Happy Pi Day!

"It's like Pi... you can keep figuring it out and always be right and never be done." -- John Currin




I highly recommend Smitten Kitchen's adaptation of Nigel Slater's apple plum pie for your celebration.

Stepford Made Simple

"I think you'll love hating this." -- Rutila

Yesterday morning, Rutila sent me this Brokelyn article with the above subject line. The piece outlines an unemployed woman's tips for being a successful stay-at-home girlfriend (with success defined solely in terms of keeping her boyfriend happy) and covers illuminating advice such as "keep the place clean," "keep yourself up," and "pamper him." And no, it's not satire.

As a modern woman who (I believe) excels at being both a badass man's world fighter and an old-school domestic goddess, I was offended by the article. The author's stated mission to keep her boyfriend happy at all costs was disturbing and her "tips" offered no practical advice for living on the cheap in NYC (which, funnily enough, is Brokelyn's mission). What bothered me most, though, was her assertion that her boyfriend should be allowed to leave his dirty laundry on the floor because he's a working man and doesn't have time to pick up after himself. I joked to Rutila that I should write my own list of tips in retaliation, but I let it drop when half of the internet beat me to the punch in criticizing the article and its author.

However, as the hours passed and my thoughts marinated, the idea seemed more and more attractive. The author of the original article may have missed the point with her list of "tips," but that doesn't prohibit me from sharing what I've learned about how to be both a workaholic and a Stepford Wife. These aren't orders or demands; they're just the time-saving things I've done to keep my home neat, and hopefully they'll be useful to someone out there. Thus, I present my personal pointers for...

How to Work 10 Hours A Day and Still Have Enough Time to Cook Dinner, Groom Yourself, and Not Leave Crap on the Floor of Your Apartment


1. Keep the place clean.


There's no need to ever throw laundry on the floor. Keep a hamper with three compartments -- one for whites, one for colors, and one for delicates -- near your usual changing area. Feel free to keep the lid open if you want to lob your clothing across the room instead of walking it to the hamper. Install a hook or keep a shelf for items that can be worn again before being laundered.

Keep side towels in the kitchen and in the bathroom. Get water, crumbs, or makeup on a surface? Wipe it up with a side towel as soon as it happens and toss it in the laundry once it gets skanky.

Stash a Swiffer sweeper in a corner and run it over your floors once every few days. I'm a long-haired woman who sheds, so this is quite necessary.

Taking off your shoes as soon as you enter your apartment keeps your floors cleaner AND ensures that all your shoes stay in one spot.

Keep a tray or dish on your desk, your coffee table, or any surface where small items usually accumulate. Let your small items accumulate in the tray instead of all over the surface.

If you don't have time to make your bed with meticulous precision each morning, invest in a thick comforter. It takes fifteen seconds to toss it over your bed and straighten it out immediately after you wake up each morning, and if your sheets are a little rumpled underneath, no one will be able to tell.


2. Cook dinner.


I can fill a hundred blog posts with cooking tips alone, so I'll stick to basics here. You'll save a ton of money and eat a lot healthier if you commit to cooking at least half of your meals. Learn how to steam, sautee, simmer, braise, toast, and roast. Learn how to make homemade stock. Learn how to handle a knife. Keep it simple and use fresh ingredients. Don't overseason.

Use fresh vegetables whenever possible, and buy them (and other perishables) as you need them to minimize waste. Since I'm in NYC and there's no shortage of supermarkets wherever I go, I usually make a couple of small trips each week instead of one big one. Get familiar with how long your perishables stay fresh, and if you buy a whole head of broccoli or a dozen eggs, make an effort to plan a few corresponding meals within their usable time frames to avoid having to throw anything away.

Make a habit of preparing a little more of each meal than you need so you have leftovers for a second meal (or lunch the next day). Keep a cabinet of food storage containers and portion out your leftovers for refrigerating or freezing.

Every time you buy bagels, bread, or rolls, put a few slices in the fridge for immediate use and freeze the rest. It'll last forever. Thaw in the fridge or toast directly from the freezer before eating.

Buy meat and fish in bulk. Before you freeze it, portion out the pieces into single servings and individually wrap them in plastic. On that note, almost any perishable item can be frozen for later use if you know you won't be able to use it fresh before it goes bad; just Google the best way of doing it.

Learn how to cook an entire meal using as few pots and pans as possible, and learn how to prep an entire meal with an 8'' chef's knife (tip for the small stuff, base for the large stuff). And make a habit of washing up while you're cooking... especially in terms of dirty dishes. When you're finished with an item, don't put it in the sink -- wash it out and reuse it, put it away, or place it in the dishwasher. There's no greater pleasure than to not have to deal with a sink full of dishes after dinner.

Wipe down your cooktop and counters after every single use. A little wipe goes a long way.

3. Keep yourself up.

Set aside some time on the weekend to iron all your clothes for the next week. This is what I do while I'm catching up on my week's worth of recorded TV shows.

Perfect a five-minute makeup routine. I cannot stress this enough.


4. Tackle bigger jobs on the weekend.


Set aside a few hours hours on Saturday or Sunday for things that can't be done during your daily routine. The trick is to multi-task by layering activities that require short bursts of energy over activities with lots of down-time. Throw your laundry in the washing machine (which shouldn't take long because, owing to your hamper, it's already presorted), then head back to your apartment and take half an hour to wash or vacuum your floors. Clean your bathroom while your clothes are in the dryer. Dust and make the bed while stuff is in the oven. Iron while your floors are drying and your freezer is defrosting.

5. Pamper your guests and cohabitants... but stay true to yourself.

Since keeping things clean and whipping up quick meals for yourself is a no-brainer at this point, feel free to extend the same courtesy to your houseguests. Only if you want to, though. Don't be a doormat; your houseguests shouldn't expect you to clean up after them and any blogger or article that says differently shouldn't be believed. It's not your job to cook or clean for anyone other than yourself (as long as kids aren't in the equation) unless you're happy and willing to do so. Keep a clear head, don't let anyone guilt you into pulling their weight for them, and compromise is key.

Three Slices

"My advice is stand firm for what you believe in, until and unless logic and experience prove you wrong... and there's no aspect, no facet, no moment in life that can't be improved with pizza. Thank you." -- Daria Morgendorffer

I spent my morning in SoHo with Rutila, and by accident, our shopping trip was perfectly timed from beginning to end. She caught her bus, I caught my train, we arrived at 10 AM when the stores were opening and the streets were blissfully empty, we arrived at Lombardi's Pizzeria when the place had just opened, and we finished for the day just when Broadway started to get crowded. In commemoration of the three delicious slices of calamata olive and spinach pizza each of us consumed, I'm writing about three slices of our day.

1. Because I'm a crazy woman when it comes to makeup, skincare, and hair products, I had enough Sephora Beauty Insider points saved up to earn a 500 Point Perk today. (You get one "point" in your bank for every dollar you spend. Yep, I have a problem.) Anyway, my perk was a little shopping bag full of Benefit Cosmetics goodies, including a sample size of BADGal Plum mascara. It's a warm purple color designed to enhance one's eye color, but since I live and die by black mascara and black liquid liner, I was naturally skeptical. Miraculously, it works -- my normally nondescript brown eyes looked wider and more striking than usual today.

2. I purchased two cotton tanks -- one black and one slate blue -- at Uniqlo. The cut and quality felt identical to the J. Crew tank I was wearing... and they cost $4.90 apiece. I'm not sure if this is an indication of Uniqlo's general amazingness or J. Crew's slipping standards.

3. As always, Rutila and I lunched at Lombardi's, the oldest pizzeria in America and purveyor of the best coal-oven pie you'll ever devour. We arrived when the shop opened and shared a dining room with a crowd of about twenty visor-wearing, fanny pack-toting tourists. This normally isn't a problem, but we soon discovered that these tourists were on a pizza tour. Meaning they were accompanied by an overeager tour guide who spent half of our meal loudly delivering a lecture on all the crap you never wanted to learn about pizza. We heard about the pizza of New York City, the history of pizza, the composition of pizza, and the importance of staying hydrated while consuming pizza. The tourists were given pizza journals to record their undoubtedly profound observations about pizza, took turns visiting the kitchen to see the coal oven where the pizzas are made, and were instructed to look at the bottom crusts of their pizzas to observe the charring patterns.

Naturally, Rutila and I guffawed into our Italian sodas the entire time. We then began to chuckle audibly when the tour guide demonstrated "the semi-fold method" of eating a triangle slice -- which, allegedly, is the only way to eat pizza like a true New Yorker.

Note that Rutila and I were using knives and forks to eat our slices... and you can't get more Noo Yawk than the pair of us.

The tour guide then confided that the semi-fold method works on a scientific level "because it changes the moment of inertia of the slice." Yep. Cue the huge, ridiculous belly-laughs which earned us at least one withering glare from the tour guide.

And in an example of why the universe sucks, the pizzeria's top review on Yelp is written by some out-of-towner who calls herself a NY pizza expert after taking the same tour we overheard today! Hence the reason why Lombardi's mediocre website, not Yelp, is linked in this post. Too much asshattery for my taste.

Epica Insuccessa

"Say it's over. Say I'm dreaming. Say I'm better that you left me. Say you're sorry -- I can take it. Say you will, say you won't. Say you love me, say you don't. I can make my own mistakes. Learn to let it bend before it breaks." -- Brandi Carlile

I don't usually follow recipes when I cook. I learned how to cook from my grandmother, which means that I work in the kitchen the same way she did -- measuring in terms of pinches and handfuls, feeling out the consistencies, tasting things along the way, applying heat until the food looks right. Even when baking, I use ratios and basic chemistry concepts more often than I use cookbooks.

That doesn't stop me from owning many cookbooks, reading tons of food blogs, and subscribing to half a dozen cooking magazines. One of them, La Cucina Italiana, has long been a favorite because it's as much of a resource about Italy as it is about Italian cooking. It teaches you where to stay and what to see in the country, discusses tools and techniques, and breaks down all of its food writing by region. (This is especially useful due to the insane degree of cultural variation across Italy; my Parmense grandfather and my Abruzzese grandfather might as well be from different planets.) Today, I spent my Saturday at home as a consequence of the snowstorm that never happened, which gave me an excuse to go through a year's worth of La Cucina Italiana back-issues to tear out the recipes worth keeping.

One recipe, for a sticky, delicious-looking chocolate espresso layer cake, haunted me all day, and since I had all of the required ingredients on hand, nothing could stop me from making it. The recipe was surprisingly simple -- it was a foam-based cake, made using whipped eggs and only enough butter to grease the pan -- and came together in no time at all.

I poured the batter into several miniature cake pans, whipped up the recipe's chocolate and coffee liqueur frosting while my cake was in the oven, and waited expectantly. After half an hour, I pulled my cake out of the oven. It had basically exploded -- the batter was everywhere except my miniature cake tins, and I was thankful that I had the foresight to place the tins in a roasting pan before baking. I soldiered on, though -- hacked the cake out of the pan and glazed it anyway.

So it looked gross. But that doesn't matter if it tastes good, right?

Well, it didn't. It was so disgusting that I ate a few forkfuls and threw away the rest of the cake.

I then went online to check out what people were saying about the recipe. (I figured half a dozen horrible reviews would make me feel better about my culinary misfire.) Well, it turns out that the reviews on the La Cucina Italiana website were... pretty good. Very good, actually. The cake was downright praised.

I scrolled up to look at the recipe on the website. It called for six tablespoons of softened butter. I then grabbed my torn-out recipe off the kitchen counter. It called for no butter. The recipe on the website gave very specific instructions about how to incorporate all that butter into the batter. There weren't any references to butter in the text of my recipe.

Now I have a garbage can full of disgusting cake and a folder full of recipes that I will never, ever use... on principle alone. I'll read through them tomorrow morning and jot down any meal ideas that they inspire. Then they can join the damned cake in the trash.

Festa Dei Pesci

"Take some macaroni home!"

"No, I can't! I made macaroni three times this week!"
"I understand. [Pause.] Take some macaroni home!"-- two of my aunts

I'm Italian-American, so Christmas Eve in my family means a crazy, raucous, seafood-based meal with a couple dozen relatives and entirely too much food. Entirely too much amazing, incredible food so delicious that I had three helpings of it.

We started off with antipasto -- provolone and parmigiana, cured meats, dried sausages, bread with chunks of prosciutto baked in, and a variety of pickled vegetables.

Next came the macaroni course, and we offered three different varieties: linguine in a red fish sauce, rigatoni marinara, and penne a la vodka. Shrimp, fried calimari, and potato croquettes were available as hot appetizers.

The centerpiece of the meal -- zuppa di pesce -- followed. Though the name of this dish translates to "soup of fish," it's actually far more complicated and rich than the name suggests. Ours featured mussels, clams, scallops, lobster tails, crab legs, cod, squid, shrimp, and scungilli stewed in a zesty tomato sauce.

If anyone was still hungry after that, we also had some escarole and beans and veal valdestano (cutlets topped with prosciutto, mozzarella, mushrooms, and roasted red peppers). We then finished off the meal with a cold seafood salad.

I didn't photograph the dessert spread because I was too full and happy to pick up my camera by that point.

Ironically enough, the inspiration for our meal -- the traditional Feast of the Seven Fishes -- came into existence during the Middle Ages as an exercise in abstinence from meat and culinary moderation. Ha!

A Lesser Babka

"What are we going to do now?! If we can't get the babka the whole thing's useless!" -- Jerry Seinfeld

I had dessert in my favorite bakery this evening, and after I settled my bill, I decided to buy some pastry for the road. I waited in line with the intention of purchasing a particularly delicious-looking chocolate babka I had been eyeing in the window all evening. Then, when I approached the counter, a woman appeared out of nowhere, cut in front of me on line, and ordered my babka. She left, I repeated her order, and, as luck would have it, she had nabbed the last one right out from under me. With no babka alternatives, I left empty-handed.

As someone who can quote whole episodes of Seinfeld from memory, this was one of the most thrilling things that has happened to me in a long time.

Bigger is Better

"At last, I think I know. The past is where we keep what might have been, but it's best to let it go because we'll never be December boys again." -- Peter Cincotti

I'm fastidious about food and choose freshly prepared dishes filled with quality ingredients whenever possible. That is, until it's time for dessert. Marshmallow Peeps, the infamous "mystery pastry" my hospital serves during Grand Rounds, anything made by Hostess -- it's all fair game. Oddly enough, I grew up with diabetics on one side of the family and pastry chefs on the other side; if I ate dessert at all as a kid, it was prepared by a master. I wasn't corrupted until I started high school and met The Big Cookie.

The Big Cookie was a lunchtime legend: six inches in diameter, loaded with chocolate chips, burnt around the edges, raw in the middle, and so buttery that the grease would soak through the wax paper wrapping. I delightfully consumed one of these monsters every other day or so for four years and would practically start experiencing withdrawal symptoms during long vacations and summer holidays. Even after I graduated, I'd make pilgrimages from college every few months to pick up a Big Cookie or two.

Then, about three years ago, my high school switched cafeteria companies and The Big Cookie went the way of the dodo. Students protested and alumni ranted, but nothing could be done. Every once in a while, the administration heralds the return of The Big Cookie and we all rush back to campus... but they always hand us a small, crisp, dry, inferior cookie and pretend like they can't see the difference.

My college's chocolate chip cookies were a decent enough substitute, but since I graduated, I've been on a mission to find a beautiful, perfect, crave-satisfying chocolate chip cookie recipe. This week, I gave my quest another shot using a modified version of a recipe I found online.

Trouble was, my culinary experimentation coincided with a telecast of Dancing with the Stars. Thus, Gilles Marini sensuously dipped his partner and I boiled my butter instead of melting it. I added it to a bowl with sugar and vanilla anyway and started mixing the ingredients. Then Dmitry Chaplin sashayed around the dance floor with half a shirt on and I let the mixer run for five minutes. When I came to my senses and checked the bowl, I had a thick, viscous, caramel-colored goo instead of creamed butter and sugar

I had inadvertently created butter toffee. And because I wanted chocolate chip cookies more than I wanted toffee, I continued with the recipe (with the addition of some chopped almonds to enhance the toffee flavor). I ended up with something unbelievable: a rich, complex chocolate chip cookie that's soft when eaten hot and brittle when eaten cold. It's not The Big Cookie by a long shot, but it's a keeper.

[Insert yet-to-be-chosen recipe name here]

1/4 cup + 2 tbsp salted butter
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 tbsp vanilla
1 egg
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup crushed almonds, pecans, or walnuts (if desired)

Mix sugars and vanilla in a large bowl. Melt butter in the microwave or in a small saucepan until it begins to bubble, then add it directly to the sugar mixture and mix for five minutes. The mixture should be thick, viscous, and similar to caramel in color and consistency. Add egg, then add flour, baking soda, and salt, mixing after each until fully incorporated. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts, and if you have some time to kill, refrigerate the dough for a few hours before baking.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Drop spoonfuls of dough onto a greased or lined cookie sheet. (They will spread out in the oven, so make sure to leave 2-3 inches of space between spoonfuls.) Bake for 18-20 minutes or until edges are browned. Yields ten big cookies, twenty medium-sized cookies, or a ton of small cookies.

You Bet

"I thought I knew, but now I know that rose trees never grow in New York City." --Elton John

Costco sells Fox's U-Bet in gallon jugs. I nearly bought one last week and thought better of it, but I've been craving a chocolate egg cream ever since.

I don't know if it's a result of my Queens upbringing, my family's bakery roots, or my "world revolves around New York City" outlook on life, but it flat-out never occurred to me that anyone could ever find those two sentences incomprehensible. My universe tilted on its edge when I uttered them at work yesterday and, instead of the sympathy I craved, they garnered these two responses:

1. Egg cream? Easter is coming up...
2. What about foxes?

It took me a few minutes of stilted explanations to realize that my colleagues didn't know what an egg cream was and didn't recognize the brand name of the key ingredient. "Maybe it's a local thing?" suggested one of my compatriots, so I did a little research, learned that both originated in Brooklyn, and was satisfied with that explanation.

Later that night, I marveled to a few fellow native New Yorkers that my coworkers had never heard of egg creams or Fox's U-Bet. I was met with total confusion once again, and this time, the universe imploded outright. What did these people drink after school as kids? Did no one else's father scour every kitchen supply store in the tri-state area looking for pressurized seltzer bottles? Was I the only person not allowed to consume Hershey's syrup during my formative years? How can you go through two-odd decades of life without having the "milk first or syrup first" argument?

Thus, I'm writing this as a public service. Read, my poor deprived friends, and learn. [Clears throat so Brooklyn accent becomes more pronounced.]


An egg cream does not contain eggs, nor does it contain cream. It is a delicious frothy drink that originated a century and change ago in the fountain soda shops of Brooklyn, New York. You can make your own in five easy steps:

1. Find a tall glass and stick it in the fridge for a few minutes to chill it.
2. Pour an inch of chocolate syrup into the bottom of the glass.
3. Pour an inch of cold milk into the glass.
4. Fill the rest of the glass with cold, fresh seltzer water, preferably from a pressurized bottle.
5. Stir it up and enjoy.

You can use any old chocolate syrup in a pinch, but a real, authentic, honest-to-God egg cream must use Fox's U-Bet chocolate syrup. U-Bet, like the egg cream itself, was born in Brooklyn and its parent company still operates out of Brownsville. I grew up on this stuff, and we always made sure that at least one yellow-labeled jar -- it was only available in jars back then -- was stashed in the back of the fridge. Hershey's, Nestle, and even Bosco syrups were (and are) never purchased as long as U-Bet was (and is) available, since, owing to its inclusion of real cocoa, cane sugar, and powdered milk, the flavor is distinct from anything else on the market. I can taste the difference between U-Bet and any other syrup brand with little effort.

If you have the ingredients on hand, make an egg cream for yourself and see what I'm talking about. If you don't, let me know and I'll treat you to one, preferably in an outer borough dive diner where the seltzer man still delivers pressurized glass bottles every morning. You'll never feel more in touch with traditional New York City, I promise.

Pizzelles

I put a curse on that plane. My sister is on that plane. I put a curse on that plane that it's gonna explode, burn on fire and fall into the sea. Fifty years ago, she stole a man from me. S'aprice l'uomo! Today she tells me that she never loved him, that she took him to be strong on me. Now she's going back to Sicily. Di returne Sicilia! I cursed her that the green Atlantic water should swallow her up! -- from Moonstruck



I love gifting baked goods because food makes me happy and I can't think of a better present for someone I love than using my time, my talents, and a few good ingredients to share that happiness. My culinary gift of choice during the holiday season is a package of pizzelles, a type of holiday cookie that, like me, originated in the Italian region of Abruzzi. The English translation of the word pizzelle is literally "flat, round, and small," which is a perfect physical description of the cookie. They're light, they're buttery, they're beautiful to look at, and because they're made two at a time using a special iron press, they represent a pretty significant time commitment. It takes a full afternoon or evening to make enough pizzelles to feed a decent number of people -- my normal recipe makes about eighty, I usually double it or triple it for Christmas, and each pizzelle needs to be spooned onto the iron individually and cooked for about a minute.




Thus, good company is mandatory on pizzelle day. I would sit with my grandmother as she made pizzelles every year until I was twelve, then she passed along her recipe to me and, until her death a year and a half ago, she sat with me whenever I decided to make them. She'd tell stories about the good ol' days, pass along tips for perfect pizzelle technique, describe evenings spent sitting with her own mother making pizzelles and having the same sorts of conversations. Last year was my first holiday season without her, but dwong and my cousin TD came over a few days before Christmas to keep me company as I worked the pizzelle iron. This year, I made them on a whim late on a Thursday night, so with no one around to share the experience, I created my own companions by watching Moonstruck on DVD as I baked.



Like my technique, I inherited my pizzelle iron from my grandmother. It's an electric iron, close to forty years old, and it makes pizzelles with a snowflake pattern on one side and a woven pattern on the other. We have a few earlier models around (which require the baker to stand over an open flame flipping cast-iron plates for Lord knows how long) and a few more modern models around (which are slimmer and lighter and don't run the risk of burns or electrocution), but I still end up using the same ancient electric iron every year. The pizzelle iron itself actually strengthens the cookie's ties to love and family -- irons are meticulously cared for and passed down for generations, and those open-fire irons I mentioned earlier were often custom-wrought to imprint the family crest onto every cookie.


Since those elaborate irons have fallen out of use, people must often rely on taste to identify a pizzelle's family of origin. And you wouldn't believe it, but every baker makes pizzelles so differently that this is more than enough of a cue. My recipe -- which also belonged to my grandmother before me -- makes crisp and lemony pizzelles. My aunt's pizzelles are paper-thin with a touch of orange zest, one paisano makes them softer with anisette, another uses almond extract, another aunt works cocoa powder into her batter. I think my recipe blows all of them out of the water -- and most people who try it seem to agree with me -- but, unfortunately, I won't be sharing it with you today. Typing out a recipe and posting it on the internet seems to defy the spirit of la famiglia needed to successfully make pizzelles -- and believe me, that's half the wonder of it all. If you come to visit me, though, I'll make you a cappuccino, pull up a chair, tell you a few stories about the good ol' days, and happily show you how it's done.

Crabby

(Image courtesy of http://kottke.org/)

"I'd freak out if I saw one of these on my trash can." -- Q

"If I saw one of these on my trash can, it can have it!" -- dwong

"If I saw one of these on my trash can, I'd knock it out with a shovel, cook it in butter and white wine, and invite both of you over for dinner.” -- me

"If I saw one of these on my trash can, I'd load it onto a giant slingshot and catapult it into the ocean." -- Meet

"Just kidding. I'd do what Ash did (and way to NOT invite me to your crab dinner, miss).” -- Meet

This all occurred on Google Reader in the middle of our workday. After a bout of laughter so intense that I began to cry (and had to excuse myself from clinic to wash the rivulets of runny eyeliner off my face), I did some research on our garbage-diving friend. It's called a coconut crab, it's the largest known land-dwelling arthropod, and because it dines on coconut flesh, it allegedly tastes like coconut. Sounds delicious, but since it's on the verge of being considered an endangered species, we'll have to hold off on that crab dinner for now.

Home for the Holidays

"New York is lovely in the wintertime, when the sidewalks are white as snow. The buildings, all the people that pass me by, how the smile on his face says he's in love." -- Rosie Thomas

It's a gorgeous weekend in New York City; the streets have always felt different to me during the holiday season, and though it's not even December yet, the anticipation and joy have already spread throughout my beautiful metropolis.

Of course, since I have a sniffle that I'd rather not see bloom into a full-fledged cold (which may be a lost cause since I couldn't breathe in my sleep and have consequently been awake since 5:30AM), I spent this entire lovely weekend indoors in flannel pajamas. Three marginally exciting things happened, though:

"Transformer man, transformer man. Sooner or later you'll have to learn the cause and effect." -- Neil Young

1. I cleaned my grandfather's apartment and, while moving a little side-table, realized that it was far heavier than it should have been. A little investigation led me to find a hidden latch, and a little more investigation caused the entire table to fold open, revealing a 1960s-era Sears Roebuck sewing machine in beautiful condition. It looks like I have a little restoration work in my future.

I also found some Sculpey polymer clay that I forgot I had, which solved the button conundrum from my second-to-last post. I made some buttons last night, then I made a scarf to match them.

"Even that's polite -- the worst pies in London! If you doubt it, take a bite... is that just disgusting? You have to concede it! It's nothing but crusting. Here, drink this; you'll need it." -- Stephen Sondheim

2. I baked a ton of Thanksgiving leftovers -- potatoes, cauliflower, asparagus, two cups of shredded turkey, and some leftover dough -- into a pot pie today, and believe it or not, it didn't turn out half-bad. Maybe I'll work on the recipe and post it one of these days.

"But I've got to stop crying! I'm not going to waste the rest of my life dreaming of a man I can never have!" -- from The Thorn Birds

3. I don't have to look at my hands when I crochet, which is fortunate since I'm a multi-tasker who can't stand to only do one thing at once. This weekend, my crocheting accomplice was The Thorn Birds, a miniseries from 1983 that spans fifty years and details a doomed love affair between a woman and the priest left in charge of her family's estate. He fights an internal war over whether he can ever love God as much as he loves her, she rails against life because she knows he is too ambitious to ever give up the Church for her, and all of it makes for ten hours of insanely good television. (It also made for controversial television in its day, mainly for the scene when he flies halfway around the world, finds her on a deserted beach, throws her down in the sand, and breaks his vow of chastity... repeatedly.) I watch the whole miniseries at least once a year, and as I'm usually a year older and wiser with each successive viewing, it always seems to inspire me in new ways. This year's viewing made me want to sit down and write an epic and meaningful story. Let's hope the impetus is still there when I finally find direction for my tale.

Snickers and Doubt

"For all these years you've been with me, I tilt my chin and all I see is only you. Not feet or knees. You grumble and I stumble towards the muenster cheese." -- from The Full Monty

Last week, I met a pair of old friends at Ovelia, a new Astoria eatery that serves top-notch modern Greek cuisine (and offers an absolutely killer brunch special). After eating our way through lamb and fig kebabs, filet of black sole, lemon potatoes, and stewed calimari with orzo, it was surprising that we found room for dessert. After several glasses of sangria, it wasn't surprising that we decided to be adventurous with our dessert order.

First, we ordered loukomades -- lighter-than-air fluffs of dough drenched in honey and cinnamon. Fair enough. Then (and I still can't quite believe we did it), we ordered the dessert special. Said dessert special turned out to be a deep-fried Snickers bar. Yes, you read that correctly. Our chef took a Snickers bar, unwrapped it, dipped it in zeppoli batter, threw it in a vat of boiling oil, sprinkled powdered sugar on it, and served it to us.

And naturally (or perhaps "unnaturally" would be a better word choice here), I expected this confection to be downright disgusting. I could almost feel my arteries constrict as one of my compatriots sawed it into three pieces and plopped one end in front of me. After a moment's hesitation, I speared it on my fork, took a cautious bite... and was pleasantly surprised.

You see, when you deep-fry a Snickers bar, it melts. I thought I was in for a chewy, doughy, oil-and-sugar-drenched mouthful, but I was wrong. The dessert better resembled a churro that happened to be filled with chocolate-y, nougat-y, nutty cream, and I actually enjoyed it.

I can't say I'll ever build up the courage to subject my body to any more deep-fried candy in the near future, but the experience was a lot less scarring than I thought it would be.

Gravy

"When the stars make you drool just like pasta e fagiole, that's amore." -- Dean Martin

There's nothing in the world quite like a good homemade tomato sauce -- a delicacy which I was raised to call "gravy." The texture, the taste, the catharsis of chopping and peeling and stirring the ingredients, and the way it makes your house smell on a Sunday morning all defy description. And since I feel like everyone should be able to make a decent tomato sauce from scratch and feel the joy of it for themselves, I'm going to share my family's recipe with all of you.

Unlike many of the recipes I post here, this one will be delivered in paragraph form. I can't supply exact quantities of ingredients or give you an abbreviated description of the motions because I don't cook my gravy that way. A few posts ago, I described the essence of Italian cooking as simple and classic with clean flavors and a focus on seasonal items, but in retrospect, that isn't a complete definition. Italian cooking also involves community -- the random cousins and neighbors who bring you figs, cucuzza, and fresh bread for no reason, the army of paisanos in the kitchen helping you to prepare the ingredients, the second army who shows up for dinner, the third army who shows up for dessert. Every meal is a conversation from start to finish, so a conversation is how I'll teach you to prepare one.

First, you find yourself a gravy pot. I like to use an insanely heavy, three-gallon, yellow enamel pot I inherited from my great-grandmother, but anything big will do just fine. (I'm investing in one of these once the yellow one finally wears out.) Next, you choose your tomatoes. I think plum tomatoes make pretty excellent gravy, but it's up to you. In any case, estimate how many you'll need by filling your pot with whole tomatoes.

When you get all those tomatoes home, wash them and cut a big X into the smooth end of each one. Fill your pot with water and turn the burner on high. Fill a big bowl with ice water and set it next to the stove. When your water is boiling raucously, drop in your tomatoes a few at a time. After about a minute -- when the skin has started to peel near the Xs -- scoop them out of the boiling water and plunge them into the ice water. You can remove them and set them aside once they're cool to the touch. Once all of your tomatoes have been boiled and shocked, dump out and dry your pot and your bowl so you can reuse both. Peel all the tomatoes, remove and discard all the seeds and stems, and break up the flesh into some semblance of a puree (either by mashing or food-processing). Place the puree back into the big bowl and set aside.

I've done this much a grand total of once in my life. Nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a thousand, I buy two boxes of Pomi strained tomatoes (or one big can of San Marzano crushed tomatoes) and use that instead of pureed fresh tomatoes. It's the exact same thing, only Pomi does the hard work for us.

The rest of the instructions assume that you're using about six cups of pureed tomatoes for your gravy, so scale as needed. Mince one medium white onion and sautee it in a generous amount of olive oil over medium heat in the big pot until the pieces start becoming translucent. Add five minced cloves of garlic and continue sauteeing until everything starts to brown. I like to add a little bit of minced pancetta, prosciutto, or anchovy here for flavor, but you can omit that. Once everything is nicely browned, deglaze with a cup of marsala wine or dry sherry. Let some of the alcohol boil off and add your tomatoes. Stir in six or seven torn-up fresh basil leaves, two pinches of oregano, and a pinch of black pepper, then lower the heat a little and cover. Cook for at least two hours, stirring every ten minutes or so. As it cooks, the gravy will darken and thicken. This recipe yields enough gravy for a pound of the pasta of your choice (plus a little extra), and if you're not planning on feeding an army, it freezes exceptionally well.

This makes a lovely plain marinara sauce, but, of course, you can transform it by adding meats or vegetables to the pot along with the garlic. Add diced red pepper and a little bit of cayenne for a romesco sauce, tuna or crab meat and a little chili powder (with parsley swapped for the basil) for seafood gravy, mushrooms or eggplant or spinach for a vegetable gravy (or all three for a modified puttanesca sauce), or, of course, crumbled-up sausage, chopmeat, or meatballs for traditional meat gravy. You'll want to cook your vegetables until they're soft and cook your meat until it's browned before deglazing.

It may seem like a lot, but it becomes second-nature after a while. And really, jarred sauce can't compare.

Caprese-ious

"Once upon a time I had plenty of nothing, which was fine with me because I had rhythm, music, love, the sun, the stars, and the moon above. Then time went by and now I've got plenty of plenty, which is fine with me because I've still got love and still got rhythm, but look at what I've got to go with 'em!" -- Stephen Sondheim

Every Sunday morning in the late summer, I go out to the backyard to pick tomatoes and basil for the day's meal. I can't use our tomatoes for the gravy -- our plants thrive in joint-compound buckets and don't yield nearly enough fruit for that -- but they're sweet, fleshy, and seedless enough to make excellent caprese salad.

Caprese salad is probably the easiest Italian mainstay imaginable. Slice two tomatoes, arrange the slices prettily on a plate, top with a handful of torn-up fresh basil leaves, slices of mozzarella, and a drizzle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and serve. It's simple yet classic, the flavors are clean, and it showcases seasonal items to perfection -- all of which, in my book, illustrate the very essence of proper Italian cooking. And maybe I'm biased, but I prefer caprese salad the way I make it, in its purest form, using tomatoes and basil I grow myself, fresh mozzarella from Rosario's, and olive oil personally pressed by a cousin in Abruzzi.

Unfortunately, my family's balsamic vinegar tastes fell to the mercy of Costco Syndrome: someone bought a million-gallon jug of it somewhere along the line and we lived off of it for far too many years. Then, when I was finally old enough to recognize the syrupy beauty of a good balsamic, I became a poor college student and was forced to live off of economy brands once again. Thus, I became an expert at preparing reductions -- even the nastiest balsamic becomes palatable if you boil it down enough.

This morning, I prepared my caprese salad with a recent acquisition: fig-infused balsamic vinegar from Oliviers & Co. It's thick, it's syrupy, it's sweet, it's complex, and an eight-ounce bottle of it cost me a quarter of a day's salary. It's far removed from the simplicity of my other ingredients, but it produced the best caprese salad I've ever experienced in my life. It felt incredibly strange pairing such a precious, extravagant ingredient with things I nurtured from seedlings, but it'll be a long time before I resort to reductions again.