotti recipes where you bake the dough once as a loaf, and then bake it again once it's sliced, these only bake once as a loaf.  That said, if you get it wrong and underbake them like I did the first time, there’s nothing that says you can’t throw them back in the oven once sliced to firm them up.  It’s certainly better than overbaking them like I did the second time I made them.  They should not be hard and dry like biscotti.  But should they somehow end up that way, I’m sure you have something in the liquor cabinet you could dip them into.  Just tell everyone they’re supposed to be like that.

So, I am providing you with a range of times, a couple of clues, but in the end, you know your oven better than I do and you have to make the call.  I’d take them out sooner rather than later.

Chocolate Spice Cookies

The spices make this a great cookie for the holidays.  Recipe can be doubled.

¼ cup canola oil
1 cup sugar
¾ cup milk (or water)
½ cup cocoa, sifted
1 tsp. baking powder
¾ tsp. cinnamon
¾ tsp. cloves
2 – 2½ cups flour

Chocolate Icing
½ cup confectioner’s sugar
¼ cup cocoa
1-2 Tbsp. milk

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Line cookie sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, add oil and sugar and kind of mash it together.  Stir in milk (or water).  Add cocoa, baking powder, cinnamon, and cloves, and mix well.  Stir in 2 cups of the flour.  Add the remaining ½ cup of flour a little at a time until a sticky dough forms.  You may not need it all, but I did.

Divide dough in half and plop them on each side of the cookie sheet.  With your hands, form them into loaves about 3 or 4 inches across and about 10 inches long.  Do not get out a ruler.  This is just a guideline.  They should look loaf-like and be about the same size.  Bake for 25-35 minutes, until the tops crack and a toothpick inserted into the center indicates moisture but not a gloppy mess.  Let cool.  With a serrated knife, cut loaves at an angle into ¾-inch slices.  The cook gets the ends.

Wait until the cookies are ready to frost before making the icing or it will stiffen.  In a small bowl, mix together sugar and cocoa.  Add 1 Tbsp. milk and stir until incorporated.  Add the rest of the milk, as necessary, until icing is the consistency you like.  Frost cookies.

Dava [Barbaresi] Catone
New Haven, Connecticut – Hamden, Connecticut
1921 - 1998

Next Recipe: Coconut Meltaways

     (Previous Recipe: Wands)

Cookbook Friday Returns Next Week

I swear.  In the meantime, there will be NO mention of local farms.

Cookbook Friday: Postponed

…until the Eat Local Challenge is over.  I may have bitten off more than I can chew, but I’ll never admit it.  We’ll return to our regularly scheduled program in October.

Y’all come back, now, you hear?

Cookbook Friday-ish: Wands

Last week, the Preschooler informed me that on Fridays, all of our food must be fried.  The apple dumpling, it seems, didn’t fall far from the frying pan.  So, this past Friday (the day before the Eat Local Challenge), we made wands.

Wands are what Nonni, Dora [Barbaresi] Donroe, always calls these little strips of fried dough dusted in confectioner’s sugar.  But, the word doesn’t look Italian in the least, and for the life of me, I can’t find anything to support it or my great grandmother’s pronunciation, “ee-wands.”  So, who knows.  The Marchigianos are crazy.  I’m not sure you can believe anything they say.

You’ll need a pasta machine for these.  Part of the fun is to develop your own signature shape.  My great grandmother, Lydia [Belbusti] Barbaresi, used to make large circles by tracing a knife around a saucer, but her daughters started making them all sorts of crazy ways.  Nonni’s version had a style all its own: a few twists, if you will.  The recipe below is for her method.

These were always a personal favorite of mine.  Nonni knew this.  While everyone else was busy fighting over the cappellettis, and passatellis, and crescia, Nonni would pull out a HUGE Tupperware container of these things just for me.  I’ve never seen Tupperware that big before or since.  Now that I know how long it takes to make them, I realize that a grandmother’s love knows no bounds.

Wands

I’ve taken the liberty of cutting the recipe in half so you don’t find yourself in front of the frying pan for six hours.  If you have an army to feed, or are just Italian, feel free to double it back again.

2½ cups flour
1 Tbsp. granulated sugar
½ tsp. baking powder
3 eggs
¼ cup canola oil, plus more for frying
Confectioner’s sugar for dusting

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, and baking powder.  Make a well in the center, and add eggs and oil.  With a fork, gently beat the eggs and oil together.  Then, gradually mix in the dry ingredients, a little at a time, until too thick to stir.  Knead dough slightly until it holds together.  Cut into 8 pieces and cover until ready to use.

Set up pasta machine with rollers at their widest setting.  Using a rolling pin, roll out one piece of dough until thin enough to fit through the pasta machine.  Run it through, and then decrease the space between the rollers by one notch.  If pasta gets stuck, just back it up by cranking the lever in reverse, flatten it again with the rolling pin, and try again.  Continue decreasing the space between the rollers and running the dough through until you get to the thinnest setting (the thinner the dough, the more delicately crispy they become). 

Cut into rectangles about 1-inch wide and 3 inches long.  Cut a 2-inch slit the long way, so each rectangle looks like a pair of pants.  Twist each leg, then seal at the ankles.  Set on floured pan and cover with plastic wrap.  Repeat for remaining pieces of dough.

In a medium frying pan, add enough oil to reach at least a depth of ½ inch.  Heat until very hot.  Test the oil by dropping in a wand; it should only take about 20 seconds to fry it (turning once halfway through).  Remove before it starts to brown.  Repeat for the others, frying several at a time.  Let drain on paper towels.  When cool, dust generously with confectioner’s sugar.  Serve immediately or store in an airtight container for several days.

Dora [Barbaresi] Donroe
Hamden, Connecticut
1918 –

Next Recipe: Chocolate Spice Cookies

     (Previously: Remembrance)

Cookbook Friday: Remembrance

Albert Victor Donroe
1913 -- 2007

Rest in peace, Poppi. 

(And watch out for that squirrel.)

Love,
Tangerine

Next Recipe: Wands

     (Previous Recipe: Icebox Cake)

Cookbook Friday: Icebox Cake

                        

Here, Freddie Donroe (my dad) is showing off for his father, Albert Donroe, and grandmother, Margarita Donarumo, sometime in the early 1950s.  Did I mention my dad’s apparently-very-long bratty phase?  It was known to bring out the best in people.  For example…

Freddie and family were at his Aunt Ann’s house.  A music-lover from an early age, Freddie was rifling through her collection of 78 records.  He was undoubtedly warned to be careful with them since the older shellac records were quite fragile compared to the newer vinyl ones. 

As the story goes, Freddie wanted to bring some of them home.  Ann said no.  Freddie launched into a huge tantrum.  It went on forever.  Finally, Ann lost her temper, grabbed a record, and hit him over the head with it.  She wisely chose one of the durable vinyls.  Still, it shattered. 

Ann was more surprised than Freddie.  “It said it was unbreakable,” she remarked. 

“Yes,” replied Freddie’s Uncle Gerry.  “Under normal circumstances.”

***

All right, food snobs, brace yourselves.  Jell-O pudding is about to make an appearance.  There are only a couple of distinctly non-Italian desserts that Nonni makes, and icebox cake is one of them.  Why?  Because kids love it, and the author of this blog was no exception.

Icebox Cake

To lazy to make Italian cream pie?  Have I got a recipe for you.

2 packages chocolate instant pudding
2 packages vanilla instant pudding
5½ cups milk (or whatever the instructions on the box call for)
1 box graham crackers
4 bananas

In a large bowl, mix together 2¾ cups milk and the contents of two packages of chocolate pudding according to the instructions on the package (e.g., add mix to milk and whisk for two minutes). 

In a 9”x13” pan, arrange graham crackers on the bottom, breaking into smaller pieces to fit, if necessary.  Pour half of the chocolate pudding on top and spread evenly.  Slice two bananas and arrange in a single layer on top of that.  Add the remaining chocolate pudding.  Set another layer of graham crackers on top. 

Wash out the bowl and mix together the remaining 2¾ cups milk with the two packs of vanilla pudding.  Spread half of it over the graham crackers.  Slice two more bananas and arrange in a single layer.  Add the rest of the vanilla pudding.  In a blender or food processor, pulse 5 graham crackers until pulverized.  Sprinkle crumbs over top of cake.  Cover and chill in the refrigerator (i.e., icebox) for 24 hours before serving.

Dora [Barbaresi] Donroe
Hamden, Connecticut
1918 -

Next: Remembrance

     (Previously: Baseball Cards)

Cookbook Friday: Baseball Cards

       

Here’s a photo of my dad, Freddie Donroe, being consoled by his mom, Dora [Barbaresi] Donroe.  I don’t know what he was upset about, but I’m sure it was very, very important.  And speaking of tears, here’s a story written by my dad about collecting baseballs cards in the 1950’s and 60’s:

As a young baseball fan, my prized possession was not my bike, my Yankee-Doodle rocket launcher, or even my dog.  It was my baseball card collection. 

From 1957 through 1963, I was an avid collector of those cardboard stock photos of our diamond heroes: Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford.  There was no greater joy than to go to the corner store after school with my friends and buy a pack of baseball cards.  And if one happened to have a whole quarter to spend, one could buy five packs of cards.  That meant 25 cards and five slabs of the most delicious stale, dried-out gum on the planet.

I became a master at “pitching cards,” that simple game of hurling cards against the wall, with the card nearer to the wall the winner.  If you won, you took your opponent’s card.  I managed to win every one of my cousin Joe Donroe’s Yankee cards one year that way.  Today, as an older and wiser man, I regret the mercenary way I treated my cousin.  But, at the time, he knew what he was getting into.

In 1958, I managed for the first and only time to collect the entire Topps series of cards.  Every single player card, team card, specialty card, and even index cards.  I kept the entire set in an old Thom McCann shoebox in my closet.  I kept them for over a decade.  Safe from thieves, weather, and other mishap, they were not safe from the one predator I could not foresee: a spring-cleaning mom. 

How could she (or any of us) have known the way the sports memorabilia market would explode in the 1980’s and 90’s?  So much for my daughter’s college tuition!

Freddie Donroe
Hamden, Connecticut
1948 -

Blogger’s note: Coincidentally, Joe Donroe’s son ended up attending the same university as me.  He has since become a doctor, while I am, well…a blogger.  Looks like Dad's cousin Joe got the last laugh, after all.

Next Recipe: Icebox Cake

     (Previously: Stuffed Mushrooms)

Cookbook Friday: Stuffed Mushrooms

More pictures are on the way, I promise.  In the meantime, let’s talk about mushrooms. 

I have a love/hate relationship with mushrooms.  I love to eat them, but sometimes they make me vomit.  Same with wine (why, God, why?) and, in an unexpected twist this week, sometimes summer squash.  But, like I said, I LOVE mushrooms and will choose to eat them based on how convenient it might be at that moment to vomit spontaneously.

What’s that you say?  It’s never convenient to vomit?  Well, you would be right, sir, but have you ever tasted mushrooms?  They’re delicious.  This is the dilemma of my life.

On the other hand, my dad, Freddie Donroe, has a hate/hate relationship with mushrooms.  Unlike all of the other things my dad claims to hate when he really just doesn’t realize he likes them, my dad really does hate mushrooms.  Here’s why.

When my dad was much, much younger, his father, Albert Donroe (my Poppi), used to take him to forage for mushrooms.  I assume, since Poppi’s family was from Naples, that this was in his blood, or, at the very least, he had some tutelage.  Poppi had a special place they always went, some woods near a quarry in Hamden, Connecticut (maybe East Rock, maybe Sleeping Giant).  There, according to my dad, Poppi would go over every rotting stump he could find and gather mushrooms of every shape and size.  To hear my dad tell the story, Poppi never turned one down, food poisoning be damned. 

After about 45 minutes, and what I can only imagine was my dad’s constant whining, they returned home so Poppi could cook them.  And this is where things got really ugly.  Sometimes, he cooked them in a sauce for spaghetti, but usually they were just sautéed.  The smell was so bad, my dad remembers, he’d completely lose his appetite.  I believe “hellacious” was the word he used to describe it.  Nobody else in the house would touch the stuff, so Poppi just cooked them for himself.  Meanwhile, my dad would make himself scarce for as long as the smell lingered.  To this day, he can’t stomach them.

Now, the question I have is, was Poppi really that bad of a cook?  Perhaps, not a very discriminating hunter/gatherer?  Or were they, in fact, delicious, but my dad just hates mushrooms?  Anyone else ever taste them?  Because I’m willing to bet I would have been smacking my lips, even as they were wheeling me to the ER.  (Poppi, by the way, is a whopping 93.)

The following recipe is Nonni’s Marchigiano recipe for stuffed mushrooms.  They have never made me vomit. 

Stuffed Mushrooms

The secret to these is long, slow cooking in a cool oven.  Don’t rush them.

10 oz. package button mushrooms
3 Tbsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp. garlic, minced
¼ cup fresh bread crumbs
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 300°F.  To the bottom of an 8”x8” pan, add 1 Tbsp. of the oil. 

Using a damp towel, wipe dirt off of mushrooms.  Gently, pull out the stems and chop them finely.  In a medium bowl, combine chopped stems with garlic, bread crumbs, cheese, salt, and pepper.  Working over the bowl, mound stuffing into hollowed out mushrooms.  Set in oiled pan.  Drizzle with remaining 2 Tbsp. of oil.  Bake uncovered for 1 hour or longer (Nonni cooks the hell out of them and that’s how I like them). 

Dora [Barbaresi] Donroe
Hamden, Connecticut
1918 -

Next: Baseball Cards

     (Previously: Squirrel Surprise)

Cookbook Friday: Squirrel Surprise

When my grandmother, Dora Barbaresi, married her second husband, Albert Donroe, it turned out not to be the ideal marriage.  Still, they stuck it out for more than 20 years for the sake of the kids. 

They divorced in the 1970s, so my memories of Poppi are vague: a mixture of stubbly five o’clock shadow, the pasta e fagioli he made, him singing about the pasta e fagioli he made, and how he pretty much was always singing (including Sinatra's song, Tangerine, which was his pet name for me).  The singing gene, I’m pretty sure, hasn’t skipped any generations since.

Over the years, many a colorful word has been used to describe him, which I won’t repeat because I’m a lady.  But, this is my favorite story, probably because the embellishment is mostly mine (embellished, but still largely true).  Here’s a recipe for his most memorable culinary contribution.

Squirrel Surprise

On your way out the door to gamble away your family’s meager food budget, take note of strewn acorn shells on the front stoop.  Complain loudly about your wife’s annoying habit of feeding a particular neighborhood squirrel. 

Wait until the wife is away, preferably working her arthritic fingers to the bone at a low-wage dress shop.  Locate a large rock.  In your ample free time between dead-end jobs, stake out behind bushes.  Identify tame and peckish squirrel.  With your good arm, hurl rock squarely at the head of the rodent.  Swagger toward your prize, wondering why your pitching career never went anywhere.  Skin the bushy-tailed rat, and then spit-roast over an open fire (preferably in the front yard).  Or stew with a variety of dubious wild mushrooms from the backyard.  Or grind into one tiny sausage. 

Enjoy – then hide the evidence.  Wait until wife wonders aloud why the squirrel hasn’t shown up for meals, lately.  Then proudly detail your exploits.

Note: Any suburban animal will do, but choose wisely.  Deliciousness corresponds directly to the amount of affection between the animal and the person you wish to spite.  Well-groomed pets tend to be plumper than strays, but consider moving spit to backyard.

Albert Victor Donroe
New Haven, Connecticut
1913 - 2007

Next Recipe: Stuffed Mushrooms

     (Previously: Making Pasta)

Cookbook Friday: Making Pasta

I’m so glad that the rest of my family is getting in on the cookbook action.  Below is an essay from one of my dad’s cousins, Joey Catone out in California, who is Dava [Barbaresi] Catone’s son.  He reminisces about the women in the family getting together to make pasta.  Lots and lots of pasta.  When he talks about his Nonnie, he’s referring to Lydia [Belbusti] Barbaresi.  My Nonni, Dora [Barbaresi] Donroe, would have been his aunt.  Here’s his story:

The Barbaresi sisters were all pretty good cooks.  They were also good at having families.  Most settled in or near Hamden, Connecticut.  We enjoyed large family gatherings, and celebrated and mourned together.

We always ate well as kids.  Whatever else was going on in our family, the food never took a back seat.  Some of the preparations were done on a large scale and it was the Making of the Pasta that I remember most fondly.  It didn’t matter what they made — ravioli, passatelli, cappelletti — the anticipation was huge and so was the amount of food.

I had the incredible good fortune (or misfortune, as the case may be) to live right around the corner from the Donroes.  I’m Freddie’s favorite cousin and don’t let him tell you otherwise.  The Aunts often got together at our house to cook.  This would be my mom (Dava), Dora, Jean, Anne, and Nonnie (Lydia, my maternal grandmother).  When the sisters got together, usually the cousins did, too, but that’s another story.

There was a large board used in the preparation (pine, I think).  Maybe 48” x 36” or so.  It was worn smooth by hands rubbing flour all over it.  There was also a large rolling pin (also pine) about 4 feet long.  No handles, just a long solid pole about 2 inches in diameter.  Nonnie would carefully toss flour on it before they would make a large volcano-shaped mound of flour in the middle.  The size of the batch would be determined by the amount of eggs.  My mother would say, “Today, we’re making 24 eggs!”  The significance of this was lost on me, but I’d always nod approvingly.  We always nodded approvingly when cooking was involved.

Nonnie would do most of the kneading.  I remember watching her old hands add flour, smooth, roll with the pin, repeat, all the while talking to her daughters in Italian.  Usually, it was some old story that my mother would later say they’ve all heard a million times.  If the conversation was in English and one of the kids walked in, they would immediately switch to Italian.  We always knew they were talking about us.  When all the Aunts got together with Nonnie, it was the only time I heard Italian spoken.

Once the pasta was made, they would sit around and finish the batch.  They would fill the ravioli or cappellettis, or out would come the hand-cranked grinder to make the passatellis.  I can recall how every surface in the house would be covered by the pasta of the day.  Beds, tables, card tables.  Pasta everywhere.  Later, it would be divided up, taken home, and we’d all eat like kings.  Nope, food never took a backseat in our family.

To this day, when I hear Italian being spoken, I think back to those Saturdays when Nonnie and her daughters would get together and make pasta.

Joey Catone
Hamden, Connecticut
1952 –

Photos of cappellettis (top) and passatellis (bottom) by Trish Barker in 2004.

Next Recipe: Squirrel Surprise

     (Previous Recipe: Chicken Potacchio)

Family Ties

One of the great things about writing a blog is reconnecting with old friends.  But, also, through this cookbook project of mine, I’m meeting family members I didn’t know I had.  This started happening when I was researching my family tree, and has only accelerated through the wonders of the International Network.

My most recent e-mail is from a member of the Belbusti family (the name was later shortened to Belmont).  Jim from Houston, TX sent me a picture of his mother’s passatelli-maker. 

In the comment thread for the post on passatellis, which are noodles made from bread crumbs and copious amounts of Parmesan cheese, there was speculation about how they were shaped before electric meat grinders and whether they were hand-rolled. He writes:

“My dad had that maker commissioned by a metal shop he used to do business with.  It’s one-of-a-kind and loosely based on one my maternal grandmother had.  Basically, you take a tennis-ball size of passatelli dough and push it through the holes with your palms.  The noodles grow about 1 to 1-1/2 inches long, then drop off the plate.  Tilt the thing over a bowl, and out slide the noodles.

She'd dry the noodles on baking sheets laid out on the dining room table, and pay my sister and me $2 a day to keep the cat from jumping up on the table and eating them.  What she didn't count on was us eating the noodles.  The taste?  Think cheesy cookie dough.”

Jim found my site while looking for a recipe for crescia, the Marchigiano Parmesan-pepper bread.  Here’s what he remembers about his mom’s version:

“One thing my mom used to add to crescia - she would spike the dough (before rising) with chunks of cheese (I think she used block American cheese!) so that most slices came with a lump of cheese, because 5 cups of Parmesan/Romano per loaf just wasn't enough.  And I wonder why my cholesterol is high.”

Yup.  We’re definitely family.