Buona Fortuna, Signor Sessa

I've lived in the same house practically all my life. Save for a brief period of "freedom" in my twenties, I live in the house my parents brought me to as a newborn baby. My mother has lived in this house for fifty years, and my children are the fourth generation of my family to be here. A short walk from the house is Sessa's Cold Cuts and Italian Specialties. Mr. Sessa has run this neighborhood Italian deli for 35 years, effectively all my life. He just sold the place to enjoy his well earned retirement.

Giancarlo (Johnny) Sessa is something of a third grandfather to me. He jokes about how despite the fact that many of his customers are much older than me, I am his oldest customer. On the weekend he opened his shop in 1979, my Nonna took me there. I was a little older than two and my brother had yet to be born. I still shop there. Notoriously surly in the true Italian (my Nonna would further specify "Napolitana") way, he always greeted me with a kindly "Come stai, Giuseppe?". We've been friends all my life.

Sessa's shop was one of my first experiences of the kind of "real thing" the internet generation can mostly only imagine. The freshest Italian cold cuts outside Italy, sliced to paper thin perfection; dried fishes and bundles of garlic hanging from the ceiling; buckets full of olives by the front door (oil cured black olives a personal favorite). At Easter, pizza chiena (pronounced in Boston "pizza gain-a") satcked high on the counter; at Christmas, pannetone of every size...for days. Vacuum sealed bricks of all the rare types of Lavazza; homemade dry cured sausages from some old lady in Malden, totally illegal; Kinder Eggs, also illegal; and always friendly Italian banter.

As a child, I remember being there every weekend, the smells, and the sounds of spoken Italian. Back then, the neighborhood was mostly Italian, and the immigrant generation, "old country" folks like my grandparents, were everywhere. In those days, nobody spoke English in Sessa's shop. It was a lively place. We would go there to buy cold cuts on Saturday. With every order, I would be given a fresh slice to taste. I would leave having eaten a sandwich worth of meat, only to go home and make a sandwich.

For the last few years, Mr. Sessa had talked about retirement. He had children, but none interested in taking the place on after him. That's him sweeping the floor, his daughter behind the counter. I recently heard he had found a buyer for the place. Today, I dropped by to thank him. He said "for what?". 

I told him that despite the fact that I am a second generation American, I have always considered myself to be "Italian". Obviously, growing up with my grandparents in a largely immigrant neighborhood had a lot to do with that. I didn't realize until I heard he was leaving that he and his store had a lot to do with it too. I didn't know how much his store and the culture it represents meant to me until I heard he was moving on.

The staff there wears aprons in large green, white, and red stripes of the Italian flag. Some twenty years ago, he gave one to my father, and I promptly stole it when my own interest in cooking began to bud. I told him how only last week I finally had to part with it. It was too stained and torn too keep anymore. I said that if I knew he was leaving I would have kept it. He went back to the kitchen and came out with a new one, saying "Don't say I never gave you nothing". I couldn't be happier. I can't wait to stain this one with olive oil and tomato sauce.

The fellow who bought the place is an Italian, too. He plans to make some changes, including the name, but keep the old Italian deli going strong in the neighborhood. I'm sure it will be nice, especially for those of us who would rather not buy our proscuitto at the supermarket, but it won't be Sessa's.

Buona fortuna, Signor Sessa. Enjoy the rest, you've earned it.

Pizza Wood

My grandmother lived to cook and to feed people. I know this is true of so many such women of her generation, but I really do consider what she practiced in her kitchen to be art. The older I get, the truer it becomes to me. Her food was always simple and direct, but honest and balanced in a way that I find hard to describe. In the Summer, she kept things light, relying on all manner of fresh New England fish and the plethora of vegetables that my grandfather grew on his tiny patch of urban garden. As the weather cooled, things got more robust. Autumn was a time for packing and curing sausages, hanging them in strands from hooks on the ceiling of our enclosed back porch, occasionally curing an entire pig's leg into prosciutto for months on a hook in the basement. And then there was the polenta.

These days, any gourmand, or for that matter anyone who has cable or has heard of Mario Batali, knows what polenta is. In my youth, only Italians, and Northern ones at that, ate it, and only in the Fall and Winter.  Originally food for Roman soldiers to march on, the stuff is basically a dense cornmeal mush, not a high ticket gourmet side dish. Like so many things we now consider "gourmet", its beauty and essence originate with the poor people.

Nonna would make it sometimes for Sunday dinner after church. She had a stove and table set up in the cellar, separate from the kitchen in her apartment. She'd get a sauce cooking early in the morning, filled with her own homemade sausage and meatballs, and the tomatoes from Nonno's garden. It would sit on low simmer for hours. Then, down in the basement, the two of them would make the polenta together. In a huge pot of boiling water, she would add the cornmeal a handful at a time, letting the grains slip through her loose fist. He would stir constantly, with a big wooden pole. When it was ready, they would take the pot together and dump it onto an old wooden board, about three feet by two feet. The polenta would run and spread, but cool quickly before it ever ran over the edge, forming one giant piece of dense yet fluffy Italian cornbread. 

My brother and I would be called to the cellar to carry it up. It was too heavy for them to do it in their old age.  We would carry the board to the table and set it down, and she would spread the sauce over it, complete with meat and sausage, and then grate pecorino cheese over the whole thing. We'd all sit around it, six of us: Nonna and Nonno, my mother and father, my brother and I, each with a fork in hand, and proceed to eat from that one large piece. The grown-ups would wash it all down with plenty of Carlo Rossi Burgundy, while the kids would get Fresca, with just a whiff of wine. The we'd cut the leftover into squares and eat that for two or three days to follow.

These days I live in the apartment where they lived, cook in her kitchen, and am fortunate enough to use some of her things. Chief among them is the cast iron pan I simply couldn't do without, but the most soulful of her things that I have is the wooden board we used to serve the polenta. I use it when I make homemade pizza, and we all eat from it, no plates, just like the old days. My kids call it the "pizza wood".

If this all comes off as a whiff maudlin, please accept my apology. I just got tired of talking AAW business with you all, and I couldn't come up with anything fresh to say about oxford shirts, navy blazers, penny loafers, striped ties, Brooks Brothers, thrift shops, or jazz.

Cabin Fever

When the hurricane comes to town and you get shut in for the day, it can be hard to fight the old cabin fever. True, its only one day, but one day locked up can drive us modern city types crazy. You can either feed the disease by staring out the back door wondering if the rotten old tree in the neighbors yard is going to fall on your house (which it didn't, thankfully),

...or you can take the opportunity to cook something for six hours or more, just for the Hell of it. For me, this means channeling the ghost of my Nonna and cooking up some serious old school tomato sauce. Since I certainly wasn't dressing for anything yesterday, and since its a been a while since we geeked out about food here, I thought it was time.

The whole thing begins at 11 am with some very thick cut, country style pork ribs. For other recipes, meat like this is way too fatty, but trust me, after an entire day in the pot that fat is going to melt away into the sort of robust, earthy flavor so satisfying during such bad weather. It's a flavor that cannot be imitated in any health conscious or low fat way, but since we rarely slow down enough to eat this way, who cares?

After a liberal seasoning of salt and pepper is applied, the ribs are browned in a heavy pot over high heat in olive oil. This shouldn't take more than a few minutes per side.

After the meat has browned, throw in a chopped white onion and five or six cloves of mashed garlic, along with a liberal dose of red wine. Let the meat cook in the wine for a bit, turning once.

I firmly believe that it is a wasteful sin to put good wine in the sauce pot, but I don't abide the use of junk in any situation. Salvalai Valpolicella is a dry if simple Northern Italian red that can be had for $8.99 where I live. Cheap enough for the sauce but drinkable enough for a pizza. The bottle I grabbed was missing its front label. Call it taking one for the team.

Next in is the tomatoes. In truth, any brand of canned tomatoes will do, but if you can get them I prefer Pomi chopped tomatoes in the paper carton. They are a bit more expensive than some brands, but still only $1.99 a carton. Imported from Italy, they are brighter with a fresher taste and no other ingredients than tomatoes and they're juice. I find the chopped kind to have just the right consistency, cooking down beautifully into a chunky sauce.

For this sauce I used two cartons. After pouring in the tomatoes, loosen the meat from the bottom of the pan. This insures that it won't stick to the pan, and allows the sauce to flow under and around it. Up to this point, the whole process takes about twenty minutes. Like all great Italian cooking, the beauty lies in its sheer direct simplicity. All that's left to do is put the lid on slightly ajar, turn the flame to the lowest setting, and wait until dinner time. Occasionally move the meat around a bit, and enjoy the smell that will soon fill the entire house as you look contentedly from your favorite chair at the howling storm outside.

Cooking wine is one thing, but drinking wine is another. A meal like this is a celebration really of the fact that for once we can all slow down, even if our relaxed pace was forced on us by Mother Nature. As such, despite my consummate cheapskate-ism, I decided that something special was in order. Fabiano Amorone della Valpolicella Classico 2007 is a big, gutsy wine. Tight as a fist when its first open, I decanted this bottle at Noon and left it aside until dinner. At $50 a bottle, it sure isn't cheap, but you get what you pay for. Besides, you know I didn't actually pay that much for it.  Working in the wine trade has its advantages.

Come 6:00 pm, I boiled a pot of water to cook up some pasta to serve with it. The meat was so tender it fell from the bone, and a fork was all that was needed. This kind of food takes me back to my childhood, when the house was constantly filled with the comforting smells of slow food such as this. Back then my Nonna did the cooking, but she did it in the same kitchen, and for me that's something special. 

Since this is ostensibly a clothing blog, I suppose I should mention that I spent the day in an old pair of olive green cords and a worn plaid shirt, both by Brooks Brothers, with a pair of Toms on my feet, because dammit, they are comfortable. I showered, but I didn't shave.

I have to admit, I enjoyed the hurricane. In fact, I could use a day like that more often, so long as a tree doesn't fall on the house.