All posts by hnbjr

M&M Enterprise Cooking, Vol. V

Spinaci saltati

spinaci saltati con feta

Here’s an easy one, with a Balkan touch.

Frozen spinach, courtesy Italian PX. Immersed in boiling water for 3-5 minutes, then drained and put into the waiting pan with Zucchi EVOO, a garlic clove (bazaar) and a finely chopped red pepper (DFAC). Let sauté till the oil is absorbed, add chunks of DOP feta (again, Italian PX), mix well, serve.

If the peperoncini prove too much, calm the system with some Twinings nighttime calm camomile and peppermint tea (Amazon).

Why saltati? From saltare —  they’ve jumped into the pan (and hopefully into your mouth).

 

M&M Enterprise Cooking, Vol. IV

Penne all’Arrabiata

cooking down

Five tomatoes and a long hot red pepper sitting in my fridge for a week meant that it was time for this dish. This is about as simple as it gets, so the real challenge here was properly skinning and seeding the tomatoes. I basically followed this recipe by Giallo Zafferano’s Sonia Peronaci to the letter. My mom taught me her mom’s method for peeling tomatoes — immerse for a few seconds in boiling water, run under cold water, and then the skin comes off easily. Grandma would apparently then just squeeze them directly into the cooking vessel. (She was of Scottish, not Italian, extraction.) This method is fine but it’s a bit hard on the old hands. Sonia’s method, which calls for making an X-shaped cut on the top of the tomato and then immersing in a bowl of ice, offers a slight improvement.

adding pecorino

Granoro penne, the end of the DOP pecorino (which, I note, to date has not been restocked), frozen parsley all from the Italian PX.

Tomatoes from a vendor at the bazaar.

Chili pepper from the cafeteria.

Also a bit of organic Zucchi EVOO at the end.

finished product

 

The problem with this dish, like with the shrimp, is that the tomatoes on offer are simply not that juicy. I used five, which seems way too many for one dish of pastasciutta normally. But these things don’t cook down much, and what juice there is remains thin and watery.

Think it would have been superior with some canned cherry tomatoes or passata, which I’ll keep in mind for the next pastasciutta dish — all’amatriciana.

 

M&M Enterprise Cooking, Vol. III

pasta alla norma con salsiccia

As my Italian-American college roommate taught me long ago, there’s something about letting any tomato-based dish cool overnight that does magic things to it the next day. Not a whole lot to say about today’s dish — all the basic ingredients and their sourcing were described in the previous post. Today’s task was simply to boil water and add Granoro penne rigate for 9 minutes while last night’s parmigiana pugliese re-heated in the oven. Drain the pasta, mix everything in the pot, top with some DOP pecorino and the organic Zucchi EVOO, and eccociqua — a delightful sort of pasta alla norma con salsiccia.

Mixing in the pot is absolutely essential, another tip from my old roommate of origini meridionali I learnt before ever even setting foot in Italy. Yet many non-Italian cooks don’t do it and I can’t fathom why, or why not. The just-cooked pasta will be porous and ready to accept the flavor of whatever you’re eating it with — it’s a quick and easy trick that adds a lot of flavor. This ties into a greater idea that non-Italian cooks focus on the “sauce” (more properly a condimento) more than the pasta itself — a cardinal mistake in not only my opinion but likely that of 58 million Italians. This 21-year old New York Times article makes that point in excellent detail.

 

M&M Enterprise Cooking, Vol. II

August 22. Una specie di parmigiana di melanzane. 

Parmigiana con mozzarella e salsiccia

I bought long local eggplants at the bazaar last week, sautéed them in Spanish EVOO with garlic, layered with them cafeteria provided mozzarella slices, threw in some gifted modest tomato sauce (Hunt’s in a can, Prego in a jar), baked for a half hour at 180C, secured cooked Italian sausage from the cafeteria, sliced that and some DOP pecorino, and added it on top, let it bake at 180 for another thirty minutes, let it cool and topped the whole thing with the good Italian organic EVOO and some basil grown in the garden here. Let it cool for a bit and it was fairly delightful. Using substandard tomatoes breaks a cardinal rule, but — war zone rules. The sausage gives it a Pugliese twist; it’s similar to this recipe, which I found after the fact, although I didn’t batter or deep fry the eggplants. 

Kept half for today’s penne lunch. 

Of course, the name of the dish, ubiquitous in east coast sub shops, certainly has little to do with the city in Emilia — this should be a known quantity to all who care at this point — but I was intrigued to learn that parmiciana may come from its Turkish name patlıcan, itself an Arabic borrowing, which was, of course, what we called them in Macedonia as well. The Italian wiki (“Attribuzione siciliana“) has some good theorizing.

How the storied fruit of Solanum melongena ended up with so many different names is its own story and the interested should be able to turn up some good explanations with minimal Googling. Here’s one of many, although the author is a little too credulous at times — mela insana (apple of madness) for melanzana is pure folk etymology. 

M&M Enterprise Cooking, Vol. I

In the model of a less-evil Milo Minderbinder, I thought I’d show people what kind of food one can whip up with limited resources in a war zone.  Having a full range and stove helps, but the crucial ingredient is, of course, an Italian PX.

August 7

Starting simple — bieta (or bietola in Veneto) sautéed in a pan with garlic. Both frozen garlic and bietola from the Italian PX.

bietola saltata in padella

August 9

gamberi in padella con pomodori

Shrimp fusilli, basically a version of the Italian classic gamberi in padella con pomodoro fresco.

Not a huge success. Tomatoes sourced from the dining facility. You can clearly see that the dry tomatoes didn’t melt and form a nice sauce, as I hoped they would. I even pierced then with a fork and squashed them in the pan.

Frozen shrimp, caught in Thailand, sourced from the Italian PX.

I didn’t have long pasta which would have been more appropriate.

pasta di soia con bietole ripassate

August 13

A kind soul leaving gave me organic edamame spaghetti. I’m trying to cut carbs so I thought I’d give it a shot.

Frozen bietola boiled for a few minutes with some sea salt brought from home.

Tossed pasta in water.

Made a soffritto on the side with frozen garlic, some paprika and herbs de Provence. Threw in a can of Airone tuna.

Drained it well. Tossed in the bietola. Stirred well. Added fresh lemon juice, jarred olives, and jarred sun dried tomatoes.

It came out well. Basically an adapted version of this.

August 16

Parmigiana di melanzane

A classic on both sides of the pond. I got frozen eggplants at the Italian PX. Had the EVOO and frozen garlic. Got a burrata from the cafeteria and some of their cooked tomato sauce. Had some good Victoria passata (again, Italian PX) at home. Another kind soul had gifted me some oregano.

August 19

Due primi di pesce

For the first one (left) I brought home some scallops from the cafeteria’s weekly “surf and turf night” and had some lemon slices (usually for iced tea) at home. I also had some leftover skewered veggies from an event the previous night. I made a soffritto, this time with fresh garlic, added the vegetables, tossed in the scallops, added the al dente pasta and squeezed the lemon when it was done. I wasn’t really hungry so I ended up eating just the scallops and vegetables and leaving the pasta.

For this second dish (right) I recycled the lunch pasta. Made another soffritto with garlic and an local red pepper, tossed in Italian passata, some of the gifted basil, mixed in the spaghetti, added jarred green olives and capers (again, Italian PX) and a can of tuna someone left on my doorstep since they left post. Same nice person left me truffle oil (unopened!) and I topped with that. This dish was the clear winner.

A Quote from Primo Levi’s “The Truce”

From the Afterword, “The Author’s Answers to His Readers’ Questions,” If This is a Man/The Truce, Abacus 1979, trans. Ruth Feldman.

It is, therefore, necessary to be suspicious of those who seek to convince us with means other than reason, and of charismatic leaders: we must be cautious about delegating to others our judgment and our will. Since it is difficult to distinguish true prophets from false, it is as well to regard all prophets with suspicion. It is better to renounce revealed truths, even if they exalt us by their splendor or if we find them convenient because we can acquire them gratis. It is better to content oneself with other more modest and less exciting truths, those one acquires painfully, little by little and without shortcuts, with study, discussion and reasoning, those that can be verified and demonstrated. (p.397)

Leggi l’originale:

Occorre dunque essere diffidenti con chi cerca di convincerci con strumenti diversi dalla ragione, ossia con i capi carismatici: dobbiamo essere cauti nel delegare ad altri il nostro giudizio e la nostra volontà. Poiché è difficile distinguerei profeti veri dai falsi, è bene avere in sospetto tutti i profeti; è meglio rinunciare alle verità rivelate, anche se ci esaltano per la loro semplicità e il loro splendore, anche se le troviamo comode perché si acquistano gratis. È meglio accontentarsi di altre verità più modeste e meno entusiasmanti, quelle che si conquistano faticosamente, a poco a poco e senza scorciatoie, con lo studio, la discussione e il ragionamento, e che possono essere verificate e dimostrate.

dall’Appendice a Se questo è un uomo. La tregua, Einaudi, Torino 1989, p.327.

An excerpt from Octavio Paz’s “Mexico and the United States”

‘Today, the United States faces very powerful enemies, but the mortal danger comes from within: not from Moscow but from that mixture of arrogance and opportunism, blindness and short-term Machiavellianism, volubility and stubbornness which has characterized its foreign policies during recent years and which remind us in an odd way of the Athenian state in its quarrel with Sparta. To conquer its enemies, the United States must first conquer itself — return to its origins. Not to repeat them but to rectify them: the “others” — the minorities inside as well as the marginal countries and nations outside — do exist. Not only do we “others” make up the majority of the human race, but also each marginal society, poor though it may be, represents a unique and precious version of mankind. If the United States is to recover fortitude and lucidity, it must recover itself, and to recover itself it must recover the “others” — the outcasts of the Western World.’

Octavio Paz, ‘Mexico and the United States,’ first published in the New Yorker of 17 September 1979.

Leer en el idioma original:

«Hoy los Estados Unidos se enfrentan a enemigos muy poderosos pero el peligro mortal no está fuera sino dentro: no es Moscú sino esa mezcla de arrogancia y oportunismo, ceguera y maquiavelismo a corto plazo, volubilidad y terquedad, que ha caracterizado a su política exterior en los últimos años y que recuerda extrañamente a la del Estado ateniense en su disputa con Esparta. Para vencer a sus enemigos, los Estados Unidos tienen primero que vencerse a sí mismos: regresar a sus orígenes. Pero no para repetirlos sino para rectificarlos: el otro y los otros —las minorías del interior tanto como los pueblos y naciones marginales del exterior— existen. No sólo somos la mayoría de la especia sino que cada sociedad marginal, por más pobre que sea, representa una versión única y preciosa de la humanidad. Si los Estados Unidos han de recobrar la entereza y la lucidez, tienen que recobrarse a sí mismos y para recobrarse a sí mismos tienen que recobrar a los otros: a los excluidos del Occidente.»

Le elezioni

On the front pages
On the front pages

One of the many small pleasures in Italian daily life is picking up a thick edition of one of the dailies and reading through it over a strong morning coffee (or two, if one still has jet lag). Yes, such paper monsters still exist, and the thick, clotted Latinate prose and strong opinions make, as any student of the language knows, for quite different newspaper reading — frustrating at first, but with a payoff after repeated efforts. This is the third presidential election that I’ve had the luck to witness from Italy, and I’m always struck at just how much attention the foreign press pays to our elections. And why wouldn’t they? Our decisions affect many, a fact possibly lost on some of the isolationist movements coursing through democracies today. (NB: I was out with a British friend last night discussing Brexit over some pizza and beer.) So as a testament to that, witness two of the three pages of coverage that the august Corriere della Sera gave to Monday’s debate — not only the photographed two-page spread, but also a third page (not shown), plus they put it as the lead item on the front page. In the ancient times of print media, word count and page space, as well as quaint old notions like ‘above-the-fold’ (which the debate was for Corriere) and below-the-fold were bellwethers for the importance of an event — which, as if it need be said one more time, this election is.

Minute-by-minute breakdown
Minute-by-minute breakdown

For those not intimidated by the Italian journalism style, this article by Beppe Severgnini analyzing Trump’s use of the word “stamina” and Hillary’s use of “fact-checking” is a nice little linguistic diversion (print edition, bottom of p.9).

And don’t forget to vote.

 

Evergreen – On Another Dimension in Indiana

Sean McLoughlin as rendered by Caleb

Several years ago, I wrote about an Evergreen show at the 1995 St. Francis Battle of the Bands at the Grand Theater in New Albany in which drummer Britt Walford (Slint, many others) was lifted off the throne, practically still playing. I was thrilled to see that Vice’s Party Legends features an episode with Dave Pajo that re-tells that story with animation. Sandwiched between segments talking about wild and decadent L.A. parties, once again, little Louisville punches several classes above its weight. Pajo’s description of Walford also gives the episode its title — Britt was, in those days, as so many of us were, “clearly on another dimension.” Pajo’s portion starts at 11:15.

I remember the cops pulling Britt off the kit. Pajo remembers that it was band members Sean McLoughlin and Tim Ruth. His version makes a bit more sense, because I clearly remember everybody meeting up later at the “Dixie House” — the ramshackle two-bedroom house on the outskirts of Louisville where Sean lived with Richard and Joe from Wino. Had it been the cops, then Britt likely would have been in a cell. [Update: one of the “hardcore partiers in town” who was there wrote to say that he clearly remembered that it was the cops who pulled Walford off the kit. They then just stared at him, and he took off. This jibes with my recollections as well. I’m trying to imagine that happening in today’s world of police-civilian interactions.] I also remember taking some alternate route away from the Grand to the Sherman Minton Bridge. Today’s kids will take solace in the fact that they’ll have far more bridges to choose from when running from Indiana’s finest — which I hope they’ll have occasion to do.

Pajo does conflate a bit the straightedge bands and the scene. (I don’t blame him.) The band that played and that he is talking about is Metroschifter, but there were far worst offenders in onstage preaching — I can’t not mention Endpoint’s Rob Pennington and Guilt’s Duncan Barlow. But Metroschifter frontman Scott Ritcher was the one to make a couple of bids for entry into local politics, first as mayor in 1998 and then as state senator ten years later.  The animation is a good composite of the blather endemic to straightedge sub-scene at that time. Post-high school, for me, anyway, the sanctimoniousness of Minor Threat-inspired hardcore had started to wear thin. Although a lot of girls were certainly into it, its puritan ethos seemed to contradict the whole rock ‘n’ roll spirit.

Britt by Caleb

I don’t know much about animator Caleb, but he did a great job capturing details like the wild look in Sean’s eyes, Britt’s lack of facial expression and determined drumming, the pompousness of the preachy straightedge bands, and in general the vibe of a show in the middle of nowhere over two decades ago. Kudos to Caleb. The music is also well done, with strains of what sounds like live or practice versions of Evergreen’s “Klark Kent” and “Petting the Beast” running over Pajo’s re-telling.

Hat-tip to Richard for hipping me to this episode. I’m a bit out of the loop about such things.