Like a Bad Penny

It has been a long time since I posted.  It has actually been close to two years since I made my last entry to this blog. It isn't because I have lost my interest in writing or cooking.   Quite the opposite, actually.   I have been writing like crazy, trying to catalogue all of our family's recipes for a family cookbook. Our family has been through some significant losses over the past few years and the need to chronicle and preserve the family legacy seems more pressing to me these days.

My goal for the cookbook is to have it ready to distribute to family and friends by Christmas of this year.  I don't know if I will look to distribute it beyond the immediate family, but if not, I think that a good deal of the content will end up here.  And for that reason, I think it's time to come back to this forum and catch up.

When I put up my last post "Channeling my Inner Nonna", in December 2016, I was fresh off a trip to Sicily, Italy and London.  We have since gone back to all three, as the pull of Sicily is strong, due to our family heritage and we can't be in the region and not go to Rome. London, a relatively new discovery for us is just great fun.  I have to say, it is the most spectacularly drunk town that I have ever been to and it has THE WORST traffic.  I would say that the traffic problem in London is far worse than New York City, which is pretty rotten in its own right.

Our most recent trip to Sicily centered around Palermo, a city that was surprising to me on many levels.  I think I was expecting it to be gritty and dirty and tough, like Naples, but moreso.  I could not have been more incorrect.  Palermo is beautiful and elegant and full of history.  With side trips to Erice, Trapani and Mondello, the beauty of north eastern Sicily unfolded like a flower, revealing layer after beautiful layer.

So without much fanfare, I return to the place where I began the journey of chronicling my adventures in cooking and travel. I have new things to share and many reflections on the past that are currently bubbling under the surface. I never considered myself a writer, more of a kibitzer. Someone who makes snarky comments from the sidelines, but is never really in the game.  My goal is to change that and to jump in with both feet. Let's see where this goes...

Alcamo Beach Sicily

Teatro Massimo

Theater Horse

Dramatic Theater Horse

Horses that are probably jealous of the Theater Horse

Palermo Marina

Cannoli

The breakfast of champions

Channeling my Inner Nonna

You ever have one of those days where everything aches for no reason and you walk slow, deliberate and a little like you have a poop in your pants?  Think Fred Sanford, but less elegant.  No? Just me?

OK, whatever.

When I have those kind of days, I think of it as coming down with a case of "The Grandmas".  When you get a case of The Grandmas, everything aches, it takes forever to walk from one side of the house to the other and you forget how to use all your electronic devices.

But sometimes, instead of a case of The Grandmas, you get a case of "The Nonnas".  When you get a case of The Nonnas, you become an elderly superwoman.  You put on your housecoat, cook all day and all night, wash and fold 40 loads of laundry and pick vegetables from your beautiful backyard garden (even if you have neither a back yard or a vegetable garden, when you get The Nonna's they magically appear).

Last weekend, I got a wicked case of The Christmas Nonnas.  I was posessed by the impulse to make Struffoli.  For those of you that don't know what Struffoli are, they are little round balls of fried dough, soaked in a honey syrup and covered with non-pareils.  If you grew up with at least one Italian grandmother, you know what they are and you have warm memories of being shooed away from pots of hot oil, being covered in honey from head to toe and not being able to put anything down after you pick it up because everything sticks to your fingers.

My Nonna did not leave me a recipe for these delightful treats and honestly, I have not ever wanted to make them before because I hate frying.  I hate the smell it leaves in the house, I hate the mess and I hate spatter burns.  But, when the spirit of Christmas mixes with the spirit of Nonna, the compulsion for struffoli can outrun my more neurotic, Felix Unger-type tendencies. Being that I did not have a recipe from my own Nonna, I did what any red blooded Italian Grandmother would do...I used the Internet.

What I found is that there are no shortage of recipes for Struffoli.  Everyone who calls themself an Italian cook has a version - Giada DeLarentiis, Lidia Bastianich, Mario Batali.  They all look pretty good and the recipes are similar...flour, eggs, a splash of alcohol, honey, etc.  But since I was overcome with the spirit of Nonna, I went to the source, Cooking with Nonna.

If you have not seen this adorable series, a young Italian American woman, Rossella Rago, cooks traditional Italian and Italian American recipes with grandmothers.  Yours, hers, any Italian nonna that will sit still long enough to teach her a recipe.  It's quite charming and sweet and it spreads the joy of having an Italian grandmother to everyone.  The recipe that I used, along with a "how to" video can be found here.  Enjoy and Buon Natale!

Fry me a River

Sometimes life is about a big glass of Brunello and some amazing Tuscan steak and sometimes it's about down-home chicken and waffles.  And even though we wish that every trip outside of NY was to Italy, that's just not possible (though I do have an aggressive lottery plan in place, which may yield this desired result someday). This weekend's travel outside of NY was about Maryland and Chicken and Waffles and family, which made it a great trip.

Chicken and waffles is awesome because it's chicken and waffles. Even more so because that chicken is fried, and who doesn't love fried chicken?  If I had to declare a relationship status with fried chicken, it would be "complicated". Some might call it "bat shit crazy". Tomato/tomahto. I say it is complicated because I have requirements. There is nothing simple or straight forward about my preparation or consumption of fried chicken.  Let me explain...

I rarely fry chicken at home, but when I do, it's a something of a process.  I marinate the chicken overnight in buttermilk laced with hot sauce and smashed garlic cloves, roll it in seasoned flour and deep fry it until it is GBD.  When it's on the plate, it's a thing of beauty.  But to get to the beauty shot, you have to endure a huge mess and the frying leaves the house kind of stinky for a few days and of course, it requires that I have repeated and prolonged contact with raw chicken, which really wigs me out. So, I don't make it that often. I think it's safe to say that if I make you fried chicken, I really, really love you. No, really.

Also, fried chicken is not the healthiest thing on the menu, so if you are going to have it out somewhere, it needs to be really good.  There is nothing worse than ordering fried chicken and receiving a plate of soggy, tasteless or worse, underdone chicken.  GERMOPHOBE ALERT!  The mere sight of underdone chicken gets me running for the shower and a prophylactic dose of Imodium. No can deal.

We went to Maryland for a 5K run for cancer research for a family member who is fighting the disease.  Now don't get ahead of yourself, I didn't do anything crazy, like run.  I walked.  Mock if you will, but it was about support, not race time (although I think officials that timed the race were a little annoyed when I sauntered through the finish line around dusk).  Whatever.  OK, I exaggerated that slightly. We finished in time for a late breakfast and since I was with other folks that actually ran, a hearty breakfast of chicken and waffles was in order.

Restaurant and bar shopping in this part of Maryland can be a little challenging.  There are lots of chains.  Chains as far as you can see. There is no fun in that.  But we lucked out and found this local joint in Owings Mills, called Granny's.

Granny's bills itself on its website as "good down-home cooking".  Finding that home is slightly daunting, but worth the hunt.  It's kind of buried in a shopping center that is buried inside a corporate office park.  It's not a "blink and you'll miss it" kind of place.  It's more of a squint and go slow until you find it kind of place. But it's totally worth the eye strain.

I went in to Granny's on a mission. And although their menu was full of delicious sounding things, for this visit, I was laser-focused on the chicken and waffles.  I ordered the classic, which came with 5 wings.  They also offered it with chicken tenders, but c'mon, I'm not five.  I want to be wrist deep in chicken grease or it just isn't fried chicken.

Let me tell you, they sling a MEAN waffle; it's fluffy, golden brown and topped with an ice cream scoop of whipped butter. And the chicken is fried properly. They pull it out of the fryer when it is juicy and tender inside and crispy golden outside.  And although I was mildly distracted by the tasty side of fried apples that it came with (kind of like a bowl of apple pie innards), it was all about the sweet and savory combo of chicken and waffles. Heavenly!

I mean, just look at it.  Did you not drool immediately?  If you answered no, get thee to a doctor, have your pulse checked, something is just wrong.  That's what yummy looks like.  It was good enough for me to consider calling Owings Mills MD, a food destination. And that's saying something.




'