What? There’s a turkey?

A week till it’s that time of year again….the big Italian Tangza-giva, a.k.a. Lasagna Day; the day when the Italians eat lasagna and melanzane alla parmigiana till there’s no room left for the obligatory bird.  And the table is covered in a red & white checkered table cloth, while la tarantella plays in the background. É su.

Um…. it wasn’t exactly like that in my family-we definitely had lasagna as a starter some years, and usually are too full before la tacchina arrives, but when I think of the holiday I think of two things: tortellini soup and stuffed olives.

The olives as an antipasto are just….freaking perfect. A perfect food. Why? You eat ’em with your hands & every food group is represented, sort of. I recently attempted to make them for a dinner party (they were kinda weak, but it was my first try) and a friend described them perfectly, as only an actor could: “these are…epic”, he said. That’s exactly what they are. Epic. I could easily pop 16 of them in one sitting, and plan to as long as I have a mouth.

The olives are huge, stuffed with three kinds of meat plus parmigiano & herbs, breaded and then fried. I know, try not to cacy. Here’s the thing: they are a PAIN IN THE CULIE to make. So start two days before. Here’s the recipe:

                                                                                                Stuffed Olives

Ingredients for about 80 olives:

Medium sized plain Green olives in brine with pit

1/2 lb each of Beef, pork & chicken: No bones, nothing ground, nothing lean.

1/2 cup good reggiano parmesan, grated

2 eggs

1 garlic clove, whole

1 carrot

1 celery stalk

1 onion

1/2 red bell pepper

handful of chopped thyme

handful of finely chopped parsley

pinch of nutmeg

couple splashs of dry white wine

salt & pepper

couple more eggs for breading process

plain bread crumbs (unseasoned)

all purpose flour

olive oil

peanut oil

a day and a half-2 days before frying: soak olives in a bath of lukewarm water with a couple tbsps of salt, to draw out some of the salt. Change water every few hours.

day before: Stuffing

(all ingredients will be put through food processor, so don’t need to chop so evenly)

lightly brown the meats whole in a pan with a little salt, in olive oil & garlic. Then remove, set aside.

Add chopped onion, pepper, carrot, celery, bay leaf, thyme, nutmeg, a little salt & pepper to pan. When softened, cut meat into chunks and add. Add white wine and turn heat low. When evaporated, transfer mixture to food processsor. Grind till all combined, not to a mushy paste, but pretty fine.

transfer mixture to a big bowl. Add eggs, parmesan, finely chopped parsley. Mix together with hands. cover with cellophane and refrigerate.

Day of cooking, leave bowl out of fridge to bring back to room temp. Then strain olives. Begin tedious but theraputic ritual of corkscrew-cutting each olive & removing pit.  With a very small but sharp knife, begin at top of olive and turn olive with fingers while moving knife in a gentle downward spiral, which will echo the state of your mind as you approach olive number 70 and carpal tunnel rears its ugly head. Then you will ask: “why, God, why?” Because they are delicious and your tummy needs them. “Che te puzza raia…why not use pitted frigging olives? This is bananas!” First of all, don’t say bananas. Second of all, because all the good olive meat and flavor is washed out of them. No one said this would be easy. Don’t give up, little chicken. Take a break, crack your knuckles and screw on.

When olives are corkscrewed, give yourself some love, in an appropriate & kitchen sanitary way. Then with fingers, stuff mixture in olives, generously, as much as can fit without too much spillage. Olives won’t close, you should see stuffing on surface of olive.

Start big pan on low heat with an inch of peanut oil. Roll olives in flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs. When all crumbed up and pan is hot enough, start to fry. Use tongs. DONT CROWD THE PAN, or they won’t brown. When golden brown on one side, turn over. Transfer with tongs to large platter lined wth paper towel. when all done, put paper towel on top to absorbe excess oil. Serve warm not hot, in bowl with lemon wedges. Eat ALL IN ONE MOUTHFUL, for heaven’s sake.  None of that 2 bite merda.

Tortellini in brodo as a starter was & is just the perfect thing to prepare a tummy for action, once you’ve sat down at the table. The meaty little bundles are satisfying but the soup is soothing. My mom makes the tortellini from scratch. Yeah….not gonna try and explain that in writing. I’m sure you can find some instructional video on how to do that…maybe Lidia Bastianich has an episode on it. If you’re gonna go for it, bravo. They are truly better when hand made. They are meat tortellini, & the stuffing is basically the same as the olive stuffing, but then my mom makes the dough and uses the pasta contraption on her kitchenaid (she used to use that old silver hand-cranked machine but she’s rolling with the times now:)) to roll out big strips. Anyway, I’m gonna start assuming the tortellini are made, cause I’m shtupt and don’t know how to make videos & put them up on my blog. You can buy fresh meat tortellini at a whole foods type place. My mom uses the brand Stella, which she says is “ok” when she’s not making it by hand. 

                                                                                             Tortellini in Brodo

Use home made chicken stock if possible, makes ALL the difference. (It’s easy I just braise a bunch of chicken on the bone in a big pot with olive oil and when both sides are browned I add lots of water and let it boil. When the chicken is cooked I remove it and take the bones out and put all bones back in the pot, using the chicken meat for other cooking, then I add whole celery, carrot ,big onion chunks, bay leaf &  let sit in there with the chicken bones & essence on low heat for like, ever, depending on how condensed you want it.  Then I remove the veggies, freeze it in batches and use for a month. You could even reduce it down to almost a paste form and pour into ice cube trays to freeze, then reconstitute in water). Whatever you do, it’s better than the Swanson broth, even though the commercial makes it look like the lady impresses her mother in law so much, but who’s the bitch kidding?

Ingredients: Big bunch of escarole, garlic, onion, plum tomatoes, olive oil, salt & pepper, Parmesan, tortellini.

start pot of broth on high heat with enough salt to flavor the broth to your pref. & a little olive oil.

saute in a pan with olive oil & garlic: chopped onion, chopped plum tomatoes a little salt. Add escarole, a little salt, cover and lower heat. Cook till softened. Turn off heat & leave in pan.

When broth is boiling, add tortellini. Cook for only a flash-if they’re fresh they’re basically cooked already, & if they get mushy it’s all over.

serve in shallow bowls with a blop of greens on top & lots of parmesan.

Ok, I was a lot lazier about explaining this recipe, but it’s just so simple. 

I really do love Thanksgiving, especially since it gets me all psyched for Christmas, the time of year when I become 7 years old all over again, repeatedly. I’m serious. This is very fun for my husband.

When you grow up a girl in an Italian family with one sibling who is also a girl, you wind up in a household with an Italian dad who has two daughters. Daughters are girls. Girls have everything done for them and are spoiled. I suppose I shouldn’t generalize. I’m sure there are Italian dads who say to their daughters “get up and get a job” or “you can fix it yourself”, but they are not traditional. This means that every Christmas, even though I am a grown woman and too old for this merda, I think about all the things I want santa to bring me.

My sister and I weren’t spoiled rotten, we didn’t get everything we always wanted, (one year I wanted a doll house in the worst way, with doors and cabinets that opened and a little family in there, and I got Sylvanian Families, which is a doll house of sorts, but with animal families instead of people. Little bunnies or bears. I was bummed. POOR ME.) but we were definitely indulged.

So, naturally, as much as i love to shop for & give gifts (i really do) I also am plagued by the things i WANT. Just call me Veruca Saltini.

booties

girly dress with…

sexy cropped leather jacket

these oxfords...

and these

and these booties

and this skirt

What? I know there is oppression and starvation and treachery in the world way more important than my childish greed; it’s not that I feel i deserve all this stuff (and stuff I’ve not mentioned here). But I can fantasize, right? I mean, who reads this blog, anyway, Santa?

No, I’m serious. Santa? Do you?…

attire from Anthropologie website, Nanette lepore, Marc Jacobs.

Not to begin with a cliche’, but it really is a small, small world. Der.

Just when I thought I couldn’t be farther away from my roots, from my heritage, it appears right next door. I live just down the street from the Aero Theatre, part of the American Cinematheque. It’s another one of those things I love most about living in LA. Any given week you pass the theatre and see “early 70’s slasher film festival!” or “Gone with the Wind night!” You pay a mere 10 bucks, cheap by today’s movie ticket standards, and get to watch classics on the big screen. And that’s all they play there. Awesome.

Last week I drove by and saw “Italian film festival”. I nearly cacied in my pants. I went online to see what they were showing that night, and it was two films, The Sicilian Girl (La Siciliana Ribelle) a film by dir. Marco Amenti, and Focaccia Blues, a film by Nico Cirasola, which was about the failure of a McDonalds in my dad’s town of Altamura, in the Apulia region. I couldn’t believe it. Altamura is not an oft-spoken about town, except that they are famous for their bread. But not a lot of Americans, at least, know about it. Now I HAD to go.The film, it turned out, was a virtual love letter to Altamura. It began with a shot of la campagna, the countryside, and its walls of stone. I started to cwy a wittwe. But the film as a whole had such a wonderful message. A true story shot partially in documentary style, it was all about the small mom & pop shop and good, honest food cooked with love, winning over the big business of fast food merda. The McDonalds in Altamura failed because it was in competition with a focaccia bakery referred to by locals as de Gesu, where locals have gone for quick lunches during their workdays for years. The focaccia is hand made and delicious. The film includes interviews with locals and some very funny moments when very old locals are asked about McDonalds and have no idea what it is. What a lovely place .

Viva la Focaccia!

My dad, incidentally, knew very well of de Gesu, but had heard nothing of the opening and eventual closing of the McDonalds. No one cared. They had no need for a McDonalds, when they had easy access to the best lunch they could imagine. Fresh focaccia, warm from the coal oven.  My aunt Theresa makes amazing focaccia. My mom stole her recipe, and now makes it great too. I’m about to give you the recipe. It’s sacred, so have respect . It also takes a lot of time, so put on some Nicola di Bari*, and do it peacefully, with love:

                                                          La Focaccia di Theresa & Francesca

Ingredients: 

 4 cups Durum wheat four (basically semolina, but finely ground)

1 1/3 cups all purpose flour

1 pkg dry yeast

3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

1 tsp sugar

2 tbsp salt

2 1/4 t0 3 cups of lukewarm water

1 garlic clove, pressed

1 tbsp oregano

handful of dried black olives (the wrinkly kind)

handful of cherry tomatoes

bottle of olive oil (amts shown later)

10 inch by 15 inch by 1 1/2 inch pan

in small bowl, mix yeast with 1/2 cup luke warm water & sugar. Let it stand 5 mins, till foams.

in big mixing bowl, mix both kinds of flour, 1 tbsp olive oil, butter & salt with whisk.

Then pour in remaining water, mix, then add yeast and mix with hands and knead for 5 mins, adding a bit more reg. flour to prevent stickiness.

put in clean mixing bowl, spray a tiny bit of Pam on top (so crust doesn’t form). Cover with

kitchen towel in warm area (my mom puts it next to heated stove) till doubles up in volume, for

1 to 2 hours. In meantime, In a bowl, pour 1/2 cup olive oil, cherry tomatoes split with your

hands, garlic, pinch of salt & oregano and toss. Let sit while dough rises.

When risen, pour 5 tbsp olive oil in bottom of baking pan . Stretch & fit dough with knuckles

into pan.  Pick out cherry tomatoes from mixture and push them into dough,

about 1/2 inch in. Pour olive oil mixture over dough, spreading around with hands. Add olives,

pushing in 1/2 inch.  (Theres a lot of oil on top & bottom, but that’s what makes it good. Don’t be

afraid, little chicken). Cover with aluminum foil and let sit in warm place till rises AGAIN, for

another hour (told you it took long). Heat oven 450-475 during this time so its ready for you

when the hour is over.

Once it has risen again (amen), remove foil and place in middle rack of oven, for 20-25 mins.

Take out of oven and sit it on top of stove while you grab large brown paper shopping bag and,

resting it on its wide side side line the bottom with paper towel (so you’re really lining the side,

not the actual bottom of the bag that you stand it up on, capish?). Remove focaccia from pan

and place in bag on paper towel. Close up bag by crinkling it shut. Let sit 10 mins.

Remove and eat the whole thing right then and there. When done, don’t feel guilty like you

would after McDonalds.

It was such a bizarre experience, hearing my father’s dialect spoken in the film. The Altamura dialect is so distinct, it almost doesn’t sound like italian at times, more like a combo of portugese, french, and something slavic. I grew up on it, my dad and his siblings (12 total) are always teasing each other and making loud jokes in the dialect. To me, the dialect is the sound of, well,  love & laughter. Der. Here is an example of the dialect, using a phrase used in my family if people are lollygagging too much before heading somewhere. (I’ll spell the dialect more phonetically as opposed to the proper italian way):

English :If we’re gonna go, let’s GO. If we’re not gonna go, then let’s not go!

Italian: Se usciamo, usciamo. Se non usciamo, non dobbiamo uscire!

Altamurein: Se na shamunein, shamunein. Se NA na shamunein, na na shim ushein.

 Hearing this dialect, something so familiar to me in an artsy fartsy movie theatre in LA, something so unfamiliar, was just the coolest thing. The world is tiny.

One of the things I thought was so typical of an Italian film was its use of a actress Tiziana Schiavarelli as the sexy woman who in an uber-seductive way makes focaccia, her bosom, or I should say, BOSOMBAS, jiggling with every knead. Move over Giada DeLaurentis. Her name, Tiziana, is appropriate, aint it? 

She was no American film-style skinny chick with pert round ones and a six pack. This women had MEAT. Some would say pork. And her bosombas were like that of a mother, not a porn star. She was beautiful in a very old-fashioned Italian way. 

  I later spoke with director Nico Cirasola who is from Bari, the county (of sorts) that Altamura is in. We had a sweet email correspondence the day after. The world is small.   

La Siciliana Ribelle was also a great film. Italians know how to do drama, lemme tell you. It was a true story about the Cosa Nostra in Palermo, and the effect it had on the daughter of the Mancuso crime family, Rita Mancuso, portrayed by actress Veronica D’Agostino, who flung herself at the character.

  She was full of guts and maliciousness in the beginning, which later becomes integrity as she learns the truth about her father. An awesome film.

Il Compleanno a.k.a. David’s Birthday, directed by Marco Filiberti, was also a great dramatic film. Italians love sudden death, I’ll just say that. A group of friends & family, wives and husbands, spend a few weeks at the beach at madness ensues involving a closeted homosexual husband and the young gorgeous son of a friend, & another couple’s withering marriage. It is so tragic it’s almost Greek, and gorgeously scored and shot. Loves it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Getting such a whopping dose if Italian culture through these great films, and getting to experience it right down the street from my apartment was something I’ll never forget about living here. I was able to be inspired as an actor and moved as an italian american. The world is tiny, and we are all connected. You just have to open your eyes, buy a ticket, and walk in. Der.

* A traditional Barese singer from my dads region

www.focacciablues.it

 

É su.

LA has made trendy a thing that most people associate with their mom preparing for the school bake sale….the cupcake. And who doesn’t love ‘em? The pillowy goodness. The sugar sprinkles like happy sand between your teeth. The top lickers vs. all in one biters (this is a serious feud, don’t joke).  Back in the big show, when I used to read US Weekly to pass the time in my dressing room (I eventually had to make a pact to stop cause my brain was turning to merda…started reading the Post and felt much better) I’d read mention of the gorgeous, slender lala ladies in their skull-print scarves heading to Sprinkles for a treat. They…eat dessert!  The caption would read.

In addition to the oft-mentioned Sprinkles, there’s also Vanilla Bakeshop in Santa Monica, which has expensivo cupcakes that look too pretty to be eaten: I can’t bear that this gorgeous thing will eventually be turned into cacy.

vanilla bakeshop’s posh yummies

Yes, these are the things that go through my mind. Also, there’s Yummy Cupcakes and many more places I have not been to. It’s easy to enjoy LA’s love affair with the moist, comforting treats, and of course I love ‘em too.

Thing is, when you grow up in an Italian family, you are not really a cupcake girl. A cupcake conjures a very all-american picture: a mom in her apron making a tray of 30 for her kid’s classroom. But my mom has never made a cupcake. In her life, I’m pretty sure. 

yummy cupcakes, santa monica

To me, sweet comfort food is Ciambellone (or Ciambello’, as my mom says). It’s pronounced

CHAM-beh-LOH-neh, (emphasis on the LO, not the BELLO) and although I agree that with cake it’s all about the moistness, Ciambello’ is actually pretty dry. But Italians grow up on ciambello’ and love it -there’s even a ciambellone fan page on facebook, created by some crazy Italians I’m sure. Yes, I became a fan.

cupcake shmupcake

Italian desserts by nature tend to be considered too crunchy and not moist enough by american standards. But Ciambello’ is really meant to be eaten for breakfast, with milk or coffee to soak up the dryness. It’s also not super sweet, which makes it easy to eat three pieces cause your mouth doesn’t get overwhelmed with sugar. It looks like a “marble loaf” from the picture, but it’s completely different. It contains an ingredient called Pane degli Angeli, (bread of the angels) which is basically italian baking powder with vanilla flavoring. You can buy it at any Italian specialty foods store. (Near my hometown in NJ, my mom goes to a place called Jerry’s to get it.) Sometimes I’d inhale the dry cake so quickly that my mom would yell at me mo’ ti strozza! she’d say. You’re gonna choke! I’d choke on Ciambellone over a cupcake any day. Here’s the recipe:

                                                                                 U’  Ciambello’

Ingredients: 500 g flour, 9 large eggs, 3/4 cup Canola oil, 300g sugar, grated rind of 1 lemon, chocolate syrup to taste, 2 envelopes of Pane Angeli.

 

Preheat oven to 350

 

Beat together the eggs, sugar and oil with mixer. Add dry ingredients slowly and mix together. Don’t overmix.  Take 1 cup of the mixture and mix chocolate syrup to it. Pour rest of batter into bundt pan. Gently add chocolatey mixture to top, swirling through with spatula. Put in oven for 1 hour.

 

You can dust sugar on the top of you’d like. Sometimes my mom would put colored sprinkles on top before baking. Eat it with coffee or “mo ti strozza!” 

 

If you make it, you’ll probably think it’s nothing special. But that’s why I love it. It’s an every day house cake that my aunt Lucia in italy would always have in her cabinet along with these giant egg biscuits that were also dry. She’d break them out every morning for breakfast. One time she tried to make us an american breakfast by making us some eggs, cracked fresh from the culies of the backyard chickens. It was a cute gesture, but I was more than happy with my ciambello’. Every time i have a bite, I think of her twinkly black eyes.

 

Cupcakes shmupcakes. You look pretty, but I’d rather choke.

 

When I go for runs down toward Ocean avenue in Santa Monica I always pass by this elementary schoolyard. I usually pause by it on my way back home when my legs start to hurt and grab some of the rosemary that grows wild and rampant along the side of the schoolyard fence. I love rosemary, the woody smell mixed with white wine reminds me of school-night chicken cooking while my sister practiced piano and I did my homework.

  There are a few different kinds of rosemary, of course, but what I find in the schoolyard is the “blue lady” variety, with wee blue flowers and twisted stalks. When I lived in Jersey City, I used the Shoprite variety, which, coincidentally, tastes like Shoprite. But out here, it’s EVERYWHERE; one of the things I love about living here. So I just take it. And I don’t mean from people’s front yards, I’d NEVER do that.  Sometimes the crossing guards on the corner give me weird looks. (Herb police–they don’t scare me none).

       Recently when I was rosemary pirating, I stopped to watch the cute kids who were out on recess. One kid who looked about 10 was running away toward the fence by the rosemary. His friends yelled “what’s wrong with you?” and he yelled, matter of factly, ”Oh, I just miss my father”. It was a little sad but struck me mostly funny, how outward this boy was with his buddies about his innermost emotions, right away. Definitely not one of the cool kids, i thought.

 It was a perfectly gorgeous late October day, and you could smell the ocean. No chance of rain or bitter cold to sting their noses as they played. I wondered how different I would have turned out if I’d been raised in sunny LA. And I got to thinking, if I end up raising my future kids out here, will I have anything in common with them?

 I spent my free time as a kid hanging out outside the cvs, at the pizzeria, the malls, diners, or the movies. Kids out here have all that too, but they also have miles and miles of beaches to lay out on with their friends, tons of places to hike and camp without worry of bad weather, and malls that are outdoor, open air. They can go to the movies in movietown, in gorgeous, historical theatres like the El Capitan the Chinese Theatre. They can surf.

Would my kids appreciate the beach like I did, if they could go every day, like me and the mall? I remember the beach for me was the Jersey Shore; LBI & Wildwood. It was awesome to me. A summer treat, not an after school activity. But nobody surfed at the shore. They smoked cigarettes and drank beers and got ice cream when they heard the tinkly tune. There were no mountains on either side of you. Just hotels. You’d check, when you went for a walk, for your hotel in the distance to make sure you hadn’t gone too far from your parents’ red and white umbrella. The Sands, there it is. Tall and pink.

    The first time I saw a palm tree I thought it was the coolest thing, especially the fat ones, like the outside of a pineapple with fireworks shooting out of it. Here people hardly notice them anymore. Will my kids notice them?  

    Most importantly, when I first realized I wanted to be an artist in junior high, I remember how I felt a bit like an outcast. One of the theatre kids. Different. My parents were concerned, my friends began to change, and as much as I felt like a weirdo for preferring poetry séances in my elementary school yard at night to house parties and drinking, I felt proud of my weirdness. I chopped off all my hair to look like Winona Ryder in Reality Bites  and liked how it made me feel. When I got to NYU and was surrounded by tons of people just like me, I was relieved. (I know I’m making this sound like being a thespian was as tough as coming out of the closet, but it really was big for me, coming from such a traditional, italian family.)

    If I had grown up in LA, no one would have cared when I said I wanted to be an actress. My friends’ parents would have helped hook me up with an agency. Most people here are artists, writers, directors, actors, musicians. I don’t think I would have had to go through what I went through, that ”weirdo” feeling, and that feeling of pride, that need to escape.

   It’s more likely that my kids won’t become performers, and I kinda hope they don’t, so this point could be totally shtupt. And one could argue that when a kid realizes he wants to make music for a living he always feels the same way, regardless of his surroundings. But it’s just another thing that makes me realize how different things are out here. And I guess it would be up to me to remind them that they’re lucky to smell the ocean, to see mountains, to see a movie at a historical 1920’s hollywood theatre. And in reminding them, I’ll feel lucky too.

     Not that I ever plan to bear children. That’s gross.

 

Home is people.

It’s amazing how a certain food can be the connection point between different times of your life. Years ago, when Andrew was going to law school and living in a tiny wormhole on a great street Brooklyn Heights, we used to go to Grimaldi’s Pizzeria under the brooklyn bridge. In the cold we’d eat it in the restaurant and in the summer we’d take it out to the waterfront and eat the whole box standing up, and then get ice cream at brooklyn ice cream factory.  When he moved from brooklyn to Murray Hill and then to Jersey City with me, I’d often miss those strolls through the fruit named brooklyn streets (Cranberry, Pineapple, Orange) to the best NY pizza we’d ever had. 

When we first got to LA, we knew we weren’t coming here for the pizza. This town has some real cacy* pies. But Joe’s Pizza in Santa Monica, originally from Greenwich Village NY makes a good NY slice, you know, where the sauce isnt merda and the crust is crispy. Plus, the guy on the phone is from Italy and sounds like a younger version of my dad (“phone NAM-ber-a? two-zero-WAN-a…”) The pizza’s really good, except for one thing. It’s always cold when it gets here. It’s become a sunday night thing. Cold pizza & HBO/Showtime. 

Tonight Andrew decided to heat up each slice on a pan, stovetop, before eating. He heard from a friend that it’s the best way to reheat a slice. It became a slightly stressful pizza eating experience. Put a new slice on the pan, hurry up & eat the one you’re eating before the pan one burns, put a new slice on the pan. We ate our pizza standing up over the stove in a frenzy of chomping, roof-of-the-mouth-scrapes & finger burns.

You know what?  It was great. The pizza was so crisp and we were laughing at our anxiety. Sizzle chomp sizzle chomp. Standing under the brooklyn bridge has become standing in the kitchen in our socks, and in ten more years, I’ll miss sunday night kitchen-socks-pizza. Kitchen-pan-socks. Kitch-…whatever. I’ll look on it fondly cause of the company. Home is people.

I know that’s…cheesy. That’s how i roll, with the puns. Der. 

 *see Itanglish

                                                                                                                                   

Boy, this town loves a bean.

I’ve joined the hoards of lalas food-shopping at Trendy Joe’s for the good prices and cleverly packaged snacks and pre-peeled/ pre-cut veggies (ok, and the cute slogans & product names)And apparently I’m supposed to be eating edamame, cause they’re everywhere. I know, they’re as main stream as pretzels now, and the hairy little beans, whole, peeled, dried, and tofu-ized are all over TJ’s. I don’t remember Path Mark in Bergenfield NJ having so many edamame options, but TJ’s convenient healthy snack packaging (snackaging?) really enables the “six small meals a day” thing so popular among active lalas.

I like the hairy beans, but I much prefer lupi’ (emphasis on the pi)–aka Lupini Beans. I grew up popping these little suckers like candy, and they are the BEST snack, so much tastier than edamame, in my opinion. My mom always kept a big jar of ‘em in the back of the fridge, next to the gardiniera jar (which i also used to pull the sour carrots out of . Also, lupi’ have almost as much protein in ‘em as edamame (though i didn’t care when i was 10), and they’re more fun to eat.

    Lupini have a little white culie* hole on the end of em. Bite off the culo, then squeeze the bean to pop it out of its skin and into your mouth.  Squeeze the bean! Squeeze the bean!

    They taste a little briney and a little starchy. If you like olives and you like chick peas, you’ll like lupi’.

     You might not wanna pack ‘em in your work lunch if you eat in front of people. I put ‘em in my husband’s lunch one day (he loves ‘em) and he said they were too embarrassing to eat at work. This made me picture him, sharp in his nice suit, nipping the culo off bean after bean. You have been warned. You wouldn’t wanna be seen squeezing the bean at work, would you? And whatever you do, don’t flick it.

    Buy a jar on your next shopping trip. Then, dear God, eat them in the privacy of your own home.

    

    

* see Itanglish

dandey-lion

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of my favorite tv people, Anthony Bourdain, once mentioned how the best food in every country

 he visits is often “just a bowl of something good”. Everyone has their personal b.o.s.g. What’s

yours? I’ll tell ya mine…

      On cold mornings like this, when I miss the warm comforts of home, I crave my mom’s dandelion

soup.  She always grew fresh dandelion in her garden, and still does. It’s great when you have a tummy

ache-something about the slightly bitter greens soothes it all away. It makes sense, if you think of 

how people often drink bitters to relieve nausea. Maybe there’s the same ingredient in all bitter

things. Anyway, it’s my version of soul food-so simple and warms the heart. (It’s also guilt free-

though who cares when it makes ya feel so good?:)) Here’s how to make it, it’s sooo easy. I’m not

putting measurements here, cause that aint what it’s about, and more importantly, I’m too lazy.

 Dandelion soup

  Ingredients: a fistful per person of dandelion greens, white arborio rice about 1/2 cup per person(i

sometimes use brown but white is how mommy made it- more comforting) The soup is not supposed

to be watery but really full of the rice & greens, a good amt. of  Olive oil, 1 garlic clove, salt, parmesan.

You can prolly guess the rest, right? 

Boil a pot of water, salted (this will be the broth, evench, so salt it pefectly to taste).  Start a pan on low

heat with a lotta olive oil and whole garlic clove (don’t chop). Chop dandelion in half,  throw into

pot and let them soften, for about a minute, minute and a half. Dandelion will render its green-ness

into the water (vitamins & stuff:). Remove greens and strain, put aside. Throw rice into green water.

When rice is cooked, turn heat really low. Then throw dandelion into the heated pan and toss for

about a minute. Then remove garlic and put pan contents into pot. Stir around. If still very watery,

remove some water. Pour into a bowl and freshly grate a lotta good parmesan cheese on top. Eat with

a big ass spoon.

        My mom calls this kinda eatin’ peasant food. It wasn’t so much reflective of the region she’s from

in  Italy (Abruzzo) as the fact that she grew up poor, on a small farm. Meat was a luxury, so things like

beans and greens and eggs were a staple. People think of Italian Jersey families sitting around the

dinner table with heaping plates of pasta and meat, a’la The Sopranos, but I grew up on things like

escarole and beans & vegetable and potato frittatas. Unless we had company over on a sunday for

something special like polenta on a wooden board. Aaah, in time friends.  In time.

 

do i have peter pan syndrome? Yes. Yes i do.

my horrible junior high days of wearing bert & ernie  tees under overalls (hey, don’t judge, i was a theatre kid) have come back to haunt me.

                                                     Cause i want  kid clothes.

pwetty pweeze?

I can’t seem to shake the urge to dress like a kid playing dress up. But the actress in me is always tempted to look like I’m in a costume, which is not cute, so I’m gonna mix the kid clothes with tough accessories, like a ballerina skirt with old battered booties (even though these below are mens  i still love em;)

vintage fryes

I dunno what the experts would say, but I say si! si!

p.s. You must realize I’m also a big fat liar, cause the dough for these belle cose will go to, um…groceries. and acting classes. and the shockingly expensivo traffic ticket i just got for driving while talking on my cellphone. To my husband…probably about the clothes i wanna buy…

        Like i said. peter pan syndrome.

Yours truly

Hello? Is anyone out there?

Ooooh, boy. I’m so new to this blogging thing and very bad with computers, it seems. I forgot for a moment this morning that I’m not good at, well, doing things.

 My brain is about to explode all over the keyboard and, trust, I recognize it’s not as hard as I’m making it out to be. What did I get myself into?

I swear, this will NOT be one of those things I start & don’t finish, but-

I’m a pen and paper gal…yeesh…..

I’m a first generation Italian Jersey girl who who recently landed on the planet LA. I’m determined to make my mark on a town that’s been entirely overmarked by dozens of people infinitely cooler than me. Than I. Than me.

my mom's town of Colonnella, Abruzzo, Italy

  What, like it’s hard? 
  I’m one of those extremely rare commodities in Los Angeles called an actress/singer. Have you heard of them? There aren’t many actresses in LA, so I really stand out, and that’s great.
   I love food more than God (sorry, G) and my husband and family more than food. I miss good chinese takeout (lo mein, po fli lice and sesame chik)  and a standing up fold-over slice. I miss being able to buy Skim Plus milk,  I miss terrible grilled cheese sandwiches and mini jukeboxes at diner booths with cigarette machines in the entrances. I miss crunchy walks through fall leaves and that October night chimney smell. I miss the first snowfall of the year. I miss my noisy family.
   But I don’t miss January-Feb snow when it turns black and your frozen nose & ears makes you wanna cry. I don’t miss umbrellas flipping over while navigating your way through a windy rainstorm in times square. And I love this new town.

I love smelling the ocean when I sit up in bed in the morning. I love seeing big blue mountains as every day scenery. I love that I can drive an hour and go skiing. I love the great burger joints out here. I love its die hard struggle to be edgy. I love its spooky hollywood history. I love Dodger games and Dodger dogs (go Yankees and wearing my Brooklyn Dodgers hat . I am constantly at war with my ache to explore the natural beauty that surrounds me out here and my innate “indoor girl” quality that comes from spending your formative years hanging out in malls. I am, daily, at war with my need to have turkey bacon and egg whites or Kashi GoLean for breakfast before a run by the ocean and my innate desire to wake up with big fat dry egg biscuits dipped in milk or coffee, or a heaping bowl of cream of wheat with lots o’ lumps, or a nutella sandwich. 
   I grew up in a huge Italian family and they’re all in Jersey or nearby, rooting for me and treating each of my little tv gigs like the oscars. They desperately want me to succeed, and desperately want me to move back home.
  I came to LA from the Broadway show Jersey Boys after 2 incredible years,  ready for a new (mis)adventure with the love of my life, my witty, whip-smart husband. He’s a Jewish lawyer from Cherry Hill, NJ. How did he wind up marrying a nutso Italian actress? Sweet-ass LUCK. That’s how.  
   My husband only watches me when i’m on stage, like, even if I’m not pertinent to the scene at all, so he often leaves a show I’m in not having caught the whole storyline. He adores me that much. I just threw up in my mouth a little. 
   I am as loved and ignored and lucky and unlucky as you reading this blog right now. If you can relate to me I hope my trips and falls in this sexy town entertain you, and make you laugh at my expense. I will always be a damn proud Jersey Girl. 
Poop and farts, Erica