Friday is Spaghetti Day

In our house Wednesday is not Prince spaghetti day, Friday is. That makes no sense to you unless you’re around my age, grew up in Massachusetts and remember this commercial of a mother leaning out her North End window calling her son home for a Wednesday meal of Prince spaghetti. Anthony!

Friday is actually anything goes for dinner day. Jim and I trade off the week nights but we don’t normally make dinner plans for Friday. We either attack our leftovers, have pizza or, if I get a hankering, we might have an impromptu pasta meal using whatever’s in the refrigerator or cupboard.

I always have a few jars of prepared tomato, or spaghetti, sauce in the cupboard, just in case. However, I don’t think I’ve ever just dumped a jar of sauce in a pot and called it done. I always doctor it up. You could do the same with a can of pureed or crushed tomatoes.

Anthony!

Friday Night Spaghetti Sauce

You’ll need a large pasta pot with lid, large skillet and colander. I don’t give ingredient amounts because there are no rules. You might want a chunky sauce with lots of ingredients or a lighter sauce with scant ingredients. It’s Friday, wing it! You can’t go wrong with this dish.

• Pasta – I prefer linguine or fettuccine, but of course spaghetti is fine.
  
• Optional meat base: ground beef, turkey, Italian sausage (crumbled or sliced), bacon (chopped) or pancetta (chopped). If you have meatballs, lucky you.
  
• Vegetable base: onion, mushrooms and green bell pepper, chopped or sliced. If all you have is onion, that’s fine.
  
• Salt
• 2-4 cloves garlic, minced
• Red wine – you can leave it out if you don’t have some.
  
• Prepared tomato or spaghetti sauce (or substitute canned pureed or crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, sugar or carrots)
• Dried herbs and spices – basil (or pesto), oregano, thyme, crushed red pepper flakes and freshly ground black pepper
• Italian flat-leaf parsley, chopped
• Grated cheese

Put your water on to boil in a covered large pot. When water comes to a boil, add pasta and salt, and stir it all up. Let water come back to boil, give it another good stir and then let it cook according to package instructions.

If your meat isn’t yet cooked, cook it until done in a large skillet, breaking up ground meat into large or fine crumbles, depending on your preference. When finished, transfer the meat to a plate, draining the fat. Leave behind at least 1 Tbsp of fat in the pan.

Add olive oil to the pan if necessary. Add onion, mushroom and green bell pepper, sprinkle with salt and sauté until the vegetables are just starting to soften. Then add garlic and sauté 1 minute or until just turning golden.

Add a splash or two of red wine to the pan and let it reduce. Then add the prepared tomato sauce.

If you’re using pureed or crushed tomatoes instead of prepared sauce, add it along with 1 Tbsp of tomato paste and a bit of sugar. You could omit the sugar and instead add a diced small carrot to your vegetable base. You might have to go a bit heavier on the herbs too.

Add dried herbs and spices – basil or pesto, oregano, thyme, crushed red pepper flakes and freshly ground black pepper. If you’re using fresh herbs, add them with the parsley at the end.

When sauce is heated through, taste it for seasoning, make any adjustments and finish with Italian flat-leaf parsley.

Drain the cooked pasta and add it to the sauce. Stir well to combine.

Serve the pasta with lots of grated cheese, garlic bread, green salad and lots of red wine. Buon appetito!

Beer, Pilgrims and the First Thanksgiving

“We could not now take time for further search or consideration, our victuals being much spent, especially our beer, and it being now the 19th of December.”

Those words from the diary of a Mayflower passenger are attributed to William Bradford who later became the governor of Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts. The Mayflower’s original destination was the Hudson River but the overcrowded ship was running out of supplies, so after scouting around Cape Cod, they landed in Plymouth.

Beer was a mainstay of the diet back then because water was full of naughty micro-organisms and unsafe to drink, especially on board a ship. The Mayflower was loaded with casks of beer for the journey across the Atlantic. But dwindling beer wasn’t the only problem, with winter’s arrival they were also running out of time to build a settlement.

Did the Pilgrims have beer at the iconic first Thanksgiving with Native Americans? Beer romantics says yes, but beer historians say no. Given all the other challenges, building a brewery wouldn’t have been a priority yet, never mind having enough malted barley. But the beer at Thanksgiving myth lives on, and, frankly, I like it.

It’s more likely that first feast was accompanied by wine made from local grapes, and beer didn’t return until feasts in the years following. Modern day pilgrims to Plymouth can visit Mayflower Brewing. They just brewed their first seasonal, Thanksgiving Ale — a blend of American Strong Ale and English Old Ale that’s aged on American white oak. Maybe my dad will save me one to try at Christmas. Hint hint!  [Update: Dad came through; three bottles are waiting for me in Massachusetts. Thanks, Dad!]

There are plenty of blog posts suggesting the best wines for Thanksgiving – pinot noir is my favorite. Here are some suggestion for good craft beers.

• Turkey Day Beer Pairings from Ladies of Craft Beer – A mid-Atlantic list.
• Thanksgiving Day Beer List from Randy Mosher – His selections might be the easiest to find. If you can get your hands on The Bruery’s Autumn Maple, buy it up — limited distribution and infinite flavor.
• What to Drink at Thanksgiving: Beer from Serious Eats – Hard to find but exquisite beers (Goose Island, Odell and Founder’s).

If beer isn’t for you, Serious Eats has recommendations for another artisanal option — cider. With so many interesting seasonal beers appearing on the shelves in November, I find myself neglecting cider — an oversight I’ll have to correct. A trip to a good beer (and wine and cider) store might be in my near future.

Mayflower II in Plymouth Harbor

New England Road Trip

My best friend had plans to attend her freshman daughter’s Parents Weekend at the University of Vermont in Burlington. Her husband wanted to stay home with their high school son so they asked me if I could take time off to go. She planned to stop in Boston to visit her other daughter, a college junior at Boston University, so we could add a trip to my parents in southern Massachusetts too.

Road trip? New England in the fall? Parents? Pretend nieces? I’m in! It’s at times like these that I’m glad I’m a freelancer and can work around my life.

Stop #1: Arlington VA

I packed a chicken parmigiana sandwich and drove to Arlington where I met up with Mary.

Stop #2: Pelham NY (one night)

We left Virginia around 5 p.m. and drove to Pelham NY where we spent the night with our friend Kathy whom we’ve known since college. We unwound with a few glasses of red wine and some delicious homemade chicken and pasta soup.

Stop #3: Burlington VT (two nights)

The rain stayed with us a few hours the next morning but cleared in time for our drive along the west side of Lake George. Mary told me that my birthday buddy, Rachel Ray, grew up in Lake George. It’s a beautiful place and must be buzzing during the summer. We stopped along the way for cider donuts and cookies –  the most delicious maple walnut cookie I’ve ever had.

We took a ferry across Lake Champlain, drove through the pretty town of Vergennes and ended up at Stephanie’s dorm room. Apparently Foursquare isn’t that popular with college students because I became Mayor of her dorm after two check-ins.

That evening we headed downtown to the pedestrian-only section of Church Street. Because of Parents Weekend and Homecoming it was a busy night, and since we hadn’t made dinner reservations we had to find the shortest list. Later I found out that the Farmhouse Tap & Grill with its locally sourced food and beer is THE place to go. While we waited for a table at Scuffer Steak and Ale House we browsed through the Firehouse Center for Visual Arts and a few shops.  At Scuffer I had two good beers by local brewery Switchback and a good sandwich.

The next morning we wandered through a harvest fair on campus, checking out the cows, homemade wool sweaters and winter accessories — winter in Burlington, brrrr — and sampling cheese curds, freshly pressed apple juice and ice cream from Gifford’s.

After an obligatory trip to Walmart to stock up her dorm room, we headed to Magic Hat Brewery. The tour guide was funny in an irreverent way you would expect from Magic Hat but it wasn’t a walk-through of the brewery, we only looked down on parts of it from above. They weren’t brewing or bottling so it was very quiet down there. But there were samples after the tour. I got to try six different brews. Of course they had #9, their signature ale with hints of apricot. I wasn’t in the mood for the Fall 2010 Odd Notion, a Belgian style wit made with green apples, but I loved the Hex (“malty amber ale with hints of toffee and caramel and a slightly smoky finish’), HIPA (big balanced hoppy IPA), and Blind Faith (another great IPA). They also had an odd beet-flavored beer on tap in the brewery – refreshingly red, a good summer beer.

Load that pallet into the car!

We stopped at Lake Champlain Chocolates where it wasn’t a production day either, like the brewery, but we had a few delicious samples and I revived myself with a maple latte. I can’t get enough of maple. Must be my New England roots.

We took a cruise in Lake Champlain on The Spirit of Ethan Allen. We didn’t see Champ (the lake monster) but enjoyed the views of the beautiful Adirondacks of New York and Green Mountains of Vermont while snacking from a picnic basket of cheese, meats, baguette and other nibblies from Vie de France.

Stop #4: Boston MA

On our way out of town we stopped at the Ben & Jerry’s Factory in Waterbury VT. Keeping with the theme, they weren’t in production either. That’s okay, we got free ice cream after the tour.

We made our way southeast through hills filled with autumn colors and lonely farms. By afternoon we arrived on Commonwealth Avenue, aka Boston University, truly an urban campus, so different from UVM. After another obligatory shop-and-stock-the-pantry trip with older daughter and serious Redskins fan Maggie, we returned to her apartment to watch the game. But Mary plugged in a lamp that we now know wasn’t wired properly and blew a fuse sending half the apartment into the dark. No more game. After two hours of brisk walking to closed hardware stores and finally a drive to Home Depot, we got the power back on and headed out to dinner.

I’ve been reading about Sunset Grill and Tap as a craft beer lover’s destination for years and was excited to finally go since it was a short walk from Maggie’s apartment. They have a crazy good draft list (see pic to right), and their bottle list is pages long. I had two drafts, Southern Tier Pumking and Founders Breakfast Stout, along with fish and chips that were accompanied by a really good sundried cranberry and scallion coleslaw.

Stop #5: North Easton MA (two nights)

We didn’t arrive at my parents’ house until 11 p.m., but they were up to greet us, as were their other houseguests — my sister-in-law Monica, her mom, and my niece. Monica had meetings along the east coast so she and her brood were staying in MA for a few days with my parents before heading to DC the next morning. Since Monica lives in California with my brother and her mom lives in Alaska, it was a thrill to see them.

The next day we picked up Maggie at the T station in Quincy and drove down to Plymouth. We bring all our out-of-state visitors to Plymouth to see the Plymouth Rock and Mayflower, although the real reason we go is to have fried clams and lobster rolls on the Town Wharf. I prefer The Lobster Hut because they have Mayflower Brewing beers on tap, but my parents prefer Wood’s Seafood, so that’s where we went.

No trip home is complete without fried clams, lobster, and one more thing – linguica pizza. Our final stop in Massachusetts was the Union Villa in North Easton to bring home some linguica, onion and mushroom pizza. I took the leftovers home to North Carolina.

It's even good cold!

Stop #6: Moorestown NJ

Tuesday we were back on the road south again, with a stop for lunch in Moorestown NJ to visit with Mary’s dad. We timed it right because in just a few days this 91 year old was heading to Russia for a two-week trip to Moscow, St. Petersburg and a Volga River cruise.

Stop #7: Arlington VA

We made it back to my old city, Arlington, VA in time for one of Scott’s famously delicious dinners. When I lived in Arlington, I was a frequent Saturday night diner at Mary and Scott’s house. Scott would spend a few hours in the kitchen, a game on TV, a glass of wine (or Rolling Rock) nearby and an open stained cookbook on the counter. This time he went Italian and made Pork Ragù al Maialino – torn pasta with a braised pork shoulder ragu. When I left for North Carolina the next morning, I was thinking, I wish I had those leftovers! Now that I have the recipe I’ll have to make it myself.

Home. The End.

Jordan Marsh Blueberry Muffins

I grew up in Massachusetts — land of Filene’s and Jordan Marsh department stores, both chains now long gone. The Jordan Marsh in Braintree in the South Shore Shopping Plaza had a counter where you could buy their famous blueberry muffins. I’m not sure if the muffins were baked there or at their downtown Boston store, but they were the best blueberry muffins to be found in Massachusetts.

Long ago I cut out a recipe for these muffins from the Boston Globe. That clipping is long gone but the recipe is still on an index card. Now that local blueberries are plentiful, this is my go-to recipe for blueberry muffins — a taste of my childhood.

Jordan Marsh Blueberry Muffins

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 2 cups unsifted flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2-1/2 cups fresh blueberries
• 1-1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 tablespoons sugar (for top of muffins)

photo by flickr/stevegarfield

Preheat oven to 375. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition.

In a second bowl, combine all dry ingredients. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter and sugar mixture along with the milk and vanilla.

Mash 1/2 cup of the blueberries, and stir in by hand (this will turn batter a light shade of blue and add a touch of blueberry flavor, but this step may be skipped, if you wish). Add the remaining whole berries and stir in gently by hand.

If you have trouble with blueberries settling to the bottom, toss them in flour before adding to the batter. It may just be that your batter is too thin. Another trick is to fill muffin cups 1/4 full with batter that hasn’t had blueberries added to it yet; then stir the blueberries in and continue to fill the muffin cups.

Spray a 12 muffin baking pan. Fill greased muffin cups 3/4 full. Sprinkle sugar on top of unbaked muffins.

Bake for 25-30 minutes. Cool in pan. Run a knife around the edge of each muffin after several minutes to free it from the pan and cool on wire racks. Muffins may be brushed with melted butter and sprinkled with sugar, if desired.

Old School Memories – Chicken Parmigiana

Time flew away from me the other night and all of a sudden it was 7:00 pm. I was hungry and I hadn’t even thought about dinner. I had chicken breasts ready to go but no inspiration. So, as usually happens in these situations, I fall back to what I know from my Italian restaurant days – menus that are imprinted in my brain. That usually means pasta, but when I opened the frig I saw tomato sauce, grated parmigiano and mozzarella. Inspired! Chicken parmigiana, the old-school Italian-American menu staple.

My first waiting job was the summer between my freshman and sophomore years in college. That was also the last summer I spent home in Massachusetts. My dad pulled some strings and arranged for me to get a job at his regular lunch place, George’s Cafe – a busy Italian restaurant in Brockton, MA. It’s been owned by the Tartaglia family for 70 years. One of the uncles worked for Rocky Marciano so there was boxing memorabilia all over the bar. Most of the staff were related somehow, either Tartaglias or Marcianos – all Sicilian-Americans and lifers in the restaurant industry. Charlie ran the place, often as maitre d’ on busy nights, all glammed up in his white suit, black shirt and gold pendant, working the crowd of regulars. His daughter, who was only a few years older than me, ran the kitchen and worked the sauté station. She was tough and had no patience for errors. I was the youngest and least experienced by far. I don’t think any of them thought I would last, but it turns out I was a natural at waiting tables.

One of the waitresses told me I’d never work in a place as strange as George’s. She might have been right. Their ordering system involved different colored pencils. We were called to pick up food with a coded bell system that was usually abused by impatient cooks. There were regular kitchen blow-ups that somehow ended up with us on the receiving end of a tirade or cooks exchanging blows out in the parking lot. But when things cooled down, they could be the nicest people. I learned how to deal with all kinds of customers, became a fast and efficient waitress and made some really good money considering I was working in a tough old city like Brockton.

The menu was typical old-school fare – veal, chicken, seafood, pasta and pizza. I see the same kind of menu still all over southern Massachusetts. The food was good and I still visit there sometimes when I go home. I once had the best spaghetti carbonara of my life there – I still think about it.

Here’s how I make chicken parmigiana. You’ll need:

• Boneless skinless chicken breasts, pounded thin
• Dish of beaten egg, salt and pepper
• Dish of bread crumbs mixed with some parmigiana cheese or green can parmesan
• Olive oil
• Marinara or jarred spaghetti sauce
• Grated mozzarella cheese

Dip the chicken in the egg wash and then in the bread crumb/cheese mixture, making sure to get all sides covered. Let them rest for 5-10 minutes. Heat up the oil and sauté the breasts on both sides until they’re golden-brown. Put them in a baking pan. Top each with some sauce and mozzarella. Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes or until the chicken is done and the cheese just turns golden-brown.

Serve with spaghetti marinara and pour yourself a glass of red wine. Cin cin!