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Have you ever wondered what it takes to recreate your grandmother’s most treasured recipes? Join us on a heartwarming journey with Tony Farina as he shares the cherished Italian culinary traditions passed down from his mother and grandmother. Growing up in Newark, New Jersey, Tony’s family used food to maintain their Italian heritage. Hear about the meticulous effort Tony's mother put into documenting family recipes like eggplant parmesan and unique meatballs, ensuring that these culinary treasures would be preserved for future generations.
Step back in time with us to family gatherings filled with the aroma of Sunday gravy and macaroni, a staple in Italian-American households. Listen as Tony and I reminisce about sneaking bites of food before dinner and the significance of specific ingredients like breadcrumbs, garlic, and canned tomatoes. The stories about favorite brands like Wonder Bread add a personal touch, highlighting the joy and warmth these culinary traditions bring to family bonds and friendships.
From the art of bread baking to the quest for Grandma's elusive tomato pie recipe, experience the challenges and triumphs of mastering Italian home cooking. Tony discusses the importance of using the right yeast and letting the dough rise properly, while we also explore some of the best pizza and Italian restaurant experiences in New Haven, Brooklyn, and Northern Jersey. Concluding with exciting possibilities for the future, we chat about opening an Italian provision store in Charleston. Tune in for a delightful blend of personal stories, culinary tips, and the essence of Italian home cooking that will leave you both nostalgic and inspired.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello everyone, this is Steve from A Better Life.
This podcast is brought to youby our sponsors, premium
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(00:27):
Now our podcast.
Hello everybody, and welcomeback to A Better Life with
George and Steve.
Here we are again.
George is still working on hisproject.
He couldn't make it today.
He had some things to do aswell.
(00:50):
So I am here with a specialguest, as I may have mentioned
it somewhere along the line TonyFarina.
Steve, how are you?
I'm good, I'm good.
Thank you so much for joiningus today.
So we had a very special daybecause, first of all, it poured
like mad all morning and nowit's as beautiful day as it
(01:10):
possibly could be.
We'd been talking a long time,tony and I, about his old family
recipes and some of hismother's and grandmother's ways
of making good old sundae sauce,as well as meatballs, sausage,
and we had a little angel hairtoday.
(01:30):
So it was really.
I feel like I'm about to burst,but I am getting close to an
espresso Tone.
Tell me, before we get startedon the food which we'll get to.
So tell me these family recipes.
You grew up in New Jersey isthat correct?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yes, born and raised in Newark, moved out in 1967
when there was a lot of unrestin Newark, new Jersey.
We moved to Edison but my momand her sisters and
sister-in-laws kept thetraditions going.
It all comes down to my mom wasa really good cook and she
managed and cooked all of thetraditional Italian dishes
meatballs, sausage, rasol,lasagna, stuffed shells.
(02:13):
She was renowned for hereggplant parmesan, which is
basically to die for.
For most people that I give theeggplant parmesan to just never
had anything better.
It's a lot of work, but it allcomes down to what she fed us
and me trying to carry on thetradition for my kids.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
I know I don't have any of my mother's recipes.
Nothing's been deposited downon paper.
She didn't write anything down.
I have no idea what she did.
A few things that I would loveto know the inner workings of.
One is her stuffed cabbage.
It was amazing.
She made it in this huge pot.
She put like tomatoes inbetween the cabbages and stuff.
It was something people camefrom all over to have it and it
(02:51):
was half.
My father was Hungarian andCzechoslovakian, so stuffed
cabbage is a big deal in theirfamily as well.
So she made that a lot and shemade sauce.
She made a sauce especially ifmy grandfather was coming over.
There was no way he wasn'tgoing to get pasta for dinner.
He would add peas, like I toldyou in the past.
(03:13):
But back to you.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah, so it's funny.
You mentioned the recipes.
So my mom had just a piling ofpieces of paper with different
recipes on it and as she gotolder and my daughter and son
started getting to teenage years, we had a discussion about how
do we transfer those recipesdown to next generations.
And she spent the last fewyears actually recording it all
(03:39):
in a special book.
The first book was for mydaughter and the second book is
for my son and the second bookis only halfway done before my
mom passed.
So I've got photocopies that Ihave inserted in my son's book.
But it's funny when you talkabout recipes, because my mom
had some specialties.
Her eggplant parm, hermeatballs were my favorite, but
I'm not sure everybody else feltthe same way.
(04:01):
But she made some greatdesserts and one of them was her
cream puffs and my aunts andcousins used to complain because
they swore my mother never gavethem the full compliment of the
recipe.
You know she was like holdingsomething back so that her cream
puffs or her eggplant parm wasabsolutely the best and no one
could replicate it.
You know, as I started goingthrough some of her recipes I
(04:22):
don't know if it's just my owntaste or my recollection, but
I've modified some of herrecipes that she had given me,
that she had given my daughterand my son, and actually the
meatballs you had today was aslight modification off of what
my mom's recipe actually said.
And I was telling Steve earlierthat back then my father came
from Campania, avenel Capasoli,and my mother came from Calabria
(04:47):
, and my father was used to verydense, hard meatballs and my
mother was used to very flaky,moist, break apart meatballs.
So she would actually make everyyear, every week, two different
meatballs One for my dad basedon the way he liked them from
his mom, and one for my brotherand I that based on her family
(05:07):
tradition.
So as I started making hermeatballs, they were not flaky
enough, they did not break upenough.
So I kept modifying and doingsome research and talking to
some other older Italian folksthat made meatballs to come up
with a kind of a modified recipe.
And we had it today and I, as Itold Steve, they were a little
bit denser than what they shouldhave been today.
So I must have done something alittle different than I usually
(05:29):
do, but it's all handmade.
The meatballs sometimes are big, they're small, sometimes they
have a little bit too muchbreadcrumbs and egg in, and
sometimes a little less, butthat's what it's all about.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
So meatballs.
Since we're there for themoment, let's start.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
If you will discuss your recipe a little bit, Sure,
I won't give you the details,but I'll give you the general
understanding.
So where do you start?
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Let's go back to— let's talk about ingredients.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Yep, let's go back to the way I was raised.
So we were middle class, livingin Newark, new Jersey, one
income and then two incomes.
So we start with just basicallychopped meat, which is ground
beef, and we use 80-20 becauseyou want a little bit of the fat
in there, and we mix that witheggs, some milk, parmesan cheese
(06:14):
, some breadcrumbs.
So my grandmother and my motherused to put bread in milk and
get it all nice and soppy andthen put it into the meatball
mix.
My mother converted to breadcrumbs at one point in time and
we actually used seasoned breadcrumbs with Italian seasoning in
them and we mixed that with theground beef and then you put it
together.
(06:34):
And you don't want to put ittogether too hard, you're not
making a snowball, you want tohave it where it's a little
loose.
So that's another thing Imight've done.
I might've made them a littlebit too hard, I might've packed
them a little too hard for Steve.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
So do you brown them in a pan or do you bake them in
the oven?
Speaker 2 (06:49):
So we bake them in the oven, and this is really the
key to the sauce.
So when you bake them in theoven, you're baking them in a
mix of oil, onions, garlic andsome seasonings and you got the
sausage and the meatballs on thepan in the oven.
I brown my sausages firstbecause I like them a little
firm, and we let them bake andthen we take them out, put them
(07:10):
in the sauce.
We take all the drippings notthe onions, not the garlic, some
garlic and we pour it into thesauce and then we let it bake
for three hours, simmer forthree hours on the pot.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
So wait a minute.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Am I talking too fast ?
Speaker 1 (07:24):
No, I'm just trying to get it right.
So the meatballs are on acookie sheet, right On a cookie
sheet, With a lip on it right.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
And you pour oil garlic and onion in there.
So you put oil in there so thatthey don't stick.
I put onion and garlic in there.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
So like minced onion.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yeah, but you don't want the onion too small because
you don't want to put too muchonion in your sauce.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
It disappears.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
So you want to either strain it or, if it's big
enough onions, just drain it andhold the onion back.
I put some garlic in my sauce.
I like to have garlic in thereto simmer.
We didn't have any garlic whenwe were eating today.
You didn't see any cloves ofgarlic.
Sometimes you'll find one inthere, so you pull them out, or
do you?
No, I pull most of the garlicout, I put all the onions out
and then the fat that comes outof the meatballs with the oil I
(08:07):
pour right into the sauce andthen I put the meatballs and the
sausage in there and it simmersfor three hours with all that
mix.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
It is interesting.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Breadcrumbs huh.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Yes, breadcrumbs makes it a little flaky.
Right, you don't want ameatloaf, you don't want a round
meatloaf, you want somethingthat's a little bit more, that
can break up, gives it a littlebit of substance.
And, once again, middle incomecan't have enough ground beef to
feed the family.
So you got to insert some bread, or, in this case, breadcrumbs,
(08:39):
to fill it out.
And the key, with sauce, andeveryone's got their own recipes
, but you need some piece ofpork in your sauce.
So I use sausage, people usebrajol, which is a beef, but
people use pork chops or porkribs of some sort and put them
in there.
We like sausage, so we'vealways used sausages.
And when you fry your sausagefirst, and once again you're
(08:59):
getting that nice sauce, thatoily sauce from the sausage that
goes in the sauce also thatnice sauce, that oily sauce from
the sausage that goes in thesauce also.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Yeah, it's funny you said that because I made a pork
rib sauce a little while ago andit came out fantastic.
I never did it before but I hada rack of ribs.
I cooked rack of ribs for oneof the football games and I
didn't smoke them because Iwasn't in the mood, I just threw
them in the oven and I only hadso many pans.
I had two racks left over.
I threw them in the mood, Ijust threw them in the oven and
I only had so many pans.
I had two racks left over.
I threw them in a thing with abunch of tomato sauce and cooked
sauce with it and the saucecame out amazing.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
With the ribs in it, it really was good.
So it was like a meal in itself.
You had a couple of ribs andsome sauce, much like you have a
couple of meatballs and somesauce, but you have a couple of
meatballs and some sauce.
But it was different it wasgreat.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Yeah, you think about it Growing up.
We ate macaroni.
We called it macaroni back then, not pasta.
We ate macaronis and some typeof gravy meat because it was
gravy, it wasn't sauce.
You had brown gravy and redgravy.
Growing up, this was red gravy,so you would call the meat and
the red gravy as gravy meat.
So what are we having fordinner tonight?
We're having macaroni and gravymeat and we'd have sausage and
(10:07):
brussel or meatballs, but wewould traditionally eat macaroni
and meatballs or gravy meatTuesdays, thursdays and Sunday
consistently every week.
Really, yeah.
So if you remember, there usedto be an old commercial.
Prince Spaghetti Day right,wednesday is Prince Spaghetti
Day.
I think it was actuallyoriginated in Boston because
(10:29):
everybody I knew growing up inNewark and all the other Italian
kids growing up, it was Tuesday, thursday, sunday and Tuesdays
and Thursdays would be at night.
Sunday would be a two o'clockmeal in the afternoon and you'd
have sandwiches or somethinglate at night.
We had a lot of pasta andmeatballs and sausage.
It was something I'm trying tocarry on with my kids.
(10:51):
I don't think they eat it asmuch as I do, but yeah, you do
what you do.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Yeah, I don't ever remember it being like that.
We had it routinely every week.
I know when people came over,my mother was going to make a
sundae sauce that she mademeatballs, sausage and then lamb
.
She had these little lamb chopsshe got from somewhere.
I've never seen them again andmy father loved them.
(11:18):
I remember that Maybe that'swhy she did it, and she would
cook it all in the saucetogether and then you would get
the sauce on your pasta and thena bowl of meat would be either
go around or whatever, andpeople picked up what they like.
I didn't eat the lamb.
I loved sausage and I loved hermeatballs.
So my mom used breadcrumbs too.
She's somewhat similar.
(11:39):
I think she did what you said,that she poured the oil or
whatever from, she would fry themeatballs in a pan and she
would add cloves of garlic tothe oil and then she would put
those into the sauce when shewas cooking it.
Sure, but I most remember neveronions, always just garlic, oil
(12:01):
, salt and pepper, maybe someoregano, maybe some red wine
that's something a lot of peopleadd to a sauce and the
meatballs were basically an egg.
I don't remember more than oneegg, but there must have been
times.
An egg, breadcrumbs, onion inthe meatballs.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Oh, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
But cut very small and it was, like you said, 80-20
chopped meat.
It never was.
Later on, when I found out thatpeople were using pork, veal
and beef, I was like why?
But I know that's, you're right, it was a cost-efficient way of
just using regular beef andwhen we were young the money was
(12:45):
something very few and farbetween.
I think my father I rememberwhen he drove a laundry truck.
I think he made a little over$100 a week, a little over, and
our mortgage was about the same,a little bit more than $100,
the GI Bill and all that stuff.
So it was two kids trying tokeep up with the Joneses living
(13:05):
in an area where other peoplehave everything.
It was an interesting point ofview, but certainly pasta and
tomato sauce.
My mom always used cannedtomatoes.
She never used canned sauce,she would use puree and whole
and then chop them up with herhands.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Oh yeah, so it was a little chunkier sauce.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
It was a little chunkier, but then she would do
something to it.
I don't know if she immersionblended or something, because it
was very like your sauce todayvery smooth, pureed, almost
Today was very good.
The sausage was great.
It's the process right.
It's really that it all sits inthere and cooks together and my
(13:46):
mother would make them the daybefore because she really
believed that the meatballstasted better after sitting in
the refrigerator overnight, andI believed it too.
I would sneak into the Sundaymeal while it was sitting in
overnight and take a piece ofWonder Bread white bread and
pick a meatball out, smush it inand eat it on the bread, and it
(14:08):
was a good combo.
It's funny because my formermother-in-law, who soon passed,
used to use only Petrich Farmwhite bread in her meatballs had
to be Petrich Farms and it wassoaked in milk and then she
worked it in with her hands intothe meatballs sausage.
(14:30):
She would open up sausage eventhough you could buy it not in
casings.
She used to buy it in thecasings and cut it open and make
meatballs out of that.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
It was good she made lasagna that way too the lasagna
was really good like that.
It's funny you mentioned thewhite bread, because I used to
do the same thing.
I would, while my mother wascooking the pasta, the sauce, I
would, while my mother wascooking the pasta, the sauce,
the gravy, I would go in withsome Wonder Bread and I would
just take the gravy and pour itright on the top of Wonder Bread
, try to grab as much of ameatball as I could and run out
(15:04):
of the kitchen eating it.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Yeah, there was a fine line to where you took too
much, certainly when she startedto wonder if she had enough
food for the people that werecoming.
You would, she would, my motherwould make you.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Definitely she wouldn't be mad, but she'd make
you feel bad that you shouldn'thave done it but you think about
those traditions when I wasgoing to college down in
lawrenceville and we wereprobably an hour away from
edison at the time every once ina while on the weekend, if
things weren't going on at thefraternity, I would invite a
friend or two to come home for aSunday gravy, and it became
(15:38):
something that everybody waslooking to get an invitation to,
and I actually used itoccasionally to get myself a new
girlfriend.
I would invite a girl up to mymom's house for gravy on a
Sunday afternoon and, lo andbehold, I had myself a new
girlfriend.
Lo and behold, I had myself anew girlfriend.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
That's funny because I always think of my cousin
Stefan so obviously he's on myfather's side, who was
Czechoslovakian and Hungarian orwhatever they were, and Polish
I think three things.
My cousin loved my mom's horsebecause at home that's not what
(16:21):
his mother made, because hismother was my father's sister
and his father was, I think,part Russian and part Hungarian
or whatever.
He used to tell me he was aBolshevik, but obviously he was
not.
So they didn't make Italiansauce like that and I routinely,
when I go to a restaurantespecially a good Italian
restaurant, all these fancythings on the menu I order
(16:42):
meatballs and sauce.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
It's a perfect way of telling if it's a good
traditional Italian restaurant.
I usually always start withchicken parm and if chicken parm
with the sauce and the macaronion the side with some sauce on
it, if that's good, then I knowI'm in a good restaurant.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
That's true.
Tony and I last ate.
We've ate at a few Italianrestaurants around where we are.
We ate at Castelletto, whichwas Tony blew his mind.
He couldn't believe how good itwas.
It was so good.
I know my friend PaulieCastelletto owns a restaurant
(17:21):
and he's been begging me to do apodcast live from there.
I have not done it, but he sayshe'll.
He'll bring out all the oldItalian specialties, but one day
that's going to happen.
Um, we've eaten at Nona, whichis very good, and I did a review
.
Uh, I don't know if it was lastweek or the week before from
here Anona, and then we also ateat Sergio's in Portchester, and
that's very good as well.
(17:42):
Yes, it is Castellano's,probably my favorite, but
they're all good.
Anona is nice because it'sright in the middle of town and,
like I mentioned during myreview, it's right around the
corner from a really nice cigarlounge that you can go have a
cigar on after you had thiswonderful meal.
But, like I said in my review,and Tony's the one that had the
(18:04):
homemade ravioli right, that'scorrect.
Yeah, and it was very, verygood.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah, speaking of raviolis, my grandmother on my
father's side used to makehomemade raviolis and as she got
older the recipe changed alittle bit and she wasn't as
skilled at making them.
So at one point in time when Iwas young I'd be eating one of
her raviolis and it'd haveeggshells in it.
So I never forget making such abig commotion about it to my
(18:31):
mom and dad.
I'm not eating these raviolisbecause they got eggshells in
them and how much shit did sorry.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
how much trouble did you get in on your way home?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
I was lambasted and was forced to eat those raviolis
regardless of what was in them.
They were phenomenal, but andthey were big.
Today raviolis are small.
These are big raviolis.
You don't eat two or three ofthem.
But another recipe from mygrandmother that we have not
been able to master is hertomato pie, which is it's like a
(19:01):
Sicilian pizza, but it's alittle bit different.
It's thick, the sauce goes, themozzarella, the cheese goes on
first, then the sauce goes overthe top, and then you do
breadcrumbs on top of that andyou bake it.
Sauce goes over the top, andthen you do breadcrumbs on top
of that and you bake it, andwe're able to get everything but
the crust.
The crust is just not at thelevel.
It was when my grandmother usedto make it and we can't figure
(19:21):
out how.
It wasn't a recipe, it waspeople watching her and trying
to formulate a recipe.
So tell me about it.
What did she use for a crust?
She just used flour.
We think there's a differentamount of oil that she used in
the actual, the formation of thecrust and also in the pan.
We don't think we've usedenough oil because it doesn't
(19:42):
come up like almost crispy whereit's Breaks apart.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Yeah, so it was just flour, or she made like a dough.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Oh, she made a dough.
Yeah, it was a dough.
You're thinking huh, Mm-hmmyeah.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Did it have yeast in it?
Speaker 2 (19:57):
No, oh, yeah, it did.
Oh, it absolutely did.
And it rises but it becomes toobready, Not enough.
It's not crispy enough.
It has an oil bottom to it,Almost not caramelized, but
along those lines just can'tseem to get.
It.
Could be the pan we use adouble pan now with our cookie
sheets, I don't know.
(20:17):
It's one of the challenges thatwe've been able to have not
been able to master yet.
I got cousins doing variationsEvery once in a while.
I'll take a stab at it.
My brother, who's a pretty goodcook, will take a stab at it.
Haven't mastered it yet.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
So the dough, she would let it rise and then she'd
spread it out.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
That is correct.
She would put it in a bowl,she'd put a wet dish towel on
top, let it sit on top of theoven and then bang it down and
put it in a big 14 by whatevercookie sheet.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
So maybe you're using the wrong yeast.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Possibly.
I don't think she was usingflour to make bread.
I think she was usingtraditional gold metal flour,
because that's what we did.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Yeah, she probably.
There's quick rise yeast andthere's regular yeast, and then
there's the Italian stuff comesin a chunk and I bet you that's
what she used.
It's the kind they use inNeapolitan pizza.
You think she used gold metalflour.
She didn't use double O oranything like that, right?
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Too hard to come by?
I don't know In those days.
But I do remember seeing chunksof yeast, so maybe you've got a
little bit of an idea there.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Right.
So the Italian yeast comes inas like a big chunk and you like
it almost looks like a Havlabar, that kind of thing, and you
cut a piece off and then youmix it in and break it up and
mix it in.
That's the yeast you really eatto make pizza.
If you're really going to dothe Novelabar way, that's the
way to do it.
(21:44):
And you remember that thatdough does rise.
Sometimes most people let itrise overnight in a refrigerator
, but when it's cooked itdoesn't rise a lot.
So that may be the tip.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Interesting.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
I bake a lot of bread .
That would be my first forte.
I love that challenge.
By the way, I would love thatchallenge.
I don't know if I totallyunderstand.
It's funny because we have aguy George has a friend and he's
come on our podcast.
We did a two.
I don't know if you heard it.
You may have listened to ithank pizza, I think I did he
does the.
He's the frico king or whatever.
(22:22):
If you ever saw his pie andit's like a detroit style.
I don't know where they getthis name from, but it has a
crispy crust.
If see, you have to go on his,I said his name Hank Pizza.
You go on his website and lookat his crust when he cuts it, it
just goes.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
And is it thick or is it thin?
Speaker 1 (22:46):
The pie is thick, yeah, okay, I don't know how
thick the crust is, I have tolook but the outside has this
crisp and I don't know if that'sfrom cheese or what.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Combination probably.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
And I somewhat wonder whether she mixed or somewhat
put Parmesan cheese on her crustwhere that would prevent it
from rising and giving it acrispier tendency.
That may be something else youwant to try.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
I'll give you the recipe.
You can take a whack at it ifyou like Especially that it has
a dough.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
That's all of it, Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Yeah, and she makes a special sauce which is more of
a marinara sauce that she putson the pizza.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
That's something we didn't discuss.
Your sauce, so you told me whatyou do with the oil.
Do you do anything else?
Speaker 2 (23:31):
No, it's pretty basic Puree, half puree, half tomato
sauce and, as I was mentioningto you earlier, it's hard to
define those special tomatoes ina sauce.
They usually have them in pureeor they'll have them in peeled
tomatoes, the Marzano tomatoes.
So I stay away from thoseunless I really want to start
getting into a blender andmaking it the right way.
But I usually just do halfpuree, half sauce, lots of
(23:56):
different Italian seasonings,parsley, basil, oregano, mix it
all in and then the meat withthe drippings really adds the
kind of seasoning to it that youexperienced today.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
So you use dry seasonings or do you use fresh
and then throw it in?
Speaker 2 (24:13):
I do both.
Depends on how quick I want tomake my sauce If I use dry
seasonings, or do you use freshand then throw it in?
I do both.
Depends on how quick I want tomake my sauce.
If I have fresh seasonings,I'll cut it all up.
If not, then I'll use some dryseasoning out of a jar.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Another thought of that crust I'm thinking about
that.
I have a set of books thatbasically has every bread recipe
on the face of the earth, hasevery bread recipe on the face
of the earth.
It's a five or seven volumegoes through every history,
every kind of bread, everythingfrom panettone to whatever you
could think of, any Arab breads,all those Middle Eastern breads
(24:47):
.
Everything is in this book, inthis set of books.
I think it costs like $700.
It's in my closet and I've madea lot out of it and it tells
you how to make every part, goesthrough the tools, goes through
the methods of making the dough, every method, every one.
Some people use water, somepeople use milk, as you would
for naan or something like that.
(25:08):
Really quite an interestinggroup of books.
It weighs 1,000 pounds and costtoo much money.
But it's years ago and Iprobably mentioned this on the
podcast before I was luckyenough to go a few times to get
lessons at Boulay's restaurant.
He had recently passed away inGeorgia.
(25:28):
We talked about it on one ofthe podcasts in the past, but he
had a restaurant and on theside one of the entrances he had
like a bar and it was reallyjust a school for teaching
people how to cook, and he hadthese unbelievable ovens, those
steam ovens, the ones that cost$50,000 to put in your kitchen.
(25:50):
So he had all those and we usedto talk about baking bread and
he realized that I'm prettyobsessed with baking bread.
He couldn't believe how muchknowledge I had.
And he made bread without flour.
He made bread.
He really blew my mind a lot oftimes because he made these
non-gluten kind of bread.
(26:10):
He took me down in the kitchen,which was in the basement or
down below the main floor anyway, and they had a 55 gallon drum
full of sourdough starter.
The thing was like and I spokeabout this before, so the
listeners remember this it waslike the movie the Thing.
It was this big blob, you couldactually see it rise, and I
(26:32):
still have some of that starterin the freezer.
He gave me a jar of it and Itook it home and grew it and
then froze a lot of it, and Istill have some of that starter
in the freezer.
He gave me a jar of it and Itook it home and grew it and
then froze a lot of it, and Istill have some.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Where do you cook your bread?
In your oven.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
In my oven, inside a crock.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Is that what it takes ?
Speaker 1 (26:45):
the crock.
That's what it takes.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah, I'd love to be able to master doing something
with breads and crusts andthings like that.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
It's a completely different method right, and
others have heard me talk aboutthis, but I have the recipe.
Poulin makes organic sourdoughI don't want to say whole wheat,
but like a whole wheat andregular flour famous in France
because obviously the baguetteis the wonder of the world over
(27:15):
there.
Matter of fact, governmentregulates the cost of bread and
other things and how it's made.
So when the woman who I learnedfrom I shouldn't say learned
from physically, but learnedfrom video and other things and
reading her father or hergrandfather started the bakery
there and he couldn't competewith making old baguettes so he
(27:36):
made sourdough, and sourdoughhas a longer shelf life than a
baguette, which may be a day.
You could get a week or maybetwo out of a sourdough because
of the nature of the bacteria.
So poor people would come andbuy it because they could keep
the loaf and it would live onand on and they wouldn't have to
throw it out like a baguette orconsume it.
(27:57):
So I started making thoseloaves and they're amazing, but
they're a little bit different.
I'll show you some picture.
I can't believe you never sawit before because I always post
it, but so this is the pull-on.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Wow, it looks like the bread we had today I know.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
This is better.
The bread today was pretty good.
This is better because it's awhole wheat grainy kind of bread
and it has that soury taste andI know I have a loaf of sour I
bought today too.
I haven't cracked into it,considering that I sliced my
finger open once again in theexact same spot, if you guys
remember that I spoke about howI sliced it open and it was
(28:34):
infected forever and I couldn'tbend it forever.
When I was smoking meat at thefundraiser the other day, on the
exact same spot.
Now that it finally healed, Isliced it open again while I was
cutting bread, and that wasbecause they didn't leave the
bread in the oven long enough,even though it was totally
cooked.
They didn't crisp it enough.
For whatever reason it's abusiness they got to roll it
along, so the knife bounced offand sliced my hand.
(28:56):
I may have had something to dowith it.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Yeah, user error right.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
User error yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
But blood was spilled for sauce and spaghetti today.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Yeah, it really was bleeding.
I didn't think I was going tobe able to get it to stop
because it was just pouring outinto the sink.
You would think that I murderedsomebody.
It was like an oj simpson sinkpicture but I finally got it to
stop.
But I couldn't get it to stopbleeding long enough to get that
band-aid out of the package.
There's blood all over the allover my bathroom.
(29:27):
I had to wipe it all up butanyway, so that how that pull on
heavy crust rises in a crock.
I contemplated making it fortoday, but it takes longer If we
were eating at night.
It really takes a whole day.
I imagine.
The only thing because of theheavier grain, it doesn't have
that traditional sour dough withall those big nooks and cranny
(29:49):
in the bread.
Because of the grain, whereit's organic and briny, it has
the flavor and it's greatbecause you can toast it days
later and it still comes out asgood and you use that real fatty
French butter that's got allthe fat in it.
It's like you should say on thelabel double the fat.
But that's great bread.
I know I'm obsessed with breadand I'm obsessed with dough and
(30:11):
getting it to rise perfectly andI need to start baking it again
.
I promised some people and I'mobsessed with dough and getting
it to rise perfectly and I needto start baking it again.
I promised some people and Ihaven't done it yet and I'm
going to.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Bread will make or break your meal.
Good bread will make a bad mealbetter.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Yeah, we got lucky today because this morning I
went he said good bread.
If it's not good bread, don'tget it is what he told me.
So I went went to the checostoday near the chico's or
whatever you call it.
I went there today and thebread had just come out of the
oven with wraps sitting on thecounter, still warm.
So I got spared theembarrassment of the only thing
(30:46):
I had to do for the meal todaythat's not true.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
You got the pasta I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
I went to the store and got the pasta too, but I
already had it here.
That was the store and got thepasta too, but I already had it
here.
That was the only one we use isthe only one I already had here
.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
I got all the other ones.
So, lee, let's talk about aneggplant parm recipe.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Now I've been hearing about this eggplant parm and I
almost took a shot at trying todo it myself, just by what he
told me, to be honest, but Ididn't want to take the grief
over it, what he saw, but goahead, tell me about it.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Obviously you got to get eggplants in season.
I've tried to.
Eggplants will show up in thegrocery store any month, doesn't
matter.
But when they're not in seasonthey just don't have the same
flavors and I've learned thatthe hard way.
So you start out with youreggplants in season, you peel
them and then you slice themcylindrical so you have little
(31:35):
discs of eggplant.
How thick, typically about aneighth of an inch we do super
thin.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
So do you use a mandolin or you try to cut them
with a knife.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
I cut them with a knife.
It would be better using agadget.
That would be consistent.
Maybe try that going forward.
But what you end up doing thisis mom's recipe.
I've had a lot of people tellme they've had similar but never
exactly the same.
So you take as you get yourslices, you lay them on a plate
(32:05):
and ideally you laid them on aplate that has grates to where
the oil can seep through, towhere the oil can seep through.
You put a layer of eggplant,you put salt, you put another
layer of eggplant salt all theway up and then you press them.
You fill a pot full of waterand you put it at the very top
of the pile and you just pressthem for about a good 30 minutes
(32:31):
and have all the bitterness andall the juices come out.
You pat them down, you flour anegg, deep fry them and then you
start layering them in acasserole dish.
And the way you layer them isyou put sauce first and if you
think about this, all thetraditional Italian dishes that
I've been used to growing upwith, the foundation has been my
(32:52):
mother's gravy.
So you have to have someleftover gravy to make eggplant.
You have to have leftover gravyto make lasagna or manigat or
stuffed shells.
So you put a layer of gravydown and you start.
You put a layer of eggplant, alittle Parmesan, a little
mozzarella, put a little bit ofsauce and then you just raise it
(33:15):
all the way up to where it'slike a casserole.
It almost looks like lasagnawhen it comes out of the oven,
but the bitterness is gone.
It's a sweet taste.
It's healthy for you, otherthan the deep frying.
A buddy of mine actually triedbaking the eggplant instead of
deep frying it and said it waspretty close to what we're used
to.
So I guess the next time I tryto do it I'll end up baking it.
(33:38):
But it's a project.
Eggplant parm.
You need two people.
It's a lot of work.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Yeah, I used to eat this restaurant in Boca Raton.
I don't remember the name of it, I'm sure it's not there
anymore but they used to havethese towers of thin fried
eggplant and it was literallylike a round tower, all the same
size, covered with sauce andwith cheese.
They would bake it in the oven.
You'd get this like littletower and it was absolutely the
(34:07):
best eggplant I ever had in mylife.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
You haven't had mine yet, have you.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Yeah, but that's a lot of talk.
I don't know how true it is.
He didn't bring any eggplanttoday.
He could have done that.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Your kitchen is not big enough to make eggplant parm
.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Listen, I've made 50 pounds of pastrami in there.
I've made makes a mess.
Don't get me wrong when I getdone looking or when I come back
from cooking, because thatstuff smoked so I had to go to
the smoker.
I had to go to the smoker andit's difficult to keep it clean.
So usually now what I dobecause I have a housekeeper
(34:42):
once a week coming clean now Imake sure if I'm going to make a
messy cook, I'm going to do itthe day before she comes, which
is Wednesday.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
I'm sure she appreciates that.
What's Meg doing today?
Meg is in Nebraska, leftThursday.
We'll come back tomorrow.
Monday.
She's helping her fatherorganize his apartment for the
move Because as we move toCharleston South Carolina, ed
will be coming and living aroundthe corner from us down in
Charleston South Carolina.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Really that's her dad .
That's her dad.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
That's her dad.
He's out there by himself.
For the most part.
The woman he was seeing wentinto an assisted living home, so
he's kind of on his own.
He's got some friends, but he's84 years old, it's time.
Friends.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
And the warmer weather, because Nebraska is
freezing, cold, windy too, it'sjust because of the wind.
It's freezing, cold, windy too,it's just because of the wind.
It's so flat and the wind.
I had a friend when I was a kid.
He was stationed in Nebraskaand obviously it was much colder
50 years ago, 45 years ago, andhe said Nebraska.
He was stationed all over theplace in Nebraska.
He was stationed in SouthDakota.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
He told me Nebraska was the coldest place he's ever
been in his life.
It's beautiful, though.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Because of the wind.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Yeah, no, it's beautiful, it's flat.
Your point is absolutely righton.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Flat.
That's what it is.
Flat, it's as flat as anythingcould be.
Other farmers out there, wheredo they grow corn?
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Best corn's in southern Jersey, Best tomatoes
best corn are in southern Jersey.
We have that argument all thetime me and the clan from
Nebraska.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Really.
I know the tomatoes are.
Corn is good, jersey corn'sgood, but the tomatoes are
something.
It's funny because I had afriend who's in.
He sent me a video.
He is in Croatia and he showedme a tomato and bit into it and
it was this like red liveawesome tomato.
And he said this is a tomato.
(36:41):
I had to come to Croatia to tryit.
And I'm thinking about when Iwas a kid and all the times in
New Jersey when it was tomatoseason.
You knew it because every placehad tomatoes for sale.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
We have another tradition called a tomato salad,
and it's fresh Jersey tomatoes,cubed onions, some Italian
seasoning, a little bit of oiland water and let it sit
overnight and it just isunbelievable refreshing and
healthy.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
No cucumbers.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
No, we don't do cucumbers.
I know a lot of people do.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
And red onion.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
I use white sweet onions.
But people use red, but I usewhite sweet.
I use white sweet even with mysauce.
I like white sweet onions.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
So do I.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Yeah, Vidalia onions like that type so when my
Spanish are yellow.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
When I was making barbecue sauce the other day, we
didn't have enough yellow onionat the Italian Club and I was
like what's the deal?
We don't have yellow onions.
He goes, oh, I usually use red.
And I was like red.
I never used red, but I usedred.
It came out pretty well becauseyou puree the barbecue sauce
(37:49):
when you're done, so it mixes in, but it had a nice flavor.
I can't complain about thebarbecue sauce.
It was perfect.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Oh yeah, if you're going to go to Stanford.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
We talk about pizza, george, and I talk about pizza
all the time.
Let's hear you.
I forgot, I forgot all aboutthat.
I'm glad you brought it up.
Let's talk about Connecticutpizzas.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Come on tell me about how it's better than anywhere
in the universe.
I wouldn't say better thananywhere in the universe, but I
think there's a distinction.
When you think about New Havenstyle pizza and some of the
Brooklyn and Northern Jerseypizza joints Both, I think, are
9, 10 type ratings A little bitdifferent but very good.
(38:26):
And my favorite from New Havenis Sally's.
They just opened one indowntown Stanford and that's
where you and I went and I thinkyou were happy with what you
were eating.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
It was very good.
I can't complain.
It was very good, I don't know,but it was very good.
I really liked it.
But sometimes when I look atpizza I don't want to say it
almost looked a little processed.
To me it was a feeling, not ataste or anything else.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
It just seemed that it wasn't as handmade as what
I'm used to, but the flavor andthe taste and everything was
amazing.
Yeah, the crust is good.
They make it on site, so thatwas just a perception going in.
You're a little bit tainted.
I think I beat you up a littlebit too much, for what was that
artesian pizza joint you andGeorge were talking about?
Speaker 1 (39:10):
It's right here in Hartsdale.
Hartsdale House of pizza Talkabout it all the time.
I should have sent you thevideo somebody sent me of all
the different slices they had.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
So there's another one in Westchester called
Johnny's.
I know Mount Vernon, I think itis.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
I have no idea.
I was driving around MountVernon the other day and I said
I think Johnny's is around here.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
I have no idea where it is, you would drive right by
it.
It's nondescript.
So I went there because we havea gentleman that works for us
in Westchester and he ravesabout Johnny's.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
I have been there.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
And I rave about New Haven, listen, very similar in
my view to Sally's, that type ofstyle crusty thin, more sauce
than cheese, but I still goSally's number one.
If you're going to compareConnecticut New Haven-type style
pizza and I can't recall thenames of the ones in Jersey that
(40:01):
I've eaten at, but they're verysimilar.
So that was pizza.
You talk about Italianrestaurants.
You've got Columbus Park,downtown Stanford, phenomenal
Italian restaurant.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
I've never been there .
Speaker 2 (40:10):
Yeah, and the other one which is actually better but
extremely difficult to get intois Cafe Silvum, which is on the
south side of South Stanford.
I think it's called Allhomemade pasta.
Same thing with Columbus Parkall homemade pasta, but really
good dishes.
Cafe Silvum is a little bitmore traditional, columbus Park
is a little bit more.
It's got a little bit of aflair to it, but it's very good.
(40:33):
Both of them are very goodrestaurants.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
I'll keep those in mind.
It's funny just to get back topizza for a minute.
So the other night I had workedlate.
It was Friday.
I went over to meet George.
He got out at whatever 9o'clock at night and I was in
Mimarnik and one of my favoritepizza places of all time is
Sal's for Sicilian pie.
(40:55):
Sicilian pie is known withoutWestchester as the number one
unbelievable Sicilian.
But I have to say the last twotimes I was in there it wasn't
as good as it used to be.
The second to last time I wasin there they said usually it's
(41:16):
oh, I'll take.
I want corners.
Can I have the next one thatcame out?
They always had one in.
Oh no, don't take that.
Don't take what you don't want.
Wait for the next one.
I used to go to South's Pizza1130 at night.
You'd be hungry.
You just got out of doingsomething.
Wherever you were, the foodwasn't there.
You weren't sure you ever go tothose places where you have to
(41:37):
go to an event.
You don't know if they're goingto feed you.
You don't know if they're notgoing to feed you.
You know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
Yeah, whether you're going to like it or not.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
So I remember I got out of the event.
We went over to Sal's gotslices.
He was sat in the car just gotslices.
It was like 10.45.
I think they're open tomidnight.
They were still pulling hotpies out of the thing.
So two times ago I went oh it'sSunday night, we close at 9.
9?
You close at 9?
Dinner's not even.
(42:02):
This is the town.
People are rolling around, thepeople are just coming out to
eat 9 o'clock.
They work in the city by thetime they get home on the bus on
a Friday night.
Oh, we close at 9.
Now, when did that start?
We don't have any slices left.
I was like what?
So I took a slice of somethingI didn't want but I needed to
(42:24):
eat something.
So Friday that was a Sunday.
So Friday I go in there.
I hit 9.05.
Oh, we're closed.
What do you mean?
We're closed.
It's 9.05 on a Friday night.
In downtown Mamaroneck thestreets are packed with people.
You couldn't even get a parkingspot.
Oh, we close at 9.
Now.
We close at 9 every night.
(42:45):
Now.
Change of ownership.
Change of ownership theoriginal owner sold to one of
the guys that worked for him orone of the guys that he was
partners with and brought himout.
The ownership changed.
The pizza is no.
First of all, they used to bewhatever you want kind of
attitude to.
We're doing you a favorattitude.
Sal's my favorite Sicilianpizza place.
(43:06):
I've never had Sicilian so goodexcept Hard Steel House of
Pizza.
Sicilian is pretty good.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
They have artesian pizza.
How could it be Sicilian?
Speaker 1 (43:15):
It's good pie.
You'll see.
I'm going to have to order onewhen you're here.
All right, so South, manydecades.
People I know went there whenthey were kids decades ago.
Pizza was better than anyone.
Matter of fact, what's his name?
When he won Wingfoot Went thereand had afterwards a Shambo.
What's his name?
When he won Wingfoot went thereand had afterwards Shambo.
What's his name?
(43:35):
Whatever his name is, you knowwho I'm talking about.
He went and had Sal's Pizza.
After he was done, he had theUS.
He had the trophy under his arm, his trophy in one hand and a
slice of Sal's in the other.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
okay, Cross Sal's off the list.
I'm not going.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
I'm never going back there.
And they just didn't care.
They were full of themselvesand I was like what?
And so I started asking otherpeople.
They said, yeah, that's what itis.
So I don't know what happenedto your Sal's Pizza.
It's a shame.
It's a shame.
You could take the best thingin the world and you want to
live off your old reputationbecause it's nowhere what it
used to be that's not unusual,it's not unusual unfortunately
(44:19):
it is.
But having said that, I bashedsows and I promised myself I was
gonna bash sows because theywere so mean to me when I was in
there.
We're like it wasn't just getout of here.
Five after nine, we don't haveany slices to sell, come, come
on.
So I went next door toSmokehouse and I'll give you a
review of how it was thereanother day, but I think we've
(44:40):
spoken enough for one podcast.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
We have spoken.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
Yes, thank you, tony, so much for coming here and
cooking.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
Thank you for… it's an honor, steve …be here please.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
A guest appearance here, tony.
He is back and forth frombeautiful downtown Stanford.
And now in what town?
Mount Pleasant.
Mount Pleasant, south Carolina,the place where everybody's
moving to South.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
Carolina Feels that way.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
Feels like everybody I know now lives in South
Carolina and it's a big state soyou know the greatest whole hog
barbecue guy is there.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
I tell you what they don't have good Italian food.
Down in Charleston, in thesurrounding area.
Everyone's complaining aboutthe pizza, Everyone's
complaining about the Italianprovisions.
So I was actually thinking thatmaybe I'd open up an Italian
provision place when I getsettled down there and start
bringing some bread andmozzarella and provolone and
(45:36):
prosciutto down there and startserving it the right way.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
That could be done.
Bread you're going to have tobake, so you're going to need
the ovens or whatever.
There's an awesome bakery inFort Lauderdale, florida, on Las
Olas Boulevard, and I'vementioned it before.
I can't even remember the nameof it.
So it could be done.
If it's done there, it's doneeverywhere.
Of course, he used to importthe water from New York, but now
(46:00):
my friend has built a waterfiltration system that he's
selling all over in Florida toall the restaurants all over in
Florida and he's in FortLauderdale and he really is and
I don't know the name of hiscompany.
I will certainly mention itwhen we come back.
His filtration systems havechanged the water for
(46:21):
restaurants and baking inFlorida and that part of Florida
and soon to be all over.
They built an amazing system.
He spent his whole life doingwater filtration and he's
created something that's reallyamazing, so Interesting.
So that is, if you're going tobake, created something that's
really amazing Interesting.
So that is, if you're going tobake bread, that's what you need
.
Anyway, thank you so much.
Thank you for everything.
Great to have you here.
(46:42):
Welcome to the first time tothe studio here, and that's it.
Hopefully, next week we'll bewith George and I'm sure we're
going to have Tony on again.
Thank you all.
Enjoy the rest of your day,night or morning, whatever the
(47:06):
case may be.
Hello everyone, this is Steve from A Better Life.
This podcast is brought to youby our sponsors, premium
Botanical.
They are the makers of HerbalSpectrum, which is a
full-spectrum hemp-based CBD.
They make salves, liquids, andthey have a great mixed berry
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(00:27):
Now our podcast.
Hello everybody, and welcomeback to A Better Life with
George and Steve.
Here we are again.
George is still working on hisproject.
He couldn't make it today.
He had some things to do aswell.
(00:50):
So I am here with a specialguest, as I may have mentioned
it somewhere along the line TonyFarina.
Steve, how are you?
I'm good, I'm good.
Thank you so much for joiningus today.
So we had a very special daybecause, first of all, it poured
like mad all morning and nowit's as beautiful day as it
(01:10):
possibly could be.
We'd been talking a long time,tony and I, about his old family
recipes and some of hismother's and grandmother's ways
of making good old sundae sauce,as well as meatballs, sausage,
and we had a little angel hairtoday.
(01:30):
So it was really.
I feel like I'm about to burst,but I am getting close to an
espresso Tone.
Tell me, before we get startedon the food which we'll get to.
So tell me these family recipes.
You grew up in New Jersey isthat correct?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yes, born and raised in Newark, moved out in 1967
when there was a lot of unrestin Newark, new Jersey.
We moved to Edison but my momand her sisters and
sister-in-laws kept thetraditions going.
It all comes down to my mom wasa really good cook and she
managed and cooked all of thetraditional Italian dishes
meatballs, sausage, rasol,lasagna, stuffed shells.
(02:13):
She was renowned for hereggplant parmesan, which is
basically to die for.
For most people that I give theeggplant parmesan to just never
had anything better.
It's a lot of work, but it allcomes down to what she fed us
and me trying to carry on thetradition for my kids.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
I know I don't have any of my mother's recipes.
Nothing's been deposited downon paper.
She didn't write anything down.
I have no idea what she did.
A few things that I would loveto know the inner workings of.
One is her stuffed cabbage.
It was amazing.
She made it in this huge pot.
She put like tomatoes inbetween the cabbages and stuff.
It was something people camefrom all over to have it and it
(02:51):
was half.
My father was Hungarian andCzechoslovakian, so stuffed
cabbage is a big deal in theirfamily as well.
So she made that a lot and shemade sauce.
She made a sauce especially ifmy grandfather was coming over.
There was no way he wasn'tgoing to get pasta for dinner.
He would add peas, like I toldyou in the past.
(03:13):
But back to you.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah, so it's funny.
You mentioned the recipes.
So my mom had just a piling ofpieces of paper with different
recipes on it and as she gotolder and my daughter and son
started getting to teenage years, we had a discussion about how
do we transfer those recipesdown to next generations.
And she spent the last fewyears actually recording it all
(03:39):
in a special book.
The first book was for mydaughter and the second book is
for my son and the second bookis only halfway done before my
mom passed.
So I've got photocopies that Ihave inserted in my son's book.
But it's funny when you talkabout recipes, because my mom
had some specialties.
Her eggplant parm, hermeatballs were my favorite, but
I'm not sure everybody else feltthe same way.
(04:01):
But she made some greatdesserts and one of them was her
cream puffs and my aunts andcousins used to complain because
they swore my mother never gavethem the full compliment of the
recipe.
You know she was like holdingsomething back so that her cream
puffs or her eggplant parm wasabsolutely the best and no one
could replicate it.
You know, as I started goingthrough some of her recipes I
(04:22):
don't know if it's just my owntaste or my recollection, but
I've modified some of herrecipes that she had given me,
that she had given my daughterand my son, and actually the
meatballs you had today was aslight modification off of what
my mom's recipe actually said.
And I was telling Steve earlierthat back then my father came
from Campania, avenel Capasoli,and my mother came from Calabria
(04:47):
, and my father was used to verydense, hard meatballs and my
mother was used to very flaky,moist, break apart meatballs.
So she would actually make everyyear, every week, two different
meatballs One for my dad basedon the way he liked them from
his mom, and one for my brotherand I that based on her family
(05:07):
tradition.
So as I started making hermeatballs, they were not flaky
enough, they did not break upenough.
So I kept modifying and doingsome research and talking to
some other older Italian folksthat made meatballs to come up
with a kind of a modified recipe.
And we had it today and I, as Itold Steve, they were a little
bit denser than what they shouldhave been today.
So I must have done something alittle different than I usually
(05:29):
do, but it's all handmade.
The meatballs sometimes are big, they're small, sometimes they
have a little bit too muchbreadcrumbs and egg in, and
sometimes a little less, butthat's what it's all about.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
So meatballs.
Since we're there for themoment, let's start.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
If you will discuss your recipe a little bit, Sure,
I won't give you the details,but I'll give you the general
understanding.
So where do you start?
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Let's go back to— let's talk about ingredients.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Yep, let's go back to the way I was raised.
So we were middle class, livingin Newark, new Jersey, one
income and then two incomes.
So we start with just basicallychopped meat, which is ground
beef, and we use 80-20 becauseyou want a little bit of the fat
in there, and we mix that witheggs, some milk, parmesan cheese
(06:14):
, some breadcrumbs.
So my grandmother and my motherused to put bread in milk and
get it all nice and soppy andthen put it into the meatball
mix.
My mother converted to breadcrumbs at one point in time and
we actually used seasoned breadcrumbs with Italian seasoning in
them and we mixed that with theground beef and then you put it
together.
(06:34):
And you don't want to put ittogether too hard, you're not
making a snowball, you want tohave it where it's a little
loose.
So that's another thing Imight've done.
I might've made them a littlebit too hard, I might've packed
them a little too hard for Steve.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
So do you brown them in a pan or do you bake them in
the oven?
Speaker 2 (06:49):
So we bake them in the oven, and this is really the
key to the sauce.
So when you bake them in theoven, you're baking them in a
mix of oil, onions, garlic andsome seasonings and you got the
sausage and the meatballs on thepan in the oven.
I brown my sausages firstbecause I like them a little
firm, and we let them bake andthen we take them out, put them
(07:10):
in the sauce.
We take all the drippings notthe onions, not the garlic, some
garlic and we pour it into thesauce and then we let it bake
for three hours, simmer forthree hours on the pot.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
So wait a minute.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Am I talking too fast ?
Speaker 1 (07:24):
No, I'm just trying to get it right.
So the meatballs are on acookie sheet, right On a cookie
sheet, With a lip on it right.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
And you pour oil garlic and onion in there.
So you put oil in there so thatthey don't stick.
I put onion and garlic in there.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
So like minced onion.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yeah, but you don't want the onion too small because
you don't want to put too muchonion in your sauce.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
It disappears.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
So you want to either strain it or, if it's big
enough onions, just drain it andhold the onion back.
I put some garlic in my sauce.
I like to have garlic in thereto simmer.
We didn't have any garlic whenwe were eating today.
You didn't see any cloves ofgarlic.
Sometimes you'll find one inthere, so you pull them out, or
do you?
No, I pull most of the garlicout, I put all the onions out
and then the fat that comes outof the meatballs with the oil I
(08:07):
pour right into the sauce andthen I put the meatballs and the
sausage in there and it simmersfor three hours with all that
mix.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
It is interesting.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Breadcrumbs huh.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Yes, breadcrumbs makes it a little flaky.
Right, you don't want ameatloaf, you don't want a round
meatloaf, you want somethingthat's a little bit more, that
can break up, gives it a littlebit of substance.
And, once again, middle incomecan't have enough ground beef to
feed the family.
So you got to insert some bread, or, in this case, breadcrumbs,
(08:39):
to fill it out.
And the key, with sauce, andeveryone's got their own recipes
, but you need some piece ofpork in your sauce.
So I use sausage, people usebrajol, which is a beef, but
people use pork chops or porkribs of some sort and put them
in there.
We like sausage, so we'vealways used sausages.
And when you fry your sausagefirst, and once again you're
(08:59):
getting that nice sauce, thatoily sauce from the sausage that
goes in the sauce also thatnice sauce, that oily sauce from
the sausage that goes in thesauce also.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Yeah, it's funny you said that because I made a pork
rib sauce a little while ago andit came out fantastic.
I never did it before but I hada rack of ribs.
I cooked rack of ribs for oneof the football games and I
didn't smoke them because Iwasn't in the mood, I just threw
them in the oven and I only hadso many pans.
I had two racks left over.
I threw them in the mood, Ijust threw them in the oven and
I only had so many pans.
I had two racks left over.
I threw them in a thing with abunch of tomato sauce and cooked
sauce with it and the saucecame out amazing.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
With the ribs in it, it really was good.
So it was like a meal in itself.
You had a couple of ribs andsome sauce, much like you have a
couple of meatballs and somesauce, but you have a couple of
meatballs and some sauce.
But it was different it wasgreat.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Yeah, you think about it Growing up.
We ate macaroni.
We called it macaroni back then, not pasta.
We ate macaronis and some typeof gravy meat because it was
gravy, it wasn't sauce.
You had brown gravy and redgravy.
Growing up, this was red gravy,so you would call the meat and
the red gravy as gravy meat.
So what are we having fordinner tonight?
We're having macaroni and gravymeat and we'd have sausage and
(10:07):
brussel or meatballs, but wewould traditionally eat macaroni
and meatballs or gravy meatTuesdays, thursdays and Sunday
consistently every week.
Really, yeah.
So if you remember, there usedto be an old commercial.
Prince Spaghetti Day right,wednesday is Prince Spaghetti
Day.
I think it was actuallyoriginated in Boston because
(10:29):
everybody I knew growing up inNewark and all the other Italian
kids growing up, it was Tuesday, thursday, sunday and Tuesdays
and Thursdays would be at night.
Sunday would be a two o'clockmeal in the afternoon and you'd
have sandwiches or somethinglate at night.
We had a lot of pasta andmeatballs and sausage.
It was something I'm trying tocarry on with my kids.
(10:51):
I don't think they eat it asmuch as I do, but yeah, you do
what you do.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Yeah, I don't ever remember it being like that.
We had it routinely every week.
I know when people came over,my mother was going to make a
sundae sauce that she mademeatballs, sausage and then lamb
.
She had these little lamb chopsshe got from somewhere.
I've never seen them again andmy father loved them.
(11:18):
I remember that Maybe that'swhy she did it, and she would
cook it all in the saucetogether and then you would get
the sauce on your pasta and thena bowl of meat would be either
go around or whatever, andpeople picked up what they like.
I didn't eat the lamb.
I loved sausage and I loved hermeatballs.
So my mom used breadcrumbs too.
She's somewhat similar.
(11:39):
I think she did what you said,that she poured the oil or
whatever from, she would fry themeatballs in a pan and she
would add cloves of garlic tothe oil and then she would put
those into the sauce when shewas cooking it.
Sure, but I most remember neveronions, always just garlic, oil
(12:01):
, salt and pepper, maybe someoregano, maybe some red wine
that's something a lot of peopleadd to a sauce and the
meatballs were basically an egg.
I don't remember more than oneegg, but there must have been
times.
An egg, breadcrumbs, onion inthe meatballs.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Oh, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
But cut very small and it was, like you said, 80-20
chopped meat.
It never was.
Later on, when I found out thatpeople were using pork, veal
and beef, I was like why?
But I know that's, you're right, it was a cost-efficient way of
just using regular beef andwhen we were young the money was
(12:45):
something very few and farbetween.
I think my father I rememberwhen he drove a laundry truck.
I think he made a little over$100 a week, a little over, and
our mortgage was about the same,a little bit more than $100,
the GI Bill and all that stuff.
So it was two kids trying tokeep up with the Joneses living
(13:05):
in an area where other peoplehave everything.
It was an interesting point ofview, but certainly pasta and
tomato sauce.
My mom always used cannedtomatoes.
She never used canned sauce,she would use puree and whole
and then chop them up with herhands.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Oh yeah, so it was a little chunkier sauce.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
It was a little chunkier, but then she would do
something to it.
I don't know if she immersionblended or something, because it
was very like your sauce todayvery smooth, pureed, almost
Today was very good.
The sausage was great.
It's the process right.
It's really that it all sits inthere and cooks together and my
(13:46):
mother would make them the daybefore because she really
believed that the meatballstasted better after sitting in
the refrigerator overnight, andI believed it too.
I would sneak into the Sundaymeal while it was sitting in
overnight and take a piece ofWonder Bread white bread and
pick a meatball out, smush it inand eat it on the bread, and it
(14:08):
was a good combo.
It's funny because my formermother-in-law, who soon passed,
used to use only Petrich Farmwhite bread in her meatballs had
to be Petrich Farms and it wassoaked in milk and then she
worked it in with her hands intothe meatballs sausage.
(14:30):
She would open up sausage eventhough you could buy it not in
casings.
She used to buy it in thecasings and cut it open and make
meatballs out of that.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
It was good she made lasagna that way too the lasagna
was really good like that.
It's funny you mentioned thewhite bread, because I used to
do the same thing.
I would, while my mother wascooking the pasta, the sauce, I
would, while my mother wascooking the pasta, the sauce,
the gravy, I would go in withsome Wonder Bread and I would
just take the gravy and pour itright on the top of Wonder Bread
, try to grab as much of ameatball as I could and run out
(15:04):
of the kitchen eating it.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Yeah, there was a fine line to where you took too
much, certainly when she startedto wonder if she had enough
food for the people that werecoming.
You would, she would, my motherwould make you.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Definitely she wouldn't be mad, but she'd make
you feel bad that you shouldn'thave done it but you think about
those traditions when I wasgoing to college down in
lawrenceville and we wereprobably an hour away from
edison at the time every once ina while on the weekend, if
things weren't going on at thefraternity, I would invite a
friend or two to come home for aSunday gravy, and it became
(15:38):
something that everybody waslooking to get an invitation to,
and I actually used itoccasionally to get myself a new
girlfriend.
I would invite a girl up to mymom's house for gravy on a
Sunday afternoon and, lo andbehold, I had myself a new
girlfriend.
Lo and behold, I had myself anew girlfriend.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
That's funny because I always think of my cousin
Stefan so obviously he's on myfather's side, who was
Czechoslovakian and Hungarian orwhatever they were, and Polish
I think three things.
My cousin loved my mom's horsebecause at home that's not what
(16:21):
his mother made, because hismother was my father's sister
and his father was, I think,part Russian and part Hungarian
or whatever.
He used to tell me he was aBolshevik, but obviously he was
not.
So they didn't make Italiansauce like that and I routinely,
when I go to a restaurantespecially a good Italian
restaurant, all these fancythings on the menu I order
(16:42):
meatballs and sauce.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
It's a perfect way of telling if it's a good
traditional Italian restaurant.
I usually always start withchicken parm and if chicken parm
with the sauce and the macaronion the side with some sauce on
it, if that's good, then I knowI'm in a good restaurant.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
That's true.
Tony and I last ate.
We've ate at a few Italianrestaurants around where we are.
We ate at Castelletto, whichwas Tony blew his mind.
He couldn't believe how good itwas.
It was so good.
I know my friend PaulieCastelletto owns a restaurant
(17:21):
and he's been begging me to do apodcast live from there.
I have not done it, but he sayshe'll.
He'll bring out all the oldItalian specialties, but one day
that's going to happen.
Um, we've eaten at Nona, whichis very good, and I did a review
.
Uh, I don't know if it was lastweek or the week before from
here Anona, and then we also ateat Sergio's in Portchester, and
that's very good as well.
(17:42):
Yes, it is Castellano's,probably my favorite, but
they're all good.
Anona is nice because it'sright in the middle of town and,
like I mentioned during myreview, it's right around the
corner from a really nice cigarlounge that you can go have a
cigar on after you had thiswonderful meal.
But, like I said in my review,and Tony's the one that had the
(18:04):
homemade ravioli right, that'scorrect.
Yeah, and it was very, verygood.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah, speaking of raviolis, my grandmother on my
father's side used to makehomemade raviolis and as she got
older the recipe changed alittle bit and she wasn't as
skilled at making them.
So at one point in time when Iwas young I'd be eating one of
her raviolis and it'd haveeggshells in it.
So I never forget making such abig commotion about it to my
(18:31):
mom and dad.
I'm not eating these raviolisbecause they got eggshells in
them and how much shit did sorry.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
how much trouble did you get in on your way home?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
I was lambasted and was forced to eat those raviolis
regardless of what was in them.
They were phenomenal, but andthey were big.
Today raviolis are small.
These are big raviolis.
You don't eat two or three ofthem.
But another recipe from mygrandmother that we have not
been able to master is hertomato pie, which is it's like a
(19:01):
Sicilian pizza, but it's alittle bit different.
It's thick, the sauce goes, themozzarella, the cheese goes on
first, then the sauce goes overthe top, and then you do
breadcrumbs on top of that andyou bake it.
Sauce goes over the top, andthen you do breadcrumbs on top
of that and you bake it, andwe're able to get everything but
the crust.
The crust is just not at thelevel.
It was when my grandmother usedto make it and we can't figure
(19:21):
out how.
It wasn't a recipe, it waspeople watching her and trying
to formulate a recipe.
So tell me about it.
What did she use for a crust?
She just used flour.
We think there's a differentamount of oil that she used in
the actual, the formation of thecrust and also in the pan.
We don't think we've usedenough oil because it doesn't
(19:42):
come up like almost crispy whereit's Breaks apart.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Yeah, so it was just flour, or she made like a dough.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Oh, she made a dough.
Yeah, it was a dough.
You're thinking huh, Mm-hmmyeah.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Did it have yeast in it?
Speaker 2 (19:57):
No, oh, yeah, it did.
Oh, it absolutely did.
And it rises but it becomes toobready, Not enough.
It's not crispy enough.
It has an oil bottom to it,Almost not caramelized, but
along those lines just can'tseem to get.
It.
Could be the pan we use adouble pan now with our cookie
sheets, I don't know.
(20:17):
It's one of the challenges thatwe've been able to have not
been able to master yet.
I got cousins doing variationsEvery once in a while.
I'll take a stab at it.
My brother, who's a pretty goodcook, will take a stab at it.
Haven't mastered it yet.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
So the dough, she would let it rise and then she'd
spread it out.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
That is correct.
She would put it in a bowl,she'd put a wet dish towel on
top, let it sit on top of theoven and then bang it down and
put it in a big 14 by whatevercookie sheet.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
So maybe you're using the wrong yeast.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Possibly.
I don't think she was usingflour to make bread.
I think she was usingtraditional gold metal flour,
because that's what we did.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Yeah, she probably.
There's quick rise yeast andthere's regular yeast, and then
there's the Italian stuff comesin a chunk and I bet you that's
what she used.
It's the kind they use inNeapolitan pizza.
You think she used gold metalflour.
She didn't use double O oranything like that, right?
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Too hard to come by?
I don't know In those days.
But I do remember seeing chunksof yeast, so maybe you've got a
little bit of an idea there.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Right.
So the Italian yeast comes inas like a big chunk and you like
it almost looks like a Havlabar, that kind of thing, and you
cut a piece off and then youmix it in and break it up and
mix it in.
That's the yeast you really eatto make pizza.
If you're really going to dothe Novelabar way, that's the
way to do it.
(21:44):
And you remember that thatdough does rise.
Sometimes most people let itrise overnight in a refrigerator
, but when it's cooked itdoesn't rise a lot.
So that may be the tip.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Interesting.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
I bake a lot of bread .
That would be my first forte.
I love that challenge.
By the way, I would love thatchallenge.
I don't know if I totallyunderstand.
It's funny because we have aguy George has a friend and he's
come on our podcast.
We did a two.
I don't know if you heard it.
You may have listened to ithank pizza, I think I did he
does the.
He's the frico king or whatever.
(22:22):
If you ever saw his pie andit's like a detroit style.
I don't know where they getthis name from, but it has a
crispy crust.
If see, you have to go on his,I said his name Hank Pizza.
You go on his website and lookat his crust when he cuts it, it
just goes.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
And is it thick or is it thin?
Speaker 1 (22:46):
The pie is thick, yeah, okay, I don't know how
thick the crust is, I have tolook but the outside has this
crisp and I don't know if that'sfrom cheese or what.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Combination probably.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
And I somewhat wonder whether she mixed or somewhat
put Parmesan cheese on her crustwhere that would prevent it
from rising and giving it acrispier tendency.
That may be something else youwant to try.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
I'll give you the recipe.
You can take a whack at it ifyou like Especially that it has
a dough.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
That's all of it, Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Yeah, and she makes a special sauce which is more of
a marinara sauce that she putson the pizza.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
That's something we didn't discuss.
Your sauce, so you told me whatyou do with the oil.
Do you do anything else?
Speaker 2 (23:31):
No, it's pretty basic Puree, half puree, half tomato
sauce and, as I was mentioningto you earlier, it's hard to
define those special tomatoes ina sauce.
They usually have them in pureeor they'll have them in peeled
tomatoes, the Marzano tomatoes.
So I stay away from thoseunless I really want to start
getting into a blender andmaking it the right way.
But I usually just do halfpuree, half sauce, lots of
(23:56):
different Italian seasonings,parsley, basil, oregano, mix it
all in and then the meat withthe drippings really adds the
kind of seasoning to it that youexperienced today.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
So you use dry seasonings or do you use fresh
and then throw it in?
Speaker 2 (24:13):
I do both.
Depends on how quick I want tomake my sauce If I use dry
seasonings, or do you use freshand then throw it in?
I do both.
Depends on how quick I want tomake my sauce.
If I have fresh seasonings,I'll cut it all up.
If not, then I'll use some dryseasoning out of a jar.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Another thought of that crust I'm thinking about
that.
I have a set of books thatbasically has every bread recipe
on the face of the earth, hasevery bread recipe on the face
of the earth.
It's a five or seven volumegoes through every history,
every kind of bread, everythingfrom panettone to whatever you
could think of, any Arab breads,all those Middle Eastern breads
(24:47):
.
Everything is in this book, inthis set of books.
I think it costs like $700.
It's in my closet and I've madea lot out of it and it tells
you how to make every part, goesthrough the tools, goes through
the methods of making the dough, every method, every one.
Some people use water, somepeople use milk, as you would
for naan or something like that.
(25:08):
Really quite an interestinggroup of books.
It weighs 1,000 pounds and costtoo much money.
But it's years ago and Iprobably mentioned this on the
podcast before I was luckyenough to go a few times to get
lessons at Boulay's restaurant.
He had recently passed away inGeorgia.
(25:28):
We talked about it on one ofthe podcasts in the past, but he
had a restaurant and on theside one of the entrances he had
like a bar and it was reallyjust a school for teaching
people how to cook, and he hadthese unbelievable ovens, those
steam ovens, the ones that cost$50,000 to put in your kitchen.
(25:50):
So he had all those and we usedto talk about baking bread and
he realized that I'm prettyobsessed with baking bread.
He couldn't believe how muchknowledge I had.
And he made bread without flour.
He made bread.
He really blew my mind a lot oftimes because he made these
non-gluten kind of bread.
(26:10):
He took me down in the kitchen,which was in the basement or
down below the main floor anyway, and they had a 55 gallon drum
full of sourdough starter.
The thing was like and I spokeabout this before, so the
listeners remember this it waslike the movie the Thing.
It was this big blob, you couldactually see it rise, and I
(26:32):
still have some of that starterin the freezer.
He gave me a jar of it and Itook it home and grew it and
then froze a lot of it, and Istill have some of that starter
in the freezer.
He gave me a jar of it and Itook it home and grew it and
then froze a lot of it, and Istill have some.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Where do you cook your bread?
In your oven.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
In my oven, inside a crock.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Is that what it takes ?
Speaker 1 (26:45):
the crock.
That's what it takes.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah, I'd love to be able to master doing something
with breads and crusts andthings like that.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
It's a completely different method right, and
others have heard me talk aboutthis, but I have the recipe.
Poulin makes organic sourdoughI don't want to say whole wheat,
but like a whole wheat andregular flour famous in France
because obviously the baguetteis the wonder of the world over
(27:15):
there.
Matter of fact, governmentregulates the cost of bread and
other things and how it's made.
So when the woman who I learnedfrom I shouldn't say learned
from physically, but learnedfrom video and other things and
reading her father or hergrandfather started the bakery
there and he couldn't competewith making old baguettes so he
(27:36):
made sourdough, and sourdoughhas a longer shelf life than a
baguette, which may be a day.
You could get a week or maybetwo out of a sourdough because
of the nature of the bacteria.
So poor people would come andbuy it because they could keep
the loaf and it would live onand on and they wouldn't have to
throw it out like a baguette orconsume it.
(27:57):
So I started making thoseloaves and they're amazing, but
they're a little bit different.
I'll show you some picture.
I can't believe you never sawit before because I always post
it, but so this is the pull-on.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Wow, it looks like the bread we had today I know.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
This is better.
The bread today was pretty good.
This is better because it's awhole wheat grainy kind of bread
and it has that soury taste andI know I have a loaf of sour I
bought today too.
I haven't cracked into it,considering that I sliced my
finger open once again in theexact same spot, if you guys
remember that I spoke about howI sliced it open and it was
(28:34):
infected forever and I couldn'tbend it forever.
When I was smoking meat at thefundraiser the other day, on the
exact same spot.
Now that it finally healed, Isliced it open again while I was
cutting bread, and that wasbecause they didn't leave the
bread in the oven long enough,even though it was totally
cooked.
They didn't crisp it enough.
For whatever reason it's abusiness they got to roll it
along, so the knife bounced offand sliced my hand.
(28:56):
I may have had something to dowith it.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Yeah, user error right.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
User error yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
But blood was spilled for sauce and spaghetti today.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Yeah, it really was bleeding.
I didn't think I was going tobe able to get it to stop
because it was just pouring outinto the sink.
You would think that I murderedsomebody.
It was like an oj simpson sinkpicture but I finally got it to
stop.
But I couldn't get it to stopbleeding long enough to get that
band-aid out of the package.
There's blood all over the allover my bathroom.
(29:27):
I had to wipe it all up butanyway, so that how that pull on
heavy crust rises in a crock.
I contemplated making it fortoday, but it takes longer If we
were eating at night.
It really takes a whole day.
I imagine.
The only thing because of theheavier grain, it doesn't have
that traditional sour dough withall those big nooks and cranny
(29:49):
in the bread.
Because of the grain, whereit's organic and briny, it has
the flavor and it's greatbecause you can toast it days
later and it still comes out asgood and you use that real fatty
French butter that's got allthe fat in it.
It's like you should say on thelabel double the fat.
But that's great bread.
I know I'm obsessed with breadand I'm obsessed with dough and
(30:11):
getting it to rise perfectly andI need to start baking it again
.
I promised some people and I'mobsessed with dough and getting
it to rise perfectly and I needto start baking it again.
I promised some people and Ihaven't done it yet and I'm
going to.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Bread will make or break your meal.
Good bread will make a bad mealbetter.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Yeah, we got lucky today because this morning I
went he said good bread.
If it's not good bread, don'tget it is what he told me.
So I went went to the checostoday near the chico's or
whatever you call it.
I went there today and thebread had just come out of the
oven with wraps sitting on thecounter, still warm.
So I got spared theembarrassment of the only thing
(30:46):
I had to do for the meal todaythat's not true.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
You got the pasta I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
I went to the store and got the pasta too, but I
already had it here.
That was the store and got thepasta too, but I already had it
here.
That was the only one we use isthe only one I already had here
.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
I got all the other ones.
So, lee, let's talk about aneggplant parm recipe.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Now I've been hearing about this eggplant parm and I
almost took a shot at trying todo it myself, just by what he
told me, to be honest, but Ididn't want to take the grief
over it, what he saw, but goahead, tell me about it.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Obviously you got to get eggplants in season.
I've tried to.
Eggplants will show up in thegrocery store any month, doesn't
matter.
But when they're not in seasonthey just don't have the same
flavors and I've learned thatthe hard way.
So you start out with youreggplants in season, you peel
them and then you slice themcylindrical so you have little
(31:35):
discs of eggplant.
How thick, typically about aneighth of an inch we do super
thin.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
So do you use a mandolin or you try to cut them
with a knife.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
I cut them with a knife.
It would be better using agadget.
That would be consistent.
Maybe try that going forward.
But what you end up doing thisis mom's recipe.
I've had a lot of people tellme they've had similar but never
exactly the same.
So you take as you get yourslices, you lay them on a plate
(32:05):
and ideally you laid them on aplate that has grates to where
the oil can seep through, towhere the oil can seep through.
You put a layer of eggplant,you put salt, you put another
layer of eggplant salt all theway up and then you press them.
You fill a pot full of waterand you put it at the very top
of the pile and you just pressthem for about a good 30 minutes
(32:31):
and have all the bitterness andall the juices come out.
You pat them down, you flour anegg, deep fry them and then you
start layering them in acasserole dish.
And the way you layer them isyou put sauce first and if you
think about this, all thetraditional Italian dishes that
I've been used to growing upwith, the foundation has been my
(32:52):
mother's gravy.
So you have to have someleftover gravy to make eggplant.
You have to have leftover gravyto make lasagna or manigat or
stuffed shells.
So you put a layer of gravydown and you start.
You put a layer of eggplant, alittle Parmesan, a little
mozzarella, put a little bit ofsauce and then you just raise it
(33:15):
all the way up to where it'slike a casserole.
It almost looks like lasagnawhen it comes out of the oven,
but the bitterness is gone.
It's a sweet taste.
It's healthy for you, otherthan the deep frying.
A buddy of mine actually triedbaking the eggplant instead of
deep frying it and said it waspretty close to what we're used
to.
So I guess the next time I tryto do it I'll end up baking it.
(33:38):
But it's a project.
Eggplant parm.
You need two people.
It's a lot of work.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Yeah, I used to eat this restaurant in Boca Raton.
I don't remember the name of it, I'm sure it's not there
anymore but they used to havethese towers of thin fried
eggplant and it was literallylike a round tower, all the same
size, covered with sauce andwith cheese.
They would bake it in the oven.
You'd get this like littletower and it was absolutely the
(34:07):
best eggplant I ever had in mylife.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
You haven't had mine yet, have you.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Yeah, but that's a lot of talk.
I don't know how true it is.
He didn't bring any eggplanttoday.
He could have done that.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Your kitchen is not big enough to make eggplant parm
.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Listen, I've made 50 pounds of pastrami in there.
I've made makes a mess.
Don't get me wrong when I getdone looking or when I come back
from cooking, because thatstuff smoked so I had to go to
the smoker.
I had to go to the smoker andit's difficult to keep it clean.
So usually now what I dobecause I have a housekeeper
(34:42):
once a week coming clean now Imake sure if I'm going to make a
messy cook, I'm going to do itthe day before she comes, which
is Wednesday.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
I'm sure she appreciates that.
What's Meg doing today?
Meg is in Nebraska, leftThursday.
We'll come back tomorrow.
Monday.
She's helping her fatherorganize his apartment for the
move Because as we move toCharleston South Carolina, ed
will be coming and living aroundthe corner from us down in
Charleston South Carolina.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Really that's her dad .
That's her dad.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
That's her dad.
He's out there by himself.
For the most part.
The woman he was seeing wentinto an assisted living home, so
he's kind of on his own.
He's got some friends, but he's84 years old, it's time.
Friends.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
And the warmer weather, because Nebraska is
freezing, cold, windy too, it'sjust because of the wind.
It's freezing, cold, windy too,it's just because of the wind.
It's so flat and the wind.
I had a friend when I was a kid.
He was stationed in Nebraskaand obviously it was much colder
50 years ago, 45 years ago, andhe said Nebraska.
He was stationed all over theplace in Nebraska.
He was stationed in SouthDakota.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
He told me Nebraska was the coldest place he's ever
been in his life.
It's beautiful, though.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Because of the wind.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Yeah, no, it's beautiful, it's flat.
Your point is absolutely righton.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Flat.
That's what it is.
Flat, it's as flat as anythingcould be.
Other farmers out there, wheredo they grow corn?
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Best corn's in southern Jersey, Best tomatoes
best corn are in southern Jersey.
We have that argument all thetime me and the clan from
Nebraska.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Really.
I know the tomatoes are.
Corn is good, jersey corn'sgood, but the tomatoes are
something.
It's funny because I had afriend who's in.
He sent me a video.
He is in Croatia and he showedme a tomato and bit into it and
it was this like red liveawesome tomato.
And he said this is a tomato.
(36:41):
I had to come to Croatia to tryit.
And I'm thinking about when Iwas a kid and all the times in
New Jersey when it was tomatoseason.
You knew it because every placehad tomatoes for sale.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
We have another tradition called a tomato salad,
and it's fresh Jersey tomatoes,cubed onions, some Italian
seasoning, a little bit of oiland water and let it sit
overnight and it just isunbelievable refreshing and
healthy.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
No cucumbers.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
No, we don't do cucumbers.
I know a lot of people do.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
And red onion.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
I use white sweet onions.
But people use red, but I usewhite sweet.
I use white sweet even with mysauce.
I like white sweet onions.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
So do I.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Yeah, Vidalia onions like that type so when my
Spanish are yellow.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
When I was making barbecue sauce the other day, we
didn't have enough yellow onionat the Italian Club and I was
like what's the deal?
We don't have yellow onions.
He goes, oh, I usually use red.
And I was like red.
I never used red, but I usedred.
It came out pretty well becauseyou puree the barbecue sauce
(37:49):
when you're done, so it mixes in, but it had a nice flavor.
I can't complain about thebarbecue sauce.
It was perfect.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Oh yeah, if you're going to go to Stanford.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
We talk about pizza, george, and I talk about pizza
all the time.
Let's hear you.
I forgot, I forgot all aboutthat.
I'm glad you brought it up.
Let's talk about Connecticutpizzas.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Come on tell me about how it's better than anywhere
in the universe.
I wouldn't say better thananywhere in the universe, but I
think there's a distinction.
When you think about New Havenstyle pizza and some of the
Brooklyn and Northern Jerseypizza joints Both, I think, are
9, 10 type ratings A little bitdifferent but very good.
(38:26):
And my favorite from New Havenis Sally's.
They just opened one indowntown Stanford and that's
where you and I went and I thinkyou were happy with what you
were eating.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
It was very good.
I can't complain.
It was very good, I don't know,but it was very good.
I really liked it.
But sometimes when I look atpizza I don't want to say it
almost looked a little processed.
To me it was a feeling, not ataste or anything else.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
It just seemed that it wasn't as handmade as what
I'm used to, but the flavor andthe taste and everything was
amazing.
Yeah, the crust is good.
They make it on site, so thatwas just a perception going in.
You're a little bit tainted.
I think I beat you up a littlebit too much, for what was that
artesian pizza joint you andGeorge were talking about?
Speaker 1 (39:10):
It's right here in Hartsdale.
Hartsdale House of pizza Talkabout it all the time.
I should have sent you thevideo somebody sent me of all
the different slices they had.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
So there's another one in Westchester called
Johnny's.
I know Mount Vernon, I think itis.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
I have no idea.
I was driving around MountVernon the other day and I said
I think Johnny's is around here.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
I have no idea where it is, you would drive right by
it.
It's nondescript.
So I went there because we havea gentleman that works for us
in Westchester and he ravesabout Johnny's.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
I have been there.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
And I rave about New Haven, listen, very similar in
my view to Sally's, that type ofstyle crusty thin, more sauce
than cheese, but I still goSally's number one.
If you're going to compareConnecticut New Haven-type style
pizza and I can't recall thenames of the ones in Jersey that
(40:01):
I've eaten at, but they're verysimilar.
So that was pizza.
You talk about Italianrestaurants.
You've got Columbus Park,downtown Stanford, phenomenal
Italian restaurant.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
I've never been there .
Speaker 2 (40:10):
Yeah, and the other one which is actually better but
extremely difficult to get intois Cafe Silvum, which is on the
south side of South Stanford.
I think it's called Allhomemade pasta.
Same thing with Columbus Parkall homemade pasta, but really
good dishes.
Cafe Silvum is a little bitmore traditional, columbus Park
is a little bit more.
It's got a little bit of aflair to it, but it's very good.
(40:33):
Both of them are very goodrestaurants.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
I'll keep those in mind.
It's funny just to get back topizza for a minute.
So the other night I had workedlate.
It was Friday.
I went over to meet George.
He got out at whatever 9o'clock at night and I was in
Mimarnik and one of my favoritepizza places of all time is
Sal's for Sicilian pie.
(40:55):
Sicilian pie is known withoutWestchester as the number one
unbelievable Sicilian.
But I have to say the last twotimes I was in there it wasn't
as good as it used to be.
The second to last time I wasin there they said usually it's
(41:16):
oh, I'll take.
I want corners.
Can I have the next one thatcame out?
They always had one in.
Oh no, don't take that.
Don't take what you don't want.
Wait for the next one.
I used to go to South's Pizza1130 at night.
You'd be hungry.
You just got out of doingsomething.
Wherever you were, the foodwasn't there.
You weren't sure you ever go tothose places where you have to
(41:37):
go to an event.
You don't know if they're goingto feed you.
You don't know if they're notgoing to feed you.
You know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
Yeah, whether you're going to like it or not.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
So I remember I got out of the event.
We went over to Sal's gotslices.
He was sat in the car just gotslices.
It was like 10.45.
I think they're open tomidnight.
They were still pulling hotpies out of the thing.
So two times ago I went oh it'sSunday night, we close at 9.
9?
You close at 9?
Dinner's not even.
(42:02):
This is the town.
People are rolling around, thepeople are just coming out to
eat 9 o'clock.
They work in the city by thetime they get home on the bus on
a Friday night.
Oh, we close at 9.
Now, when did that start?
We don't have any slices left.
I was like what?
So I took a slice of somethingI didn't want but I needed to
(42:24):
eat something.
So Friday that was a Sunday.
So Friday I go in there.
I hit 9.05.
Oh, we're closed.
What do you mean?
We're closed.
It's 9.05 on a Friday night.
In downtown Mamaroneck thestreets are packed with people.
You couldn't even get a parkingspot.
Oh, we close at 9.
Now.
We close at 9 every night.
(42:45):
Now.
Change of ownership.
Change of ownership theoriginal owner sold to one of
the guys that worked for him orone of the guys that he was
partners with and brought himout.
The ownership changed.
The pizza is no.
First of all, they used to bewhatever you want kind of
attitude to.
We're doing you a favorattitude.
Sal's my favorite Sicilianpizza place.
(43:06):
I've never had Sicilian so goodexcept Hard Steel House of
Pizza.
Sicilian is pretty good.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
They have artesian pizza.
How could it be Sicilian?
Speaker 1 (43:15):
It's good pie.
You'll see.
I'm going to have to order onewhen you're here.
All right, so South, manydecades.
People I know went there whenthey were kids decades ago.
Pizza was better than anyone.
Matter of fact, what's his name?
When he won Wingfoot Went thereand had afterwards a Shambo.
What's his name?
When he won Wingfoot went thereand had afterwards Shambo.
What's his name?
(43:35):
Whatever his name is, you knowwho I'm talking about.
He went and had Sal's Pizza.
After he was done, he had theUS.
He had the trophy under his arm, his trophy in one hand and a
slice of Sal's in the other.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
okay, Cross Sal's off the list.
I'm not going.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
I'm never going back there.
And they just didn't care.
They were full of themselvesand I was like what?
And so I started asking otherpeople.
They said, yeah, that's what itis.
So I don't know what happenedto your Sal's Pizza.
It's a shame.
It's a shame.
You could take the best thingin the world and you want to
live off your old reputationbecause it's nowhere what it
used to be that's not unusual,it's not unusual unfortunately
(44:19):
it is.
But having said that, I bashedsows and I promised myself I was
gonna bash sows because theywere so mean to me when I was in
there.
We're like it wasn't just getout of here.
Five after nine, we don't haveany slices to sell, come, come
on.
So I went next door toSmokehouse and I'll give you a
review of how it was thereanother day, but I think we've
(44:40):
spoken enough for one podcast.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
We have spoken.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
Yes, thank you, tony, so much for coming here and
cooking.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
Thank you for… it's an honor, steve …be here please.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
A guest appearance here, tony.
He is back and forth frombeautiful downtown Stanford.
And now in what town?
Mount Pleasant.
Mount Pleasant, south Carolina,the place where everybody's
moving to South.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
Carolina Feels that way.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
Feels like everybody I know now lives in South
Carolina and it's a big state soyou know the greatest whole hog
barbecue guy is there.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
I tell you what they don't have good Italian food.
Down in Charleston, in thesurrounding area.
Everyone's complaining aboutthe pizza, Everyone's
complaining about the Italianprovisions.
So I was actually thinking thatmaybe I'd open up an Italian
provision place when I getsettled down there and start
bringing some bread andmozzarella and provolone and
(45:36):
prosciutto down there and startserving it the right way.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
That could be done.
Bread you're going to have tobake, so you're going to need
the ovens or whatever.
There's an awesome bakery inFort Lauderdale, florida, on Las
Olas Boulevard, and I'vementioned it before.
I can't even remember the nameof it.
So it could be done.
If it's done there, it's doneeverywhere.
Of course, he used to importthe water from New York, but now
(46:00):
my friend has built a waterfiltration system that he's
selling all over in Florida toall the restaurants all over in
Florida and he's in FortLauderdale and he really is and
I don't know the name of hiscompany.
I will certainly mention itwhen we come back.
His filtration systems havechanged the water for
(46:21):
restaurants and baking inFlorida and that part of Florida
and soon to be all over.
They built an amazing system.
He spent his whole life doingwater filtration and he's
created something that's reallyamazing, so Interesting.
So that is, if you're going tobake, created something that's
really amazing Interesting.
So that is, if you're going tobake bread, that's what you need
.
Anyway, thank you so much.
Thank you for everything.
Great to have you here.
(46:42):
Welcome to the first time tothe studio here, and that's it.
Hopefully, next week we'll bewith George and I'm sure we're
going to have Tony on again.
Thank you all.
Enjoy the rest of your day,night or morning, whatever the
(47:06):
case may be.
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