Holidays – Globe South Dish

Aunt Chris and Uncle Luigi’s pretty table

Joan Wilder — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 18:43:10 +0000

My mother’s brother, Louie, or Luigi, Rotello, like almost all his five siblings, married non-Italians. In my mother’s case, it was a Jew she wed, and in Uncle Luigi’s, it was a longtime Yankee whose ancestry goes back to the Mayflower. And Chris and Louie made a beautiful home together, what with his handy ways, great cooking, and gardening — and her sense of beauty. She always makes sure her many beautiful silver pieces, cutlery, and crystal are polished beautifully.

This is a picture of their annual Thanksgiving dinner table, as it was this year.

Cooking with Chef Kevin Long at Tosca

Joan Wilder — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 12:43:00 +0000

Wondering what would be special for holiday eats, I called one of my favorite chefs, Kevin Long, to see what he was doing.

“I thought oysters with a pomegranate mignonette would be kind of fun,” said Long, when I walked into Tosca in Hingham one afternoon last week. The chef stood all in white behind the marble bar in the open kitchen presiding over a countertop covered with colorful foods. Behind him, smoke and steam wafted up as several cooks prepped the evening meal.

At first I thought there wouldn’t be much to a raw oyster dish to share with readers.

But, I was wrong.

Long treats each ingredient with such care that even a simple preparation becomes an education (and an inspiration) in good cooking. Mention something about food, and he’s all over it: a fount of enthusiasm and ideas about everything that has anything to do with food.

Turns out a mignonette is a simple sauce typically served with oysters. Long decided to flavor this one with pomegranate because the fruit is available this time of year, delicious, and festive.

Before my arrival, he’d prepped all the ingredients in pretty little bowls, along with a few ounces of deep crimson pomegranate juice.

Of course the chef hadn’t used a juicer, he’d mashed the seeds with a mojito mallet (actually called a muddler), then pressed the juice from the mash in a strainer.

As Long assembled the ingredients in a small stainless bowl, I gathered some of his comments.

Four tablespoons of ice water: “Ice water is an integral part of my world.”

Two tablespoons plain white vinegar: “You want the taste of the juice to shine.”

One tablespoon fresh minced thyme: “Buy one package for the holidays and use the rest for stuffing.”

A couple pinches of cracked black pepper: “You crack it with the side of a knife.” (“Really?” “Yup.”)

One tablespoon chopped shallots: “We dice them then run them under cold water for 20 minutes through a colander. We do it with all onions – the whole allium family. It takes away the mucilaginous film and makes them taste cleaner, brighter, better.”

One tablespoon raw brown sugar: “I prefer demerara, it’s a little more molasses-y.” (He didn’t have any).

Three tablespoons pomegranate juice: “I’d have 10 guys squeezing pomegranates all day for the juice if I could, it’s so delicious.”

After swishing the sauce all together, he let it sit.

Long has his way of handling oysters, too. He keeps them iced down in the sink for at least an hour prior to shucking to make them easier to open. He uses the sink so the melted ice can drain.

“You don’t want to drowned them, they’re alive,” he says.

After shucking, he keeps them on ice in a perforated pan, so they don’t get all wet.

We talk for five minutes about ways a home cook who doesn’t have a perforated hotel pan could do this.

“If there’s snow on the ground, you could lay them in a show bank,” he says, pretty seriously. (I’m imagining little structures I could build around them for protection from animals out there on the snow.)

The chef shucks an oyster so easily it doesn’t seem like a real oyster. He says the key is a razor sharp knife. Holding the bivalve in a folded kitchen towel, he tucks his blade into the little notch at the hinge end and slides it in and around one side, then the other, and lifts off the top. But, that isn’t the end of it.

Before severing the muscle that attaches the bivalve to the bottom shell, he swishes it in an ice bath.

“I tell people I wash them, and they go crazy, but it really works,” says Long, opening another oyster and rubbing his finger along the edge of the shell to show me all the grit that comes away.

“I insist that you bathe them.”

He then cuts the muscle and lifts the meat free to reveal a pool of oyster liquor beneath.

Setting them on ice, he spoons some pomegranate mignonette over each and sprinkles a few ruby-colored seeds on top, and we each have one.

They’re beautiful: briny, sweet, savory, exciting mouthfuls.

As we sit in the rich atmosphere of the magnificent, bustling restaurant for a few last minutes before Long has to hustle back to work, somehow the idea of left over shucked oysters comes up.

“Stuff and bake them,” he says. “I’m obsessed with the lost classic New England dishes like seafood newburg, lobster thermidor, anything with bread stuffing drenched in Dry Sack sherry. I love them!”

It’s tempting to conclude that attention to detail makes a great chef.

But really, what makes a great chef is attention to everything involved in the procuring, handling, preparing, and serving of food.

Whether it’s chasing down locally grown produce, dedicating a cooler to dry-aging meats, or running water over shallots for 20 minutes, obsessive, passionate love and focus on food is at the heart of a chef’s talent.

And Kevin Long’s got it bad.

Ginger Betty rocks gingerbread 365 days a year

Joan Wilder — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 18:16:00 +0000

I’ve always liked hearing about people who loved something when they were kids and kept loving it year in and year out and ended up turning it into something big and beautiful as adults.

That’s what Beth Veneto, aka Ginger Betty, did with a love of gingerbread she discovered when she was 10.

In college, studying hotel management, she convinced her boss at a doughnut shop in Hicksville, N.Y., to let her make gingerbread. She did the same thing at her job at a nearby country club where she fashioned Hanukah houses. After getting her degree and a job at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square, she quit the job and moved home to Quincy with no idea what to do. But through it all, she never stopped making gingerbread: When she worked for a South Shore caterer then an insurance company, she sold gingerbread houses to her customers.

Today, Veneto runs what must be the most extensive gingerbread making shop in the Boston area. If you’re looking for a place to buy gingerbread houses, gingerbread house kits to decorate at home, ginger bread cookies or cookie kits, and all sorts of other sugary, spicy, and nice gingerbread constructions, then Ginger Betty is your girl.

But Ginger Betty’s Bakery isn’t merely a retail outlet, it’s a destination. Veneto has created a colorful shop overflowing with gingerbread confections of every type, and that’s not all. There are soda fountain tables where kids can decorate gingerbread cookies or houses, a party room with a long table where groups can do the same, and all sorts of penny candies, treats, and drinks for the choosing. And, while you’re browsing or picking up an order, you can check out her very sweet children’s book, The Gingerbread Girl.

As Ginger Betty builds a little house for me in the big kitchen (Zip! Zip! Zip! Her practiced hand lays down thick lines of the royal icing that holds the walls together), she talks about all the people who’ve come into her life through her work. There are so many: a friend’s nine-year-old daughter who loved gingerbread like Veneto did at that age; a child with cancer whose Make-a-Wish Foundation wish was to visit Ginger Betty’s; Mama Maria, the mother of Elizia, who’s worked with her for 10 years; the guys from the Quincy National Guard who help with the G.I. Ginger Betty Foundation.

Yup, that’s right: Five years ago, after meeting a soldier on an airplane, Veneto started a foundation. She raises money by giving parties and soliciting donations, and sends her (delicious) chocolate-drizzled soft gingersnaps to service people in Iraq and Afghanistan — and gingerbread houses to their families at home. For this effort, she’s received a commendation from the U.S. Department of Defense.

“We create a few smiles at a difficult time,” said Veneto.

Veneto opened her first shop in a small space in Quincy in 1995, although nobody could understand how a year-round gingerbread business could fly. Her idea? To make gingerbread, not just for the winter holidays, but for all holidays — as well as anniversaries, birthdays, weddings, and corporate events.

Which is exactly what she’s doing.

One recent morning, a group of seniors decorated gingerbread cookies in the shop’s party room while two three-year-olds decorated theirs at a table out back. As the kitchen buzzed with activity (she has 35 employees during the holiday season) Veneto checked out photos of the Gillette Building in South Boston.

“We’re making a replica of this,” she said. “It’ll be about three by four feet.”

Not that custom gingerbread houses are new to Veneto – she’s been making them or years. (In November, her enormous Willy Wonka house won Best in Show at The Gingerbread House Competition at Boston’s Seaport World Trade Center.) It’s just that the Gillette gingerbread house will have to be ready in two days.

Not a problem for Ginger Betty. She loves what she does.

215 Samoset Ave., Quincy www.gingerbettys.com

Uncle Luigi’s Turkey: the best recipe

Joan Wilder — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 16:28:00 +0000

I was at the market the other day and noticed two different women asking the butcher how to make a turkey. Which is funny since most of us make them every year yet somehow forget what to do. I used to be that way, but not anymore.

Here’s a tried and true recipe that results in succulent, seasoned dark meat, moist aromatic white meat, and crispy skin. I’m not a spectacular cook, but this is a spectacular turkey and I’d put it up against anything Martha Stewart could pull out of her oven.

I got the recipe from one of the best cooks I know –- my Uncle Luigi [left], who knows a thing or two about poultry, having killed, plucked, and roasted his first chicken behind my grandparents’ Italian grocery store in Danbury, Conn., when he was eight.

I enjoy this turkey twice a year: at Uncle Luigi’s for Thanksgiving, and when I make it at home for Christmas.

The recipe requires a bit of work the day before you cook it – as well as an hour or so just before putting it in the oven – for stuffing, trussing, and buttering up the bird. Making the stuffing of your choice will take more time.

But the beauty of this method, aside from the taste, is that it requires no work at all once it’s in the oven. (Which gives you tons more time to kill yourself cooking other things – or to enjoy the day!)

A number of factors make this recipe work so beautifully. Salting the bird seasons the meat and helps keep it moist (and is much easier than brining). Water in the roasting pan, the loosely placed foil cover over the turkey, and the low oven temperature combine to create a self-basting environment. And, lastly, removing the cover near the end of the cooking time crisps the skin.

Uncle Luigi’s Turkey Recipe

Very important shopping note: Do not sail into a market and buy a frozen turkey the day before Thanksgiving. They take three to four days to thaw in the refrigerator. Almost all markets have fresh birds, so buy one of those or, if using a frozen bird, which is perfectly fine, be sure to give it plenty of time to defrost.

What you need

A 20-pound turkey, although any size turkey will work; just adjust the other ingredients.
1 cup salt
3/4 stick unsalted butter at room temperature
1/2 cup vegetable oil
A large roasting pan
A large V- or U-shaped rack to hold turkey inside pan
Cooking string

Extra wide aluminum foil

A simple meat thermometer if you’re inexperienced at determining when the turkey is done.

Wednesday:

1. Remove any giblets and wash the bird in the sink with running water, inside and out.
2. Rub 3/4 cup of granulated (regular grind) salt all over the bird, and spread another ¼ cup as evenly as you can inside it.
3. Set the salted bird in the refrigerator for three hours.
4. Rinse the bird in the sink, for five to 10 minutes. Just keep rinsing it, inside and out. Rinse, rinse, rinse. [at right]
5. Dry it with a clean cloth.
6. Prop it in the roasting pan “sitting up,” somehow, so liquid can drain out the center cavity (I set it on the V-shaped rack I later use to roast it) and refrigerate until cooking time, letting it dry. (Luigi hangs his in his cold shed, but I don’t.)

Thanksgiving day:

7. Stuff the turkey with your choice of stuffing and truss – this is a simple way to tie the bird so it cooks more evenly.
8. Preheat oven to 335 degrees.
9. Rub the vegetable oil all over the bird.
10. Rub the butter all over it, too.
11. Place the bird on its back on the V-shaped rack.
12. Pour 1 cup of water in the roasting pan. DO NOT FORGET THIS.
13. Fashion an extra-large sheet of aluminum foil (or two sheets crimped together to make a wide expanse) into a dome and place it lightly over the turkey, without tucking it in.
14. Place bird in oven, and cook 15-18 minutes per pound. (A 20-pound turkey should cook somewhere between five and six hours. This recipe is for a stuffed turkey; if you don’t use stuffing, research cooking times, which will be shorter.)
15. Two-thirds of the way into the average total cooking time, open the oven as quickly as possible and pull off the foil.
16. When the shorter estimated cooking time is up, test for doneness. A thermometer should read at least 165 degrees when inserted deep in the thigh. (The temperature will continue to rise as the turkey rests.)
17. Remove turkey from oven and let it rest for 30 minutes before carving.
18. Smile and give thanks when everyone raves about how delicious the turkey is!

Better holiday eating without losing a thing

Joan Wilder — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:22:00 +0000

The holidays are here, and everywhere you go or look the focus is on feasting.
Fabulous foods tantalize from the covers of magazines while the workplace and marketplace are filled with holiday treats.
There are platters of cookies at the hair dressers; food samples at the grocery store; pie at the neighbors’; holiday drinks at your local café; gingerbread at school functions; finger food at parties; food talk on the radio, on television, and among friends and family members. Food, food, food.
For some, this is a great celebratory experience. But for many, it can be very difficult.
If you have a problem with overeating, or eating poorly — and millions do — there’s no harder time than the five weeks between Thanksgiving and New Years. And even if you don’t normally have a problem, holidays are fraught with stressors that can push your eating habits into the red zone.
“This is a classic time of year for anxiety,” said Mark Mincolla, Ph.D., a well-known Cohasset-based nutritionist and natural health care practitioner. “Old memories, family connections, traveling — can all trigger emotion-based eating. Food and alcohol are first in line for self-medicating.”
Hey, I know that not everybody has a problem with overeating. Plenty of people aren’t bothered by it — either because they don’t overeat (through some natural or cultivated habit), or simply because if they do overeat it doesn’t bother them.
But thousands of others really suffer — plunging into cycles of self-hatred, guilt, and physical pain when they eat too much.
I love that Frank Bruni, the former New York Times food critic, quit his job and published a book about his struggles with food earlier this year. It was very brave of him and helped thousands to acknowledge a problem that still carries much shame with it — like alcoholism and drug addiction do.

I know a little about how difficult it can be to overeat. For a couple years after college, I used to get up every morning with a vague plan to eat well, then end up breaking my promise to myself. But I found a way through. Now, I’m one of the lucky ones (or the very blessed): through some miracle, I never overeat and can consequently really enjoy and love food. And because I changed, I know that other people can change, too.
But I don’t for an instant underestimate the tricky complex of factors involved with transforming one’s eating habits. Behind all the pretty frosting, food exerts as raw and animalistic a force on our psyches as anything. Its associations are many, its roots deep in our minds and bodies. Will alone generally won’t work at dismantling the problem any better than it would if the task were getting a wild animal to sit.
But, small, gentle changes might.
So, I have a suggestion for anyone looking for a way through the next few weeks.
All it involves is choosing one good little eating behavior and doing it every single day until New Year’s Day.
That’s all. You don’t have to give up or change anything else.

“Don’t make dramatic changes this time of year,” said Mincolla, who highly values balance. “Dramatic change is destabilizing.”
This is how the two-step process works:
Step One: Don’t force changes in any of your eating habits, holiday eating obligations, or eating problems between now and the New Year. Accept them and let them be. Eat what you want.
Step two: Choose one — just one — of the following eating-based actions and do it every day along with everything else you do.

Here are your four choices, most of which Mincolla suggested:

Eat breakfast, no matter what.
According to Mincolla, eating breakfast keeps us stable and centered physically, emotionally, and psychologically. Numerous studies link missing breakfast with great increases in the incidence of obesity. If this is something you want to do but find hard, here are a couple quick and easy breakfasts:
- Greek-style non-fat yogurt with fruit. (Mincolla says that this thick, strained yogurt has a greater ratio of protein to carbohydrates than regular yogurt.)
- Spiru-tein protein powder with plain Silk soy milk (or, my suggestion, non-fat milk.)
- One or two hard-boiled eggs with a slice of high-quality whole-grain bread and a piece of fruit (my suggestion).
Fill each of two plastic bags with a quarter-cup of one or more of the following (raw or unsalted roasted) nuts and seeds, and eat them for morning and afternoon snacks: Almonds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, walnuts, or soy nuts. Aside from their protein, these nuts and seeds are high in tryptophan, which increases serotonin levels in the brain and promotes relaxation.
Drink a cup of rooibus (red bush) tea every afternoon, or any of the non-caffeinated Yogi (or similar) brand teas. Sit quietly for 10 minutes while you sip.
After dinner, eat a cup of this fruit dish, even if you’re going to eat dessert later: Fill a baking dish with a mixture of frozen berries, unsweetened canned peaches, and unsweetened canned pears. Sprinkle the mixture with cinnamon and some oatmeal and bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes.
That’s it. Chose one action and do it every day until Jan. 1. Then see what you’ve got.
Taking small steps in the right direction, consistently, is a powerful way to build good habits than can, eventually, replace the old.
May you be aware of the love around you this holiday season and enjoy some good food!

Mark Mincolla, Santi Holistic Healing, 12 Parking Way, Cohasset, 02025; 781-383-3393

Brown rice

Joan Wilder — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 08:22:00 +0000

Every Thanksgiving for all the years of their marriage, my parents would get up very early to wrestle an enormous turkey into the oven so it’d be cooked before the sun set. They filled our holidays and every day of our lives with an abundance of food as though it was nothing – as though it was truly their greatest pleasure.

Mostly he shopped and she cooked, but they each did both. My parents loved feeding their daughters — and anybody else who dropped by our house. My mother made dinner every single day, never a night off, never a “fend for yourself kids.” My father knew good fruits and vegetables and drove miles to get chickens or chuck roast on special, keeping our freezer full.
From the time I had my first apartment in college, my father would try to send me back to school with a case of tuna fish, even though I’d fight him off. And for years after I left home, my mother would regularly tell me how to roast a chicken.
“Joni, you know how to make a roast chicken, right?” she’d start, and although I’d impatiently snap, “Yes, Mom,” she’d continue right on instructing me.
It was always roast chicken, which must have been because chickens were cheap, simple to bake, and a great source of protein: if I could make a chicken, I’d always have something good to eat.
I guess she didn’t know what else she could do to care for me off on my own in a world beyond her reach.
I understand that now.
Food can speak volumes.
It was the only language I had one day last summer, when out of the blue, my first, serious, post-college boyfriend came to my house in Hull to have dinner with my husband and me.
When I got his phone message, I didn’t recognize his voice. But he’d said his name and the area code on the caller I.D. matched where he lives. I had followed his life from afar through a mutual friend, and knew that he’d suffered an unspeakable loss a while earlier. I knew that he’d left his law practice, bought a boat, and was on a month-long sail with a pal.
I called the number he left.
Our conversation was brief. He said he was on the North Shore on route to Hingham where some of his wife’s relatives lived. He said that if the wind was good, maybe we could have a cookout at their house that evening.
“Or, we could have it here,” I said, without thinking at all. We left it vague and hung up.
It was a Saturday, and my husband and I had just returned from a trip. I’d planned on doing very little that day, and suddenly I was maybe going to make dinner for a bunch of people.
But I couldn’t mobilize. I could not get myself to go to the store for food, even though I’d (sort of) offered to cook. I didn’t believe he was actually going to make it all that way (through the years or the nautical miles?) and be here for dinner. Besides, I thought, his relatives would most likely invite us over. He probably hadn’t even registered my faint invitation.
The only thing I was able to do as I waited to see if he was really coming, was make a big pot of brown rice.
Years before, when Sailor and I were together, we were vegetarians and ate lots of brown rice.
Do you know brown rice? Good, nourishing, full of fiber and B vitamins brown rice? It still occupies a central position as a basic staple in my world: sort of like, air, water, and brown rice.
I shucked several ears of corn and thought about how close we’d once been. How sweet and smart he was: how hurried I’d been to find my way to something big and important.
I broke a head of garlic apart and slowly minced a large pile of it, as I’d been doing for decades. I finely chopped carrots and thought about Sailor’s recent life. I couldn’t understand how people live through some of what we live through.
I stripped the kernels from the corn and sautéed them with the garlic and carrots, then added the mixture to the rice. With some soy sauce and toasted sesame oil for flavor, it was my old brown rice salad.
At five p.m., when I still hadn’t heard a thing I was so relieved — figuring that the evening was off. Then, at six, the sailor’s sister-in-law called from Hingham and somehow it ended up that everyone was headed to our house.
I raced to the store, got chicken (!), mesclun, and a watermelon, somehow managing to get everything together for grilling by the time I picked up the sailor and his mate at the A Street dock.
The relatives, my husband, and the sailor’s friend were a fun, talkative group that made any awkwardness easy. Sailor was as handsome as ever and seemed well — if somewhat dreamy and off on his own as though the sea had soothed a part of him away. He was hungry and ate a lot. Covertly, I watched his every mouthful, which included two big helpings of rice.
The food wasn’t great, but the brown rice, my delicious brown rice salad, saved me from feeling embarrassed by the otherwise mediocre meal. And it also served in another way, there in the center of the table. It was like a stand-in for Sailor and me, a stabilizing force, a ballast: holding who we were, what we’d become, and the present moment all in a big wooden bowl.
The rice was my mother’s roasting instructions, my father’s cases of tuna fish. I was helpless to stop life from hurting my old friend, but I could feed him.
I offered brown rice instead of the heart full of words I couldn’t utter – my sympathy over his daughter’s recent death.
I offered brown rice.
I offered brown rice.

Festa della Madonna della Luce

Joan Wilder — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 18:48:00 +0000

Last Sunday a small pine grove in Hingham erupted in picnic tables covered with food and hundreds of people.

The little-known annual celebration was the 51^st local Festa della Madonna della Luce – the Feast of the Mother of Light.

It takes place every year on the late August Sunday after a weeklong festival of the same name is held in the southern Italian town of Palermiti. The Hingham festival gives Americans with roots in Palermiti the chance to gather and celebrate their culture, their connection, and their faith in the miracles of their patron saint – the Mother of Light. And all of those things are expressed with and through the sharing of food.

The day begins at 10:30 a.m. when everyone gathers at the corner of Pine Street and Route 228 to follow a procession a quarter mile to the festival grounds. Leading the way is a truck carrying a life-sized statue of the Madonna followed closely by the Roma Band from Boston, playing as they march. And then come all the people.

After the procession reaches the park-like grove, at the dead end of the street, the Madonna is installed in a small open-air, stage-like building and a priest holds a mass in Italian. At one point in the mass, all the young children gather on the steps of the stage. As they sit, a woman tells the legend of the Mother of Light, the miracles she performed — her first was the saving of drowning boys — and how she came to be Palermiti’s patron. And the minute the story and the mass are over, the feast begins!

There are no food concessions at the festival, everyone brings their own. All over the grove, people uncover bowls and jars, platters, bottles, bags, and boxes of food. Camp stoves are fired up; a few stone grills heat large casseroles; plates are passed, children and grandparents are gathered, and everyone sits down to a meal together.

My father-in-law’s parents were from Palermiti and both my mother’s and my mother-in-law’s parents were from villages less than 20 miles away in the same province – Calabria. This is the poorest region of Italy and many say the most beautiful. It is a mountainous land on the Ionian Sea.

When my grandmother was a girl, she walked in the blackness of early morning to carry her vegetables to market to sell or barter for other food. Because she couldn’t see in the dark, she held a stick in constant contact with the mountainside so she wouldn’t fall off the path.

When life is that tough, people come to value food in a way that I have never known.

This shame-free acceptance of basic human needs – food, love, beauty, comfort, and money — this sensuality — lies at the heart of the Italian home.

“Giovanna, you want something to eat or drink?” says Frank Corrado as soon as we meet at the feast. It is the same refrain I hear over and over at the festival.

Corrado, who grew up in Palermiti and now lives near Hingham Harbor with his wife and young children, had five or six tables arranged for his extended family. At 5 p.m., when I arrived, tables all over the grove were still covered with food and the dance band was in full swing. (A hundred or more tables are stored in a shed for use on this one day.)

I didn’t join the feast this year: I had a houseful of company at home. But I visited and tasted Corrado’s chicken saltinbuca (fabulous) and felt comforted by the vast array of familiar people, food, and drink.

There were all types of pasta dishes – hot and cold — rotellini, tortellini, penne, and lasagna. There was brochetta; caprese; tomato, onion, and basil salads; shrimp and fish plates; breads and cheeses; platters of cookies; bowls of nuts; whole water melons and fruit salads everywhere; jugs, thermoses, pots, and bottles of espresso, wine, water, beer, and soda.

I’m not Catholic but I believe in the miracles of the Mother of Light. Hey, I believe in every sort of miracle, truly: hers and others. And I see them everywhere. But nowhere more than in the food that comes my way everyday.