Sundays in Brooklyn: we’d loiter in the kitchen like cats at the fish market, watching my grandfather frying meatballs at the stove, hoping to get some straight from the pan. They were destined for the sauce, but we liked them better when they were still crispy and you could hold them like an apple in […]
Primi
First courses–typically soup and pasta.
Stuffed Peppers
Italians love stuffed foods. They’re not alone, of course. The Poles, for example, are famous for stuffed cabbage. But no other cuisine takes it to the same extreme, as far as I know. Stuffed artichokes, stuffed zucchini, stuffed mushrooms, stuffed clams—and when you think about it, manicotti and cannoli are stuffed, too. There’s just something […]
Farfalle with Sausage, Tomatoes, and Cream
This dish is wonderfully simple and richly flavorful. If it has a name, I don’t know what it is, but I have seen versions of this in various places over the years. Sometimes, you can find sausage meat without the casings in the supermarket, but usually you’ll have to slice open a sausage and remove […]
Marinara
When I was a kid, we’d often visit my grandparents in Brooklyn on Sundays. Dinner was always early, and often consisted of pasta with tomato sauce, or marinara. In fact, my dad remembers being a kid—all his friends would get called in for Sunday dinner at the same time, and then come out again afterward, […]
Pesto
Basil is another item I associate with summer. In fact, my dad would plant basil in between the tomatoes in his garden. It really thrived in the humid New Jersey climate, and we had an abundance when the days got hot and lazy. Consequently, spaghetti with pesto was a frequent summer supper, often eaten in […]