It's Italian

Limoncello - Like Sunshine in a Bottle

2026-04-17T04:49:00.003-04:00

There are certain things Italians do that make absolutely no sense until you grow up around them.

Like keeping plastic on the furniture. Or arguing passionately about tomatoes. Or insisting that every ailment, from heartbreak to a stubbed toe, can be cured with a little something from the freezer.

And that “little something” at one of my friend's house was almost always Limoncello.

My earliest memory of it isn’t even drinking it. It was watching my friend Giovani's adult relatives pull a frosted bottle from the freezer like it was a holy relic. The glass would fog instantly. The liquid inside glowed that impossible yellow, somewhere between a lemon rind and a summer sunset. Gio's pop would pour it into tiny glasses that looked like they were stolen from a dollhouse, and everyone would sip it slowly and reverently, as if they were tasting the Amalfi Coast itself.

Limoncello isn’t just a drink. It’s a ritual.

It starts with lemons. Not the sad supermarket ones, but the big, fragrant, thick‑skinned monsters that smell like they were raised on opera and sea air. You peel them carefully, avoiding the bitter pith, and let the zest bathe in grain alcohol until it gives up every last drop of sunshine. Then you sweeten it, chill it, and wait.

Italians are good at waiting.

Especially when the reward is cold, sweet, and strong enough to make you forget your own name. Every family has a recipe, and every nonna swears hers is the best.

Every uncle insists the secret is more lemon or less sugar or something mysterious like “don’t shake it, you’ll bruise it.” This makes absolutely no sense, but you nod anyway because he is already halfway through his second glass.

And the thing about Limoncello is this: It isn’t fancy. It isn’t complicated. It isn’t even meant to be impressive. It is meant to be shared.

After a big meal, after a long day, after a story that went on too long, someone reaches into the freezer and pulls out that frosted bottle. Suddenly the night gets a little warmer, a little funnier, a little more Italian.

Here’s my recipe:

Homemade Limoncello

Prep 20 min

Cook Resting time: 7–30 days

Makes about 2 bottles

Ingredients

10 large lemons (thick‑skinned if possible)
1 liter grain alcohol or high‑proof vodka
3 cups water
2 cups sugar

Instructions

1 Wash the lemons thoroughly and peel them with a vegetable peeler. Avoid the white pith, which is bitter.

2 Place the lemon peels in a large glass jar and pour in the alcohol. Seal the jar and store it in a cool, dark place for at least 7 days. Longer is better.

3 When the infusion is ready, combine the water and sugar in a saucepan. Heat gently until the sugar dissolves, then cool completely.

4 Strain the alcohol to remove the lemon peels. Add the cooled syrup to the infused alcohol and stir.

5 Bottle the Limoncello and store it in the freezer. Serve ice cold in small glasses.

At the end of the day, Limoncello isn’t about lemons. What it's about is family, memory, and that kind of sweetness that lingers long after the glass is empty. And what it's really about? It’s tradition, and it's Italian.

2019-02-05T12:09:00.000-05:00

Insalata di Broccoli al Limone
(Broccoli salad with lemon)

1 head broccoli
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 lemon
6 cloves garlic

Wash the lemon and the broccoli cut the broccoli to the desired size.
Put the broccoli in a pot with boiling water and let it cook for about 10 to 15 minutes.
Drain the broccoli gently in a colander then place on paper towels to finish draining.
Place the broccoli in a deep rectangular glass container.
Cut the lemon into 6 wedges and halve each wedge.
Squeeze each wedge gently over the broccoli, but leave some juice in each lemon wedge.
Chop the Garlic into 1/3-of a-clove size pieces and distribute evenly throughout the broccoli.
Place the 12 lemon pieces peel side up evenly in the broccoli dish.
Chill the broccoli in the refrigerator for 1 to 2 hours before serving.
Drizzle 2 tablespoons of olive oil on the broccoli and serve.

Meatballs

2018-01-12T17:10:00.001-05:00

Friends in the Kitchen: Manacotti

2017-11-10T21:23:00.001-05:00

2016-01-16T08:28:00.006-05:00

The Miraculous History of Italian Pasta by Marino De Vito (as translated by Torre DeVito)
Good morning everyone, my name is Marino De Vito and I would like to discuss this wonderful Italian dish (with thanks to "Mediterranean Diet" for all their help).

We begin with a brief history of pasta. It's origin is one of the most obscure in the history of food. Its roots are as old as agriculture, because at its most basic, it is simply water mixed with milled cereal grain. You can get flour (farina in Italian, from the latin far) from many different cereal grains, although the most common is wheat. When man learned to grow grain, grind it for flour, mix it with water, and dry it in the sun to preserve it, bread and pasta were born. Pasta was probably developed in different parts of the world in parallel. There are theories that establish pasta's origin in in China, India, the Arab world and the Mediterranean. The earliest references to pasta are from 4000 BC in China but both Arabs and Greeks also developed similar products.

Pasta refers to any food prepared with flour mixed with water, to those simple ingredients you can add salt, egg or other ingredients, forming a product that is usually cooked in boiling water. Though the flour from any cereal grain may be used for this purpose, most of Western recipes follow the Italian tradition and use wheat flour (Triticum durum); In the East other flour is more common such as buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum) and rice (Oryza sativa).

There are many theories about how Italians discovered pasta. Some researchers advocate that it was dicovered by Marco Polo in the thirteenth century, who could have introduced it to Italy upon returning from one of his trips to China in 1271, but more recent research confirms that the oldest references to pasta in Italy dates back to 1152, a century before Marco Polo alleged discovery. In the chapter CLXXI "Books of Wonders of the World", Marco Polo refers to the pasta in China. For others it goes back much further, to ancient Etruscan civilizations, elaborated by the crush or crushing of various cereals and grains mixed with water, then boiled and resulting in a tasty and nutritious food. When the Greeks founded Naples they adopted a native dish that was made with a a paste of barley flour and water then dried in the sun called "makaria". In ancient Rome, there are also references of pasta, dating from the third century BC. In fact, Cicero, the Roman politician and orator, speaks of his passion for the "Laganum" Latin for "Laganas" which are long strips of pasta. At that time the Romans developed instruments, tools, procedures - machines - to prepare these noodles that we now call "Lasagna". From there,pasta has become ever more popular due to its ease of transport and storage. Meanwhile the Roman empire was expanding which encouraged the cultivation of cereals throughout the whole Mediterranean basin.

Today noodles can be found anywhere, but pasta, that's Italian!

Editors note: This article was original published in Spanish on http://www.dietamediterranea.biz/

Lentils and Sausage for New Years!

2013-01-01T14:51:00.000-05:00

Our new years meal has often been black-eyed peas and collard greens. Down here in the South-Eastern United States this combination is supposed to bring luck and money for the new year, but in Southern Italy it is lentils for the New-years meal, the little lens-shaped beans look a bit like coins, some argue, and thus they are supposed to bring wealth. I don't know about all that, but I do know I love them! My Italian grandma used to make them with carrots, celery, onions, and of course garlic, and she would serve them with fresh Italian bread, extra-virgin olive oil, and freshly grated Parmigiana or Locatelli cheese. We'd grate in the cheese, drizzle on the oil, and Dad would crack some fresh peeper on his. Oh, I can almost taste it now! On rare occasions my grandma would add a few sweet Italian sausages halved lengthwise to the pot to flavor the lentils. Here is the recipe:

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ITALIAN LENTIL SOUP

1 1/2 cup dried lentils, washed and drained
2 cloves garlic, peeled and halves
1 small onion, peeled and halved
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 lb. sweet Italian sausage (Optional)
1 medium carrot, chopped (I like to leave them as little rounds)
4 cups beef broth
3 cups water
2 Tbsp. tomato paste
1 tsp. paprika
1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1 small bay leaf
1 Pinch thyme
1 Pinch oregano
In a large soup pot, combine lentils, garlic, onion, celery, and carrots. Stir in beef broth, water, tomato paste, paprika, pepper, bay leaf, thyme and Oregano. Simmer, covered, about one hour or more, until lentils are soft. Optionally:cut sausages in half lengthwise (or cut into 1/2 inch slices crosswise on the bias) and add to soup before cooking.

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Lentils are "lenticchie" in Italian, and early Italian anatomy students first named the lens of the eye the "lenticchie" because it was shaped like a lentil, and in fact this is where the word "lens" first came from.

Before the American Civil War, lentils were planted as a secondary crop in the south, the alternate rotation with wheat because they release nitrogen into the soil. When Sherman made his march to the sea fields of lentils were lost but fields of black-eyed peas, little more than feed for livestock, were ignored as Union troops destroyed or stole other crops. I can find no proof of it, but perhaps there was a tradition of eating lentils on New year's Day that switched to black eyed peas after the Civil War, and that tradition of eating black eyed peas or lentils? It's Italian!

A Punch in the Bread Basket -or- How Pancetta Got Its Name

2012-12-03T22:13:00.000-05:00

It's Christmas season, and I'm sitting in Panera Bread, and I've just been to Capri Flavors where my friends the Vuotto's run a wonderful Italian import business, and there the shelves were piled high with a Christmas sweet-bread called Panettone and I began to think. I wondered if "Panera" was derived from "panare", the Italian word for bread... and then I wondered, does the "Pane" in Panettone" mean bread? And wait, Hayden Panettiere the actress, "panettiere" means baker, she must be descended from Italian bakers... and Panzanella is a Tuscan Bread and Tomato Salad. This odd stream of consciousness led me to wonder: "where in the world did pancetta, a sort of Italian bacon, get its name?"

Well before I answer that, let me tell you a little more about panettone and pancetta.

Panettone is the Italian version of fruitcake or stolen, it is more bread-like than fruitcake is, and lighter than either fruitcake or stolen, but it often has fruit in it (though less than either fruitcake or stolen). I can also tell you that panettone has no place in my memory as having anything to do with my family traditions, other than lining the shelves at the deli on the corner of the street I grew up on in Manhattan.

Though I called pancetta an Italian bacon, it has one major difference. Most American bacon is smoked. Italian bacon, on the other hand, is cured with salt, and sweet and savory spices, and then it is dried. My favorite use of pancetta is in pasta carbonara. Here is how I make pasta carbonara:

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PASTA CARBONARA

1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 pound pancetta, diced
1-2 garlic cloves, minced, about 1 teaspoon (optional)
3-4 whole eggs
1 cup grated parmigiana cheese
1 pound fettuccine
Salt and black pepper to taste

While the pasta water is coming to a boil, heat the olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add the pancetta and cook on a low heat till crispy. Add the garlic and cook for another minute, then turn off the heat and put the pancetta and garlic into a large bowl.

In a smaller bowl, beat the eggs and mix in about half of the cheese.

Once the water has reached a rolling boil, add the pasta, and cook, uncovered. When the pasta is still a little firm (al dente - when it sticks to the wall you throw it at) , use a spagheti comb to move it to the bowl with the pancetta and garlic. Move the pasta quickly, so it stays hot; the heat of the pasta will cook the eggs sufficiently to create a creamy sauce. Toss the pasta like a salad to mix it, then add the egg and cheese mixture and toss quickly to combine once more. Add salt to taste.

Serve at once with the rest of the parmigiana and freshly ground black pepper.

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As it turns out, the "pan" in pancetta has nothing to do with bread... or does it? Pancetta is an Italian cured meat made from pork belly, and the Italian word for belly is pancia, so pancetta means something like little belly, but wait a minute... pancetta sounds like "pane cesta" which means "bread basket" (though it would be rendered cesta de pane) and paniere, paniera the other forms of basket are very close to "panare" and "pancia". No wonder the belly has been nick-named "the bread basket" - it's Italian!

An Italian Protestant Town in North Carolina?

2012-11-15T15:00:00.000-05:00

In the United States, especialy here in the south, it is not unusual to find Protestant Italians, but most of them converted from Catholicism long after immigrating here. Imagine my surprise when, on a recent trip to Asheville, I pulled off of the road in the Town of Valdese, North Carolina, only to discover a whole town full of Italians descended from Protestants that had imigrated from the Waldensian Valley in the Piedmont region of Italy. The Alpine valley in Italy and the town in North Carolina were both named after the Waldensian (aka Valdensian) Movement, a movement that started in Lyon, France in the late 1170s, as a reform movement within the Catholic Church. Waldenesians advocated a return to the vows of poverty and preaching of the Gospel.

In 1184, the Catholic Church officially declared the movement heretical, and the Waldensians were persecuted by armies from both the governments of Italy and France and by officials of the Catholic Church. Because of this Waldensians fled to various parts of Europe, including Italy, putting down particularly deep roots in the Piedmont region of Italy in a Valley of the Cottian Alps that has come to be known as the Waldensian Valley, where they remained secluded until they received some degree of religious freedom with the Edict of 1848.

With the new-found tolerance their numbers grew, and in the late 19th century many Waldensian migrated to the United States settling in New York City, Chicago, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah and here in North Carolina. The group of Waldensians that immigrated to North Carolina crossed the Atlantic on the SS Zaandam, a ship of the Holland-America Line, and arrived in Burke County via train on the Salisbury-Asheville line of the Richmond & Danville Railroad on May 29, 1893. Eleven families formed the first group. They were led by the Reverend Charles Albert Tron, who came to help them launch their enterprise, and to return to Italy once the community was established.

The immigrants founded the Valdese Corporation with a charter granted by the State of North Carolina and purchased about ten thousand acres of land near the Catawba River in eastern Burke County from the Morganton Land Improvement Company. On June, 18th additional settlers arrived from Utah, and on August 23rd, six families of 14 persons came from Italy aboard the SS La Bretagne, and on November 23rd, 52 families totaling 161 persons, crossed the Atlantic from Italy on the SS Kaiser Wilhelm II, and joined the original group. Their settlement, the Valdese settlement, became the largest Waldensian settlement in the world located outside of Italy, and the town of Valdese North Carolina grew up in the midst of it.

A Protestant movement begun in France in the middle ages that led to a settlement in North Carolina, might be unexpected, it might even seem strange, but whatever else it is, it's Italian!

The Italian National Anthem

2012-10-15T09:05:00.000-04:00

I have never seen an understandable translation of the Italian National Anthem into English. Here is my attempt:

In Italian:

Inno di Mameli

Fratelli d'Italia,

L'Italia s'è desta;

Dell'elmo di Scipio

S'è cinta la testa.

Dov'è la Vittoria?

Le porga la chioma;

Ché schiava di Roma

Iddio la creò.

Stringiamci a coorte!

Siam pronti alla morte;

Italia chiamò.

Noi siamo da secoli

Calpesti, derisi,

Perché non siam popolo,

Perché siam divisi.

Raccolgaci un'unica

Bandiera, una speme;

Di fonderci insieme

Già l'ora suonò.

Stringiamci a coorte!

Siam pronti alla morte;

Italia chiamò.

Uniamoci, amiamoci;

L'unione e l'amore

Rivelano ai popoli

Le vie del Signore.

Giuriamo far libero

Il suolo natio:

Uniti, per Dio,

Chi vincer ci può?

Stringiamci a coorte!

Siam pronti alla morte;

Italia chiamò.

Dall'Alpe a Sicilia,

Dovunque è Legnano;

Ogn'uom di Ferruccio

Ha il core e la mano;

I bimbi d'Italia

Si chiaman Balilla;

Il suon d'ogni squilla

I Vespri suonò.

Stringiamci a coorte!

Siam pronti alla morte;

Italia chiamò.

Son giunchi che piegano

Le spade vendute;

Già l'Aquila d'Austria

Le penne ha perdute.

Il sangue d'Italia

E il sangue Polacco

Bevé col Cosacco,

Ma il cor le bruciò.

Stringiamci a coorte!

Siam pronti alle morte;

Italia chiamò

In English:

Mameli's hymn

Brothers of Italy,

Italy awakes;

And fastens the helmet
Of Scipio on her head.

And Victory, Where is she?

Let her shave her head,

For what a slave of Rome

Hath God made of her.

Let us join together,

Ready to face death;

Italy calls us!

For centuries we have been

Downtrodden and derided,

For we were not a people,

We were divided.

Let one flag,
And one hope;

Join us together.

The hour is already here.

Let us join together,

Ready to face death;

Italy calls us!

Let' us unite and love one another;

For this unity and love

Reveals to the people

The ways of the Lord.

Let us swear to liberate

the native soil:

Under God, United,

Who can defeat us?

Let us join together,

Ready to face death;

Italy calls us!

From the Alps to Sicily,

Everywhere is the battleground

And every man a defender

With their hearts and hands;

The children of Italy

are called "little soldier";

The sound of the trumpet

Is our daily call to prayer.

Let us join together,

Ready to face death;

Italy calls us!

We are the reeds that

Will bend the mercinary swords;

Already the eagle of Austria

has lost its feathers.

It drank the blood of Italy

and the blood of Poland

It drank with the Cossacks

But its heart was burned.

Let us join together,

Ready to face death;

Italy calls us!

Some notes:

Scipio refers to Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus (Scipio the African AKA Scipio the Great) (236–183 BC) A general in the Second Punic War who defeated Hannibal.

I took some liberties with this verse:
Dall'Alpe a Sicilia,
Dovunque è Legnano;
Ogn'uom di Ferruccio
Ha il core e la mano;
I bimbi d'Italia
Si chiaman Balilla;
Il suon d'ogni squilla
I Vespri suonò.

Legnano is a specific historical battlefield, I translated it as Battleground.
uom di Ferruccio is "the men of Ferruccio", a specific captain, I just call them defenders.
Balilla was a nickname for Giambattista Perasso who was a child from Genova that fought in the 1746 people's revolution of Genova against the Austrians. Without the historical context i felt it would be more understandable as "little soldier"

To hear Inno di Mameli in Italian, visit: http://youtu.be/o7pmy-u1awI

Inno di Mameli, like it or not , it's Italian!

Timeline: Italian Immigration to Brooklyn, NY

2012-09-17T11:15:00.000-04:00

1801 the Brooklyn Navy Yard opens.
1814 the steam ship Nassau begins service between Brooklyn and Manhattan.
1834 Brooklyn is incorporated as the City of Brooklyn.
1838 the Green-Wood Cemetery is created.
1859 the Brooklyn Academy of Music is formed.
1867 Prospect Park opens to the public.
1883 the Brooklyn Bridge, is opened.
1886 the Statue of Liberty was re-assembled on her new pedestal and dedicated.
1902 Nick Santora Comes to the united states and the Flatiron Building, New York's first skyscraper is completed in Manhattan.
1903 Grace Santora comes to America with her Daughter Olga and infant Nicola. Nicola dies. The Williamsburg Bridge opens, it is the largest suspension bridge in the world.
1908 The city's first subway begins running trains between Brooklyn and Manhattan.
1909 The Manhattan Bridge is completed.
1912 Nick Santora opens a bakery near Floyd Street under what is now the Marcy Projects, but must close within the year because he cannot afford the protection money.
1913 Ebbets Field opens, and the Brooklyn Dodgers, have a new place to play.

1920 "Eddie" Felice Ettore DeVito comes to America with his parents Antonio and Carmella Devito and his sibblings Michael and Aurelia, moving first to White Plains
1921 Antonio opens his barber shop near Flushing and Thompkin's ave.
1929 Brooklyn's tallest building, the Williamsburgh Savings Bank, is completed.
1957 the New York Aquarium comes to Coney Island, and the Dodgers leave Brooklyn.
1961 Torre DeVito is born.
1964 Karen Fisher (DeVito) is born and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is completed, connecting Brooklyn to Staten Island.

Discovering Poetry

2012-08-06T07:37:00.000-04:00

A little poem about my personal discovery of poetry in both English and Italian....

in English:
Discovering Poetry

When I was very young
I would listen to my Aunts and Uncles
During family gatherings.

I was American, I spoke English
I did not know the Italian language
I did not know the use and context of words.

I knew only the form of sentences,
The ripple of the syllables,
Concluding in voluptuous vowels.

Normal speach sounded
Like poetry dancing with laughter
And clothed in beautiful mystery.

by Torre DeVito
Magnetic Poetry 12382 Adhes-A-Mag Adhesive Magnetic Sheet (Google Affiliate Ad)

And in Italian:

Si prega di commentare. Come sta il mio italiano? Orribile?

Alla Scoperta Della Poesia

Quando ero molto giovane
Vorrei ascoltare i miei zii e le zie
Durante le riunioni di famiglia.

Sono stato americano, ho parlato inglese
Non sapevo la lingua italiana, non sapevo
Che l'uso e il contesto delle parole.

Sapevo che solo la forma delle frasi,
L'ondulazione delle sillabe,
Concludendo in vocali voluttuoso.

Discorso normale suonava
Come la poesia ballando con
Risate e vestiti di bella araba.
by Torre DeVito

Let me know how good the translation is, it may not be perfect, but it's Italian!

What are you looking at?

2012-07-09T00:21:00.000-04:00

In my little world the Italians discovered or invented almost everything, and anything worth anything that they didn't invent they borrowed and improved upon, like the arch for instance, which was invented by the Mesopotamians, and used liberally by the Romans, who used its principles to create the dome and the vaulted ceiling. The Greeks may have invented Democracy, but the Roman's borrowed it, and invented bureaucracy and graft. The Chinese may have invented the noodle, but the Italians made it different thicknesses and shapes and added sauce and meat and cheese. da Vinci dreamed up the horseless carriage, but Italians (so they tell me) did not invent the internal combustion engine, but when they learned about the two-stroke engine they came up with the vast improvement of the four-stroke engine. Henry ford may have come up with mass-production and the boxy model T but Italians came up with Maseratis, Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Alfa Romeos, Paganis,. Barossos, Ghias, and Lanzas. America may have fallen in love with the automobile, but the Italians romanced it and taught it to dance.

One little car company in Italy has been swallowing up the others recently. FIAT now owns Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Lancia, and Maserati; and in 2009 they took a controlling stake in Chrystler, they expanded that stake in January of 2012 in what has amounted to a merger, and the gorgeous little FIAT 500 with its almost 45 MPG highway, is popping up all over the American landscape, including my driveway out here in Bear Creek, North Carolina. In other words, we bought one.

I annoyed my beautiful and patient wife throughout the buying process by oft repeating :"Che cosa guardi, eh? Che cosa guardi?" the line spoken by the baby in the FIAT commercial, which means "What are you looking at, huh? What are you looking at?" Finally my wife said, "Are you done?" to which I replied: "Mi stai spogliando con gli occhi?", the line spoken by the hot Italian model who turns into the FIAT 500 Abarth in another commercial, literally "Why are you undressing me with your eyes." Of course the only thing she was doing with her eyes was rolling them. But don't worry she's had her revenge. We bought the car on July 5th, my Birthday, and thus far she has only let me drive it once,

If you happen to find yourself staring at a FIAT and someone says "What are you looking at?" tell 'em "I'm not sure, but it's Italian."

Father's Day

2012-06-17T13:42:00.000-04:00

It has been a year already since Dad passed away. In the year or two before his death he talked to me often about growing up in Brooklyn, New York and being an Italian teenager in the '50s. We laughed at pictures of him in a pompadour, He told me about working at his uncle's car lot, and about some of the girls that he dated, and places he used to go in Brooklyn. .

One time he and some friends built a boat, Apparently it was fairly elaborate with a nice little cabin.He mentioned a young lady he used to take out on the boat, wondering what had ever happened to her, and told how one of his fellow boat-builders rammed into a rock which tore a hole in the plywood and fiberglass hull and sunk the boat, ending all their nautical escapades.

He told me that they would go to Coney Island and ride the Cyclone or the Wonder Wheel or take a girl on a ride through "The Tunnel of Laffs" or just hang out by the boardwalk when the weather was hot. Other summer days they would go to Jones Beach and body-surf in the waves. I wish I had taken notes!

Dad was an interesting guy, if I do say so myself. He was interested in Photography, Set Design, Modern Art, Hydroponic Gardening, Wind and Solar Power, just a whole bunch of things that most of his peers weren't thinking about in the '50s and early '60s in the city.

Happy father's day Dad. I miss you.

Learning Italian

2012-05-07T13:14:00.000-04:00

I've been trying to learn Italian. Tapes and CD's bought at thrift stores and freeware and free resources from the internet, mostly. I'm trying to get to the point where I can really think in Italian. to that end I have written a new poem in Italian as well as deconstructed a poem that I wrote many years ago, and instead of translate it, rewrite it in Italian. Here are my attempt:s:

Molto Bene
da Torre DeVito

"Molto bene", ha detto Dio,
"Molto bene", quando ha finito
E tutte le sue creazioni
Sono molto buoni
E tu, piccolo che adoro
Sono un capolavoro!

In inglese:

Molto Bene
by Torre DeVito

"Very good," said God,
"Very good!" when He finished
And all his creations
They are very good
And you, little one that I adore
You are a masterpiece!

Arbusto Pino
di Torre DeVito

C'è stato un tempo, dopo una storia di attenzione,
Abbiamo parlato dei volumi interi con ogni parola
E le nostre conversazioni erano come vaste foreste
Quando ogni sfumatura è stata una grande sequoia.

Quando è successo? Gli insulti iniziato
Incenerire il nostro dialogo, divorando
Verbi e aggettivi in fiamme!Il grande incendio ha smesso di bruciare a lungo
Trasformato in brace e cenere alla fine, ma ...

Quelli che restano sono i seguenti:
Un groviglio di erbacce, luoghi di sabbia,
E un deserto di crescita povero albero.
Per l'osservatore casuale le cicatrici sono oscurati:
Una nuova vita è meglio di ceneri fredde

Ma in questo momento arbusto pino emerso
Quando le sequoie una volta erano potenti.

I don't know if the gramar is very good, but it's Italian.

Rabbit Punches

2012-04-02T19:42:00.000-04:00

Besides the chickens, we also have rabbits. I tried to get two does (females) and a buck (male) for breeding purposes. I ended up with two bucks and a doe. One of the bucks is sweet and gentle, and loves water, in fact he drinks it as I fill his bowl by turning his head sideways and putting his mouth in the stream. I named him Slurpee for obvious reasons. The doe is a pretty nice doe too, though she hasn't had much luck kindling (having little bunnies) her first kindle died, and her second mating resulted in a false pregnancy. The third member of the menagerie is a little demon of a buck that lies to box at my hands and bite me. I call him "Tyson" after Mike Tyson. I am contemplating rabbit cacciatore.

People often say rabbit tastes like chicken. I don't think so. The texture is a bit reminicent of chicken dark meat: thighs or legs, but it has its own taste: mild, suckulent, delicious!

Rabbit Cacciatore Recipe:

One 2 1/4 lb rabbit, cut into 6 to 8 pieces
Salt and freshly ground pepper
4 Tbsp fresh basil leaves
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 chopped medium onion
4 cloves garlic, quartered
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1 teaspoon fresh rosemary leaves
3 cups of chopped, very ripe tomatoes (or canned plum tomatoes)
2 red bell peppers, seeded, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 can of whole black olives, pitted

Salt and pepper the rabbit pieces, rub with the basil leaves, brown in olive oil in a large skillet, Cook for 2-3 minutes on one side until lightly browned, then turn the pieces and brown on the other side for a minute or two more. Remove the rabbit pieces to a dish to set aside. Reduce heat to medium. Add onions to the pan, cook for 1 minute. Then add garlic, bell pepper, and mushrooms, cook for a couple minutes more. Add the rosemary and the remaining basil. Rinse, drain and quarter the olives and add them to the pan. Add the rabbit back into the pan along with the olives. Cover with chopped tomatoes. Reduce heat to medium low; cover the pan and cook for 35 minutes. Increase heat to high and cook until the liquid has reduced by half.

Tyson, you'd better watch out! Revenge might be delicious served warm, and it's Italian!

Torre Catch-a-Chicken

2012-03-02T08:22:00.000-05:00

We have chickens! But the darn things aren't laying eggs. There are five hens and a rooster. The rooster is a wyandotte, and the hens are red sex-links (they were bred in a cross producing red females) I'm feeding them laying crumbles, some corn for scratch and supplementing with oyster shells. I leave a light on in the chicken house, and have golf balls and fake eggs in the nesting boxes. If I let them out they follow me around. They come when I call. They seen happy, but I didn't get them as pets! I talk to them, nicely. Even when I threaten to cacciatore them I use a soft tone, and they look at me with their heads cocked making clucking noises. They have pea sized brains, and they often look at my feet as if they've never seen them before and wonder if they might not be edible.

In the meantime I guess I'll have to eat something else for breakfast, maybe I'll have some Farina. According to the OED Farina (fah-ree-nuh) is a noun meaning:
1 flour or meal made of cereal grains, nuts, or starchy roots.
2 (archaic) a powdery substance.
And the source is British, from the latin for grain.

Bull Shtuff. Farina means flour in Italian, and Farina (as a breakfast) came from Italy. In America it is mostly called Cream of wheat.

Here is a recipe "Per la Vostra Salute!" (To Your Health)
2 cups low-fat milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup farina (not instant)

Bring the milk and ¼ teaspoon salt to a boil in a small saucepan. Whisk in the farina. Reduce heat and simmer, whisking occasionally, until thickened, 2 to 3 minutes.

Farina, it's Italian!

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Update on the Chickens, We lost a hen a few months ago, and we bought 6 Cochin Hens that will begin laying in the fall, and we get an average of 2 eggs a day right now.

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This just in... black snakes were stealing our eggs, and the hot weather thwarted them. I caught one trying to eat a golf ball. We put golf-balls in the nest to induce the hens to lay, and apparently the heat wave warmed the golf balls up enough to confuse the snakes. I killed the one snake I found with the golf ball stuck in his mouth, I watched him trying to get it back up, but the curve of his teeth prevented him from getting it out, he just couldn't un-hinge his jaw enough. Perhaps he was just re-positioning for another swallow, but it didn't look like it would end well for him, and a quick death seemed only humane. He was a black snack that I would gladly have relocated, so I felt bad. The next day two other golf balls were gone, and the egg production is now 3 to 4 eggs a day.

My Italian Valentine

2012-02-06T13:14:00.000-05:00

Saint Valentine was Italian, well, actually there are several possible candidates for the historical figure that became Saint Valentine, and all of them are Italian. Little is known about the saint other than that he was martyred on February 14. In fact, the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre seems more likely an event to be associated with any candidate for the real Saint Valentine than would this holiday of cards and candy, with the exception of one account, that has Valentine martyred for performing marriage ceremonies when he was not supposed to be performing any Christian ceremonies. That has something to do with romance, right?

Cupid is Italian, I mean our cupid, the chubby little baby with wings. The Greek Eros was a slender youth, but the Romans sculpted him chubbier, in the renaissance he somehow became a Putto (what we incorrectly call a cherub) a male baby, sometimes with wings, but always carrying his bow and those insidious bolts of desire.

Though Punxsutawney Phil sounds like an Italian gangster the closest thing Italians have to groundhogs day is a proverb that goes "Se San Paol Pe ciar e la Ceriola sciira, De Pinverna no g'o pii paiira Milan" which means "If St Paul('s day) be clear and Candlemas cloudy, we have no more cause to be afraid of winter." (Candelmas is Feb2). This is a pretty obscure proverb, however. Most Italians are more familiar with April 4th as the day of weather prognostication. Another old saying goes "Quattro aprilante, giorni quaranta" or "Quattro aprilante, quaranta dì durant" literally "April 4, 40 days", meaning whatever the weather is like on April 4th it will be like for the next 40 days.

This February has 29 days, leap-year day is an unlucky day in Italian tradition. If a baby is born on Leap Year Day it is said that either the child or the mother will be dead within the year. OK, so maybe that was gloomy, but hey, it's Italian.

An Urban I-talian in Rural North Cackalacky

2012-01-02T09:19:00.000-05:00

Karen and I moved into Dad's house in Bear Creek North Carolina in November, but the reality of it is just begining to sink in. I finished growing up in rural New York, so I realy wasn't expecting the big culture shock that is part of every day life here. I went to the small general store in the near-by town of Goldston the other day, where I introduced myself to a fellow shopper, with whom I had struck up a conversation about local amenities. The first time I said my name I could see the gears turning behind the poor fellows eyeballs, so I repeated myself, and through some cultural filter my new aquaintence latched onto "Troy" (a common occurrence in North Carolina) and paired it with a phrase that almost made me laugh out loud. "Ye'r not from arround here, are you Troy?" he asked in a genial way (no, I didn't hear distant Banjos, I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it).

A few minutes later he introduced me to his wife, forgetting the "Troy" he introduced in this fashion: "This here's Danny, he's an I-talian fellow from Neew York" (the "New had an extra long "ew" to it). I understood the "Danny" thing, people hear my last name and associate me with Danny DeVito. Taking no offence I steered him back to "Troy" and found out where I could buy some chickens, and the best place to get Rabbit food and laying crumbles, and all about "The Devils Tramping Grounds" which were in Bear Creek, on the other end of 902 from my house. All-in-all he was very friendly and helpful, but I parted from his company with the distinct impression that he had viewed me as a rare and exotic creature, an oddity of nature that he had to point out to his wife. Don't get too close, honey, he seems friendly, but he might bite!

As to the Devils Tramping Grounds, tradition says that it is a patch of ground in the woods of Bear Creek where plants will not grow within a circular path supposedly tramped down by the devil as he paces arround plotting evil against humanity. Supposedly nothing left inside the circle is there the next morning, and no-one can remain there overnight, though there is much evidence to the contrary since the stories surfaced in the 1930s.

This is oddly reminiscent of a site in Italy not far from the town of Piedimonte Matese where my father's maternal grandfather came from. The name of the place is "Passeggiata Del Diavolo" which translates to "The Devil's Walk" or "The Devil's Footprints". The area is volcanic, and there is a set of footprints in volcanic rock. People used to believe that the devil left them there as he paced or danced around on the lava, but scientists now believe ancient humans left their footprints in ash as they fled the volcano.

So, calling me Troy or Danny, that's sooo North Cackalacky, but imagining the Devil's been pacing arround in your back yard, that's either North Carolinian, or it's I-talian.

Felice Gravy Dad!

2011-12-01T12:02:00.004-05:00

Christmas is coming, and soon my wife Karen will be making "Italian Gravy" for the lasagna we will have on Christmas Day.... If she starts with fresh Tomatoes she will first peel them using the method my father taught her, dropping them into boiling water, draining the water and plunging them into an ice bath so that the skin splits and peels away easily, but since this is December she will probably start with canned Plum tomatoes from San Marzano. Either way she will use my mother's version of my Grandmother's recipe for "Gravy" (Tomato Sauce). The main difference between my Mother's version of gravy and my Grandmother's was that mom used a big fatty piece of chuck steak for the meat where "Nana" would use either her Meatballs or Braciola (lean beef, pounded thin and filled with rasins, garlic and pignolli (pine nuts); rolled and tied then browned to seal in all the goodness; and then simmered in a big pot of gravy all day long.) or pork any of these would work for the meat ingredient but usually Nana used all three.

After my mom died, making tomato sauce was like therapy for Karen, and our house would often be filled with the smell of it, and it transported me back to the days of my childhood. The first smell that this wonderful task would emit was that of olive oil and garlic warming in a skillet Karen's version of the task meant cutting the chuck steak up into pieces and dividing out the fat, which che would still brown in the aforementioned skillet with the lean meat, and then she would simmer both in the sauce for several hours before removing the fat and discarding it.

The return of Captain Artichoke

2011-11-01T15:10:00.000-04:00

When he was about 12, my son Robert took to brushing his hair straight up like a character from Dragon Ball Z, and a good friend of our family dubbed him "Captain Artichoke!"

Fortunately the hairstyle faded quickly, unfortunately the name lingers on, much like our Thanksgiving traditions.

At our house, we love to serve Artichokes every Thanksgiving, and often on Christmas and at Easter as well, just as my Nana and Aunt Agnes did. Now if you didn't grow up eating them, they can be a little frightening to prepare, but it is really quite simple:

Cut off the stem so that the bottom of the artichoke is flat, and can sit upright.

Peel the tough outer layer of the stem and chop to about the size of a garlic clove.

Peel about 3 cloves of garlic per artichoke, and quarter.

Artichokes have little thorns on the end of the leaves, so I usually take a kitchen scissors and cut of the thorned tips of all of outer leaves. This step is optional because the thorns soften with cooking but I like to do it before spreading the leaves open for stuffing.

Spread the leaves open, stuff in the stem pieces and garlic cloves.

Drizzle with oil.

Place the choke in a pot and add watter till it comes half-way up the artichokes.

Add the juice of a lemon and a few fresh basil leaves to the water.

Cover the pot and boil till the outer leaves come away from the artichoke, and you can pluck a leaf easily, and the flesh is tender.

Serve immediately.

Some people like to dip the leaves in melted butter, personally I like them plain, you just peal the leaves one at a time from the outside, scraping each leaf between your teeth to strip away the succulent flesh. until you work your way down to the choke, where the hair like thistle-down will need to be scraped away from the artichoke heart. The heart itself, is pure heaven, being the tenderest most flavorful part of the artichoke.

It's delicious, and it's Italian, my whole family agrees, especially Captain Artichoke.

2011-07-04T23:50:00.001-04:00

Sorry this July entry is so late, my father passed away on June 26th, and it has been very hard to get back to this blog, since he has been, and will continue to be, so much a part of it.

Independence day is a good time to remember that although he was very proud of his Italian heritage, my dad considered himself first and foremost, an American. Both of his grandparents and his Father were proud to become naturalized citizens of the United States, and growing up during World War II he developed a deep and abiding love for his country that is shared by the majority of Italian Americans.

He served in the U.S. Army from 1957 to 1950, between Korea and Vietnam, and though he never spoke of it, my mother once mentioned that even that long after WWII he had some restrictions placed on his clearance because he was of Italian decent.

Many of you may know that Japanese Americans were held in interment camps after the attack on Pearl Harbour. What you may not know is that when the United States declared war on Italy and Germany shortly thereafter, Italian Americans who were not naturalized citizens were classified as enemy aliens.

In 1942 there were more nonnaturalized Italians residing in the United States than any other ethnic group (some six-hundred-thousand of them). Enemy alien laws placed restrictions on Italians, who were subject to curfews and could not travel far from their homes, and were refused jobs in factories that supplied the military with munitions and equipment. They had to cary photo-identity cards, they couldn't posses guns or short-wave radios. An estimated 10,000 Italians on the west coast were forced to relocate, and within 6 months of the onset of U.S. Involvement of the war 1,500 Italians were arrested for violating these restrictive laws. Though Italian resident's of the United States faired better than their Japanese counterparts, some 250 Italians were sent to military camps, some for as long as two years.

This didn't stop Italian Americans from serving their country. More than 1. 5 million Italian Americans served in World War II, according to the late Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. In a speech to the Italian American War Veterans of America August 25, 1961, Rockefeller said that Italian Americans constituted "more than 10 percent of the might of the American forces in World War II.

One such Italian American was John Basilone, the only enlisted Marine in U.S. history to receive the nation's two highest military honors: the Navy Cross for valor and the U.S. Congressional Medal of Honor for his service in World War II. Basilone, a Marine sergeant from New Jersey, fought at the Battle of Guadalcanal (1942), raised millions of dollars in war bonds, and was killed in action during the Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945.

Another notable Italian American was Captain Don Gentile of the U.S. Army Air Force, who shot down over 30 Nazi planes during World War II. Eisenhower called the 24-year-old pilot a "one-man Air Force" and personally pinned the Distinguished Service Cross on him. The "Ace of Aces" was born in Ohio and bought his first plane when he was 15. He died in a training accident after the war in 1950 when he was only 30.

Italian Americans have held some of the highest possitions in the military such as Four-star General Anthony Zinni, a veteran Marine and the son of Italian immigrants, who commanded Operation Desert Fox, the U.S. bombing of Iraq in 1998. It was the largest U.S. offensive since the Gulf War in 1991. A highly decorated officer, he was Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Central Command.

And General Carl Vuono, who was the first Italian American to be appointed Army chief of staff. He served from 1987-1991 and was appointed by President Ronald Reagan.

Who knew? American Patriotism and service, it's Italian!

Italian American service facts from The National Italian American Foundation who thank military historian Rudy A. D'Angelo.

Enemy Alien information from The home-front war: World War II and American society By Kenneth Paul O'Brien, Lynn H. Parsons and Italian and other internees in Canada and abroad By Franca Iacovetta, Roberto Perin, Angelo Principe

Leave the Gun. Take the Cannoli*

2011-06-01T22:37:00.003-04:00

Or: How a Gal from Texas Was Introduced to a Brooklyn-Italian Family

My mother, Marjorie, was of Irish/English decent, Her mother was an Atwood, and her Mother's Mother was a Kenedy. She was born in Seattle, Washington in 1941, followed by the troubled and premature birth of her younger sister Judy, and the subsequent birth of her brother Sam. Times were hard, and her father Samuel Center ran into some serious financial troubles, and Judy's early health problems were too much for him. He essentially abandoned my Grandmother Laura but eventually granted her a divorce when she met and fell in love with a young Navy Pilot, the man I knew as my Grandfather, McManus (Buddy) Huffman.

Grandpa Buddy was the best thing that could have happened to that family, he took to those kids like they were his own, regaling them with stories of Texas Rangers and Pioneers which were actually true stories of his family's history. When Marj's youngest sister Diane was born Buddy moved his young family to Bellville Texas, a town where all the old brick buildings were built by his recent ancestors, the Huffmans and the Colletons on land that had all once belonged to his more remote ancestors, the Maxwells. Thus it was that little Marjorie found herself transported to what she must have thought of as the Wild West, and from the close nuclear family of her Mom and siblings to the huge extended family of the Huffmans.

Marj thrived in Bellville. A regular tom-boy, she enjoyed the woods that backed up to her property and ran between the little farms and ranches between Bellville and the nearby town of Buckhorn. She liked hiking and camping, hunting and fishing. The later she could do in the nearby Brazos river. She also enjoyed building sandbag dams across the Piney Creek to form swimming holes that she and her brother Sam and the other kids from the neighborhood would swim in. In the fall she made money picking cotton for Mr. Pavelock. She also stole persimmons from his tree, and shot pomegranate seeds at the nether regions of his prize pigs. Grandpa Bud's sense of humor rubbed off on Mom, and she developed her own love of practical jokes and pranks as well.

Marjorie graduated from Bellville High School in 1959 (she was in the same class as Ernie Koy, Jr former American football running back for the New York Giants). She enlisted in the Women's Army Corp. Upon joining she discovered that on her birth certificate her biological father had inexplicably signed his name as Samuel Earl Dickson instead of Samuel Earl Center. So Margie became Marjorie May Dickson, and being from Texas, gained the nickname "Dixie".

While in basic training in Alabama, she honed her pranking skills, putting shoe-polish on the nose of a sleeping tattle-tale, placing blue dye in the shower-head of a hated instructor (if I hadn't heard this story long before they made the movie "Private Benjamin", I would have thought Mom was embellishing).

By 1960 "Dixie" was stationed in Washington, D.C. where a dapper young corporal, Tony DeVito, caught her eye: a handsome, urbane, Italian photographer with a Brooklyn accent, the man who would soon become my father. As for his part, he took one look at her and it was all over. He described her as having "movie-star looks" and "a southern-accent that could never be called a drawl" because she talked so fast he could barely understand her.

By August they were engaged and Tony took "Dixie" to meet his family in Brooklyn. Most likely they picked up Tony's mother Madeline and his younger brother Nicky at his mother's apartment in the Marcy projects, and took her to his Uncle Andy and Aunt Agnes's house in Fort Hamilton.

Marjorie would have been completely unprepared for the feast that met her. First a soup and salad, then a huge antipasto with salamis, hams, dry Italian sausages, and cheeses and roasted peppers and olives, it probably would have been the first time she ever tasted mozzarella so fresh and moist and al cruda (uncooked). Then there would have been the pasta course, probably spaghetti with meatballs, and braciola**(rolled, stuffed flank steak) and pork –all three meats cooked in the "gravy"(as we call tomato sauce) .

By this point in the meal the volume of the conversation would have raised, loud political discourse in mixed Italian and English with a Brooklyn-Italian accent would have been heard, as foreign to "Dixie" as her fast-talking East-Texas accent was to Tony's Family. The main course would have come out, roast beef with peas and onions, fried mushrooms-and-garlic, and stuffed artichokes. Uncle Andy whom had been teasing "Dixie" quite a bit by this point tried to talk her into eating the hair-like "choke" of the Artichoke. As the evening wore down they would have brought out a fruit bowl, and mixed nuts, and played dominoes or "Po-ke-no" (a combination of Poker and Bingo). Some of the men might have retired to the other room to shoot pool or 9-ball.Tony's cousins would have tried to get Tony and "Dixie" (who must have seemed like a real southern belle to them) to come shoot pool with them.

Then Aunt Agnes would have put on the Percolator (which any self-respecting Italian knows is a sign that it is almost time to leave) and made strong Italian coffee and everyone would have come back to the table for desert. Then the Pastries would have come out: Sfogliatelle (flakey leaves of cakey pastry), pastafrolla-a-esse ("s"-shaped shortbread biscuits), strati arcobaleno (7-layer rainbow cookies), tiramisu( pastry cream between two coffee-soaked lady fingers), babà a rum (rum-soaked yeast pastries), biscotti regina (sesame seed cookies), and the king of all Italian pastries: cannolis!

In Italian the word cannoli means "little tube" the diminutive of "canna" meaning "reed" (or any hollow-stalked river-grass). The pastry is essentially a cookie curled into a tube-shape and filled with a sweetened ricotta-cheese filling, and dusted with powdered sugar. The ones Uncle Andy and Aunt Agnes served had small pieces of citrine (candied orange rind) in the filling, whipped cream was dolloped at the exposed ends of the ricotta filling, and chocolate sprinkles were applied to the whipped cream.

Never had Marjorie tasted such a concoction, it was love at first bite, and she decided right then that she'd made the right choice, laying down her gun and following her heart, she felt her days were like these cannoli shells sweet enough on their own, but she and Tony could fill them with all the best things in life, and when they were overflowing with love there would still be room for chocolate sprinkles. It's a good philosophy for life, and it's Italian.

* "Leave the gun. Take the Cannoli" is a line from the movie "The Godfather" based on the novel by Mario Puzzo

**Braciola can mean different things depending on what region of Italy you are from - for Neapolitans it usually meant flank steak rolled and stuffed with garlic, raisins and pignolli (pine nuts)

---------------

This entry is dedicated to my Mom, who passed away seven years ago this month:

Marjorie May DeVito, May 4, 1941 - June 10, 2004

Playing Bocce Ball

2011-05-01T16:49:00.002-04:00

OK, so after my last post I just had to go out and play Bocce Ball, and found it to be a lot of fun,

the rules are pretty simple. Bocce is played with eight large balls (le palle, le palle di bocce, or il bocce) and one small ball (il pallino). The game can be played with 2, 4, or 8 players.

The bocce balls are distributed evenly between the players. Ideally, each bocce player will use balls from the set that are unique in design or color from all the other balls in play. This is helpful in distinguishing one player's bocce from another's. A player is picked to throw the pallino by a quick game of Rock-Paper-Scissors. After the pallino is thrown, the same player will throw his first bocce ball. The purpose of the game is to get your bocce balls as close as possible to the pallino. After the first player has thrown his first bocce ball, he is considered "inside" because his bocce is the closest to the pallino (inside by default, since it is the only bocce in play). All other players are considered "outside." Whenever a player is considered "inside," he will forfeit his turn throwing bocce balls. All "outside" players will take turns throwing their bocce balls until until one of their bocce is closer to the pallino than the "inside" player.

After all players have thrown their bocce balls, the player that is "inside" will be awarded points. One point will be awarded to this player for every ball that is closer to the pallino than his closest competitor's ball. After the points are awarded, the frame is completed. Start a new frame by electing a new person to throw the pallino and to throw the first bocce ball. A game is won when a player reaches 13 points. Play as many frames as necessary until a player reaches this point level. Of course, this point level can be decreased or increased depending on the number of players and time constraints between players.

I'm pleased to report that I won my first frame of Bocce Ball, and learned a new word. I guess it was beginner's luck, because I lost the game - lowest score amongst three other fiercely competitive older Italian gentlemen. As for the word I learned, I can't repeat it, but it's Italian!

New York City Childhood

2011-04-01T10:40:00.004-04:00

It's just a few months before my 50th birthday, and as I am sitting here working on my income taxes, I find my mind wandering down streets of nostalgia instead. Churning around in my head is a list of some of the stuff I loved, growing up in New York.

Stuff like building "soap-box" racers out of old baby buggies or broken laundry/shopping carts (the folding kind) , playing Ring-o-levio, sticking bottle tops on the hot pavement so cars would press them in. Prying them up again to play scullies. Fishing balls out of the storm grate, playing stick ball, climbing onto the roof of a shed at a construction site. Jumping off said roof into a pile of sand.

A lot of my memories are of food: foamy egg cremes, potato Knishes, Sabret hot dogs with saurkraut and red-onion sauce, chestnuts and hot pretzles from street vendors. The ice cream truck, and the whole experience of hearing that music on a hot summers day, fishing in my pockets to see if I had the change, and running to the truck to by an ice cream bar.

Speaking of hot summer days, I loved: playing in an open fire hydrant, block parties, street fairs, church bazaars, the Museum of Natural History, flipping baseball cards, and going to the park. Sneaking down to Mott Street to buy fire crackers for the fourth of July. Watching fireworks from the roof. Watching the solar eclipse from the roof. Jumping from roof to roof over the alleyway where the rooftops nearly meet at the facade to get to one particular roof we kids called tar-beach.

There were so many parks. There was Washington square park with it's arch where I would watch the old Italian men playing Bocce Ball. There was riding my bike and climbing trees, or climbing the Peter Stuyvesant statue in Stuyvesant park. There was the Children's Zoo and clock in Central park, and the Eagle Statues, also in Central Park near where they fed the sea lions. Speaking of lions, I loved the lions outside the New York Public Library.

Christmas time was magical in New York City for a kid: going to F.A.O. Shwartz, and to all the moving window displays at all the big department stores. The giant tree and ice skating at Rockefeller Center.

We moved about an hour North of Manhattan when I turned twelve, but my early childhood in Manhattan was a fun one, and it seems inconceivable to me that I am the same age as some of those old Italian men playing Bocce.

About those New York Public Library Lions, they were designed by sculptor Edward Clark Potter, they were carved from Tennessee Pink marble by the Piccirilli Brothers in 1911, and Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia named them "Patience" and "Fortitude", so they were born in America, but the way I figure it, they are two-thirds Italian.

I wonder if I can show a little "Patience and Fortitude" and learn how to play Bocce Ball. It looks like fun, and after all, it's Italian!

Birthday Surprise: White Clam Sauce

2011-03-01T12:42:00.001-05:00

My wife loves fresh white clam sauce, and since it's her birthday this month, I think I'll surprise her. Now you can make my recipe without the zucchini , and just cook up a pound of linguine instead, but we enjoy having less starch and adding a green vegetable. Here's my recipe:

1 - lemon

1/4 - cup of Olive Oil

4 - cloves garlic

1 - teaspoon of dried thyme

1 - teaspoon chopped fresh basil

1/4 - cup dry Italian vermouth

1 - 12oz can of Baby Clams

3 - large zucchini (summer squash)

1 - tsp butter

Black Pepper

Red pepper flakes

Slice zucchini into thin planks lengthwise, then cut planks into linguine sized strips (a mandolin does this best). In large pot heat oil. Add Garlic (sliced into large chunks), juice of 1 lemon, and drain the juice of one 12oz can of baby clams. bring to a simmer, add a teaspoon of butter, and 1/4 cup dry Italian vermouth, bring back to a simmer, add thyme, basil and oregano, add zucchini strips and again return to a simmer, add the clams and and reduce heat to its lowest setting, remove from heat after 4 minutes, or when the sauce returns to a boil (whichever comes first) Crack pepper and drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and have red pepper flakes on hand.

Optional - steam a box of those steamer clams in the shell, and serve them over the top (or on the side, if you don't want to pick out the shells).

Add some of those red pepper flakes. Taste it. Once you are done ooing and awwweing you'll have no choice but to agree it's Italian!