Arthur Wesley Dow: Lily (1901)
Good evening, Kibitzers!
Well, this is it, my friends! This is my last week of actual work for a salary, at least this particular work. Next Monday, I show up at the office to turn in my laptop, and they do their best to give me Covid. (That’s not their intention! But it’s why I got the shot last week.) Next Tuesday is officially my “last day”, but I am “on vacation” that day, because sometime in the last forty years, companies stopped paying you for unused vacation time when you leave. So by next week’s KTK, I should be officially retired!
As with almost everything happening in my life right now, I’m not sure how I feel about it. I’d have to say that the country/world turning to shit around me is negatively impacting my ability to feel hopeful that these are good changes, or that good changes even exist any more. However, I am willing to put in the effort to not spend all day every day working on someone else’s stuff, and see how it goes. It just might work out.
❧ Italian Food Harmony is a YouTube channel I enjoy, created by two Italian photographers/videographers, Daniele & Luca. They create “slow food” videos in which a rotating cast of cooks (of whom we see only hands), some home cooks and some professional, produce an Italian dish in a visually beautiful way. They also have a website with lovely photographs, where you can find blog posts with the full recipes written out for many of the dishes.
In our continuing struggle to remain even a little calm these days, I find these videos helpful, and hope you will too, and will perhaps even see something you’d like to make in your own kitchen. Oh, also, there are occasional cats!
I should mention, I guess, that these videos have gentle background music, but most of them also appear on the channel in an ASMR version with just the cooking sounds.
Spaghetti Amatriciana: As usual, it’s hard to pick only a few; this is a classic simple pasta that really could not be left out. It’s made with guanciale, which is cured meat from pork jowl, as distinct from pancetta, which is also cured but from pork belly. Guanciale is seasoned differently, and is fattier, but it can be harder to find in the US, so one might need to substitute pancetta in a pinch. Both are quite a bit different from American bacon; you surely could use bacon to make something like this dish, and it would no doubt be delicious because come on, but it would not taste anything like the original. [7:00]
Pasta e Fagioli: They make this bean and pasta soup all over Italy, differently in different places, but when is bean soup not good? This is a Roman version. This isn’t really the season for hot soup, but that season will come back. [5:54]
Gnocchi alla Sorrentina: Not all gnocchi are made with potato dough, but potato ones are good! And not difficult to make. This is a preparation that bakes them with cheese, but they’re perfectly nice just boiled and dressed in any simple sauce you like. [7:30]
Caponata: Caponata is a complex sweet and sour vegetable relish served cold or warm; they call it a “salad” and I guess it is. I think of it as an appetizer/antipasto. It’s nice on crostini with a little pouf of thinned-with-cream mascarpone on top. If you think you don’t like eggplant, do not rule out caponata on that basis, because it certainly doesn’t taste like whatever you remember eggplant tasting like. [5:07]
Conchiglioni Ripieni: Stuffed shells are most commonly seen in the US with tomato sauce and ricotta-based filling, similar to manicotti or cheese lasagna. But there are many ways to prepare them, like these with a rich meat stuffing and béchamel sauce. [7:23]
Ribollita: This vegetable stew from Tuscany is generally served over stale bread instead of pasta or other starch. It’s meant to be a use-up-leftovers dish. This recipe has SO MANY LEAVES, it will surely please marge. (What they call “cavolo nero” is just Tuscan/Lacinato kale, and I am sure you could use any kale, or no kale.) [11:38]
Spaghetti alla Nerano: Actor Stanley Tucci made this zucchini pasta dish famous a few years ago, after he fell in love with it and put it on his CNN cooking show. Pretty much the whole secret of it is that you have to deep fry the zucchini slices first, so now you know what to do if you ever have Stanley Tucci to dinner. [5:59]
Polpette al Sugo: I have made a lot of meatballs in my time, but I have never seen this treatment where you roll them in breadcrumbs before frying them. Maybe it’s a Roman thing. I don’t see why it wouldn’t be good, though. Stores often sell the required ground beef/pork combination packaged as “meatloaf mix”. [4:34]
Pasta alla Norma: Here’s another Sicilian eggplant dish, named in honor of Vincenzo Bellini, composer of the opera Norma and a native of Catania, on Sicily’s east coast. Unlike with the caponata, I can’t promise you it doesn’t taste like eggplant, but if you were willing to deep fry all that zucchini for Tucci, I guess all I am saaaayiiiing is, give eggplant a chance. [3:36]
Linguini ai Frutti di Mare: I’d be remiss if I didn’t include some seafood. This pasta has clams and mussels as well as shrimp, and makes a nice presentation if you reserve a few in their shells to decorate the finished dish as they’ve done here. [7:05]
Cannoli: Many of us have had this iconic Sicilian dessert. The filling they show here is very plain — it’s often enhanced with bits of chocolate and maybe candied fruit, and even so, it’s still very easy. I’m posting this, however, to illustrate what a giant pain in the butt it is to make the shells properly. I endorse buying the shells empty from a bakery (so they are fresh and stay crisp), and filling them yourself just before serving. Or else just buy them finished and eat them promptly. Who cares about dinner?? Leave the entree, take the cannoli! [8:01]
Torta Caprese: This plain but delicious chocolate cake is made with almond flour and is gluten free. I imagine you could swap out the sugar for a keto sweetener and bring the carbs way down too, especially if you use 90% chocolate (or artificially sweetened chocolate — I like the dark, myself.) [7:13]
