I thought all of the speeches were completed, but my nephew Morgan suddenly raised his wineglass and made a toast.
“I want to say something about my grandma,” he said. “I think she’s the greatest person I’ve ever met.” He then went on to talk about how much she meant to him and why. It was eloquent and moving and my mom, who rarely gets openly emotional, was definitely choked up to the point of repeatedly wiping her eyes.
After that toast, I told Morgan that he was now officially a mensch.
My mom stayed at the party until the very end. She ate, drank, and soaked up the love. When it was time to leave, I asked her if she’d had a good time.
“Oh yes,” she said. “Oh yes.” That was all she really had to say.
“You want my take on the whole party?” I asked. She nodded. “You have a lot of children,” I said. “All the people here, they either think you’re their mom or they wish you were their mom.”
“And what’s the lesson to learn from that?” she asked.
“You’re lucky,” I said.
And my mother said, with a triumphant smile, “No, you are.”
THE TORNABENES’ BUCCATINI WITH CAULIFLOWER, PINE NUTS, CURRANTS, ANCHOVIES, AND SAFFRON
Gangivecchio means “Old Gangi,” which means that the town of Gangi that exists today is the new Gangi. The spot where the thirteenth-century abbey stands—now the inn and restaurant run by Giovanna Tornabene and her brother, Paolo—was the site of the original village. For six hundred or so years, monks ran the magnificent abbey. There are remnants of that period everywhere you look: the seventeenth-century chapel off the courtyard, sixteenth-century frescoes on the walls of Giovanna’s apartment inside the magnificent walled structure. Several years ago, I participated in an archaeological dig on the grounds of the abbey and uncovered two-thirds of an ewer that the archaeologist from Palermo told me was from 300 BCE. Having discovered something that old and beautiful—and holding it gingerly in my palm—brought tears to my eyes. Wandering through the ruins of the abbey, I once stumbled upon a stack of beautiful terra-cotta tiles. When I showed them to Giovanna, she said, “Oh yes, those are seven hundred years old.” She then offhandedly suggested that I should use the tiles to build the barbecue I wanted to erect outside the cottage, and that’s where they now sit. Every time I spill grease from a sausage onto the ancient tiles, my stomach hurts a little bit.
Wanda Tornabene, the mother of Giovanna and Paolo, was an amazing woman. When I met her, in 1991, she was in her late sixties and she was no one to mess with. Like a lot of Sicilians, particularly after World War II, the Tornabenes were gentry who ran out of money. Even now, these Sicilian gentry have managed to have loyal servants and a certain regal carriage and an air that clearly conveys the belief that they are meant to lord over someone, somewhere. But at some point, they have all had to either go to work or face destitution. For many, being broke beats the humiliation of actually having to do real labor. Wanda was not one of those. When her husband was still alive, she put her foot down. She said that they were not going to sell off any more of the land they owned (once a thousand acres or so). Nor were they going to sell off any more antique furniture from the abbey. Instead, she said, they were going to open a restaurant. Enzo, her husband, was mortified. Cooking for, serving, and waiting on local people, whom they knew? People who should be working for Enzo and his family? No, this was not going to happen.
It happened. Because Wanda made it happen. Gangivecchio, over time, became the best restaurant in Sicily, and Wanda ran it the way a great general commands his (or her) troops. She gave orders, the people who worked for her as well as her family followed those orders, and somehow they all developed an appreciation for her passion and her talent. That appreciation developed into loyalty. And even love.
When Wanda’s husband died, in the early 1980s, the restaurant is what kept her and her two children going. On the abbey’s grounds were acres of superb vineyards and four hundred olive trees and cows and horses and chickens and cherry trees and almond trees, and although they could keep the land and its treasures alive, they could not mine them the way they should be mined. That was for a different era. What Wanda could control, what she could mine, was food. She was a magnificent cook and loved food fiercely. For my mother, food was a way to strengthen her identity. For Wanda, food was part of her. It was her blood.
The Tornabenes—Wanda, Giovanna, Paolo—sacrificed a lot to keep Gangivecchio in the family. Giovanna now says that Gangivecchio is her child: her purpose on earth is to keep it alive.
When she was in her mid-eighties, Wanda got sick. Eventually she went blind. But she would not leave Gangivecchio. She said she would die before she left Gangivecchio.
In 2012, when she was eighty-seven years old, Wanda stopped eating. Food is what gave her not just a way to live but also a reason to live. Food, literally and spiritually, had kept her alive. When she decided she did not want to keep going, she knew how to stop. She just pushed the food away. She removed her reason for living and she died.
* * *
MY MOTHER PICKED the Tornabenes’ buccatini as her favorite pasta. It’s mine as well.
When I was editing Wanda and Giovanna’s first book, written with an American writer, Michelle Evans, who learned to speak fluent Italian just so she could do the book, the Tornabene women told me their secret to making great food: there should be no more than five main ingredients in any dish. This one just manages to squeeze itself in. Pasta is not an ingredient, in case you’re wondering. As Giovanna would say, pasta is a member of the family.
I have made this pasta, over the years, perhaps more than any other. Recently, I cooked it standing alongside Giovanna in the kitchen at Gangivecchio’s inn. The dish came out better when Giovanna was involved. I don’t understand why that is, since I do it the exact same way at home. Perhaps her ingredients were better. Or perhaps she is actually something I’m not: a natural cook.
The same way I love wine but don’t have the perfect palate, I don’t have the magic cooking touch, either. I’m a good cook. I swear. I just don’t have the magic. Giovanna has the same magic that Wanda had. She’s a great cook and her Bucatini alla Palina, which is the real name of this dish as written in her first cookbook, tastes better than mine. But magic or no magic, you’re going to like it.
I don’t know why this dish works best with bucatini, but it definitely does. The pasta’s thickness takes the sauce better than spaghetti and the length allows a bit more pasta on one’s fork than, say, penne. But don’t overanalyze. As Tom Stoppard once said about good writing: It works because it works.
INGREDIENTS:
Salt
1 small cauliflower, with florets cut into small pieces, approximately the same size
¾ cup olive oil
½ cup finely chopped shallots or onion
2 tablespoons minced anchovy fillets
¼ teaspoon powdered saffron
½ cup currants, soaked in hot water for 10 minutes and drained
¼ cup pine nuts
Freshly ground black pepper
1 pound bucatini, broken in half if need be
¾ cup toasted bread crumbs (see below)
DIRECTIONS:
Serves 6 as a first course or 4 as a main course
Bring 1½ quarts of water to a rolling boil in a large pot. Stir in 1 teaspoon salt and add the cauliflower. Cook at a slow boil for about 5 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the cauliflower to a bowl. Reserve 1 quart of the cooking water.
In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil and cook the shallots or onion and anchovies over medium heat for 5 minutes. Add ½ cup of the cauliflower water, saffron, currants, and pine nuts. Combine well and season to taste with salt and pepper. Simmer for 15 minutes. Add a bit more cauliflower water if you sense it’s needed.
Meanwhile, combine 3 quarts of water and the reserved cauliflower cooking water and bring to a rolling boil in a large pot. Stir in 1½ tablespoons of salt and add the bucatini. Cook un
til al dente, or just tender, stirring often.
Reserve 1 cup of the pasta water, drain the pasta, and return it to the pot. Immediately add the sauce and gently toss. Add more pasta water, as needed, if a thinner sauce is preferred. Cover and let the pasta rest, off the heat, for 5 minutes. Toss again and serve with the toasted bread crumbs.
(AUTHOR’S NOTE: NOT TO KEEP LORDING IT OVER YOU, BUT WHEN I WAS MAKING THIS RECENTLY WITH GIOVANNA, SHE ADDED ONE FINAL INSTRUCTION AND I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT. AFTER THE PASTA’S READY, PUT IT IN A BAKING DISH, WITH SOME OF THE BREAD CRUMBS—WHICH, IN HER LITTLE BOWL, SHE COMBINED WITH PARMESAN CHEESE, SO THEY WERE INSEPARABLE—AND PUT IT IN THE OVEN AT 400 DEGREES F FOR 10 MINUTES. MMMM-MMMM!)
BREAD CRUMBS FROM LA CUCINA SICILIANA DI GANGIVECCHIO
Grate thoroughly dry two- or three-day-old firm Italian country bread—with or without the crust. (We always include the crust for the slight variety of colors it produces and, perhaps, a hint of extra flavor.)
One cup of bread crumbs is a sufficient amount for four servings of pasta. Heat 1½ tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan and swirl it all over the bottom of the pan. Stir in the bread crumbs with a wooden spoon. Turn them repeatedly over medium-high heat, spreading them across the pan, until they blush a rosy golden-brown color. This takes only 2 to 3 minutes. (Double the amount of olive oil for 2 cups of bread crumbs.) Spread the toasted bread crumbs onto a plate, allowing them to cool, stirring once or twice before using them.
The final stage of the cauliflower, etc., pasta—about to go into the oven
Serve toasted bread crumbs in a little bowl sitting on a saucer with a small spoon, or in a grated cheese dish with a spoon. Place the bowl on the table and pass it around so the bread crumbs can be sprinkled on top of the pasta as you would Parmesan cheese.
We have found that toasted bread crumbs keep well for only a day, so they must be made the same day they are used.
(AUTHOR’S NOTE: OR YOU CAN USE STORE-BOUGHT BREAD CRUMBS. NO, THEY’RE NOT AS GOOD, BUT THEY’RE FINE. AND IF YOU SERVE THEM IN A LITTLE BOWL WITH A SAUCER, PEOPLE WILL THINK THEY’RE BETTER THAN THEY ARE.)
TARTE TATIN
I am a total Francophile. I have spent a lot of time in France, working, playing, living, eating, and drinking. Yes, yes, I know all the flaws with the French—they think they’re better than everyone else, they think their culture is so superior, they lord their food and wine over the rest of the world. Well … um … I tend to agree with them. In quite a few ways, they are somewhat better than anyone else: they’re stylish, educated, informed, involved, sophisticated, they drink the best wine, and when it comes to food, it has always amazed me that almost any average, ordinary French person can throw a dinner party, organized at the last moment, and provide a meal that is 100 percent satisfying. I’ll admit the whole capitulation-to-the-Nazis thing gives me pause. And so does the fact that most of their culture—their architecture, literary output, and music—over the past forty years is giggle-inducing. But, in one of the greatest philosophical observations ever made, written by Billy Wilder and spoken by Joe E. Brown at the end of Some Like It Hot: “Nobody’s perfect.”
There is no question that my romantic view of the French has been stoked by the books and films I’ve loved all my life: Fitzgerald writing about Paris in the twenties, the movies of Lelouch and Truffaut. So yes, I tend to view French people and French life through rosé-colored glasses.
I was once at the apartment of friends, Nikolas and Linda Kaufman, who lived in Paris. She is American and he is very, very French. Linda is an amazing home cook, one of the best I’ve ever known, and she made a superb meal that night. But as is often the case, the oohs and aahs came over the dessert, which was Nikolas’s domain. It was a tarte tatin and I was staggered by it. I told him I would love to know how to make it. He responded that it was quite easy. He said that there was a great French chef who wrote a cookbook that contained the perfect tarte tatin recipe. He assured me that if I followed it exactly, anyone who ate the tarte would swear it was made by an honest-to-goodness French person. He then led me back to their kitchen, pulled a cookbook from a shelf, and handed it to me. The great French dessert chef was Martha Stewart.
Martha Stewart’s Tarte Tatin Recipe
INGREDIENTS:
5 to 6 medium apples, such as Braeburn
¾ cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons water
4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 lemon
½ recipe pâte brisée (recipe follows)
DIRECTIONS:
1. Peel, halve, and core apples. Set aside half of the apples. Quarter the remaining apples and transfer them to a large bowl. Squeeze a lemon over the apple slices and set aside.
2. Combine the sugar and water in a 9-inch cast-iron skillet. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium-high heat; immediately reduce the heat to medium and cook until the mixture begins to thicken and turn amber. Remove from the heat and stir in the butter.
3. Place the reserved apples in the center of the skillet. Decoratively arrange the remaining apple slices, cut side up, in the skillet around the reserved apples. Continue layering the slices until level with the top of the skillet. Cut any remaining apples into thick slices to fill in the gaps. If the fruit does not completely fill the pan, the tart will collapse when inverted.
4. Place the skillet over low heat and cook until the syrup thickens and is reduced by half, about 20 minutes. Do not let the syrup burn. Remove from the heat and let cool.
5. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
6. Roll out the pâte brisée to a 10- to 11-inch circle, about ⅛ inch thick; transfer to a baking sheet and chill until firm, about 30 minutes.
7. Place the pâte brisée over the apples and tuck the edges. Transfer the skillet to the prepared baking sheet; transfer the baking sheet to the oven, and bake until golden brown, about 35 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool for 15 to 20 minutes. Loosen the pastry from the skillet using a sharp knife. Place a rimmed platter over the skillet and quickly and carefully invert. Serve immediately.
RECIPE FOR PTE BRISÉE (AUTHOR NOTE: FANCY WORD FOR PIE DOUGH)
Pâte brisée is the French version of classic pie or tart pastry. Pressing the dough into a disk rather than shaping it into a ball allows it to chill faster. This will also make the dough easier to roll out, and if you freeze it, it will thaw more quickly. (AUTHOR NOTE: I DON’T GET THIS WHOLE DISK VS. BALL THING. SMOOSHING IT INTO A BALL SEEMS TO WORK FINE.)
Makes 1 double-crust or 2 single-crust 9- to 10-inch pies
INGREDIENTS:
2½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small pieces
¼ to ½ cup ice water
DIRECTIONS:
1. In the bowl of a food processor, combine the flour, salt, and sugar. Add the butter and process until the mixture resembles coarse meal, up to 10 seconds.
2. With the machine running, add the ice water in a slow, steady stream through the feed tube. Pulse until the dough holds together without being wet or sticky; be careful not to process more than 30 seconds. To test, squeeze a small amount together: if it is crumbly, add more ice water, 1 tablespoon at a time.
3. Divide the dough into two equal balls. Flatten each ball into a disk and wrap in plastic. Transfer to the refrigerator and chill at least 1 hour. The dough may be stored, frozen, up to 1 month.
The last time I was at Gangivecchio I told Giovanna that I wanted to make a tarte tatin and she immediately said that we should prepare one together. I showed her the Martha Stewart recipe and she agreed to follow it. More or less. During the course of our baking, Giovanna showed me a few tricks to make Martha’s recipe a bit simpler and even a bit better.
The following Sunday, she was having a luncheon for eleven people, so we went into the kitchen around te
n o’clock and began to make the filling. Cooking with Giovanna is not a fully satisfying participatory experience. If you can keep up, great. If not, you better get the hell out of the way. Especially if ten guests are on their way to the albergo—hotel—for a meal. On many of these steps, I just got the hell out of the way.
We used her cast-iron skillet. It’s not necessary, but it really does work best. If you don’t have one, any frying pan will suffice. But you’ll feel a lot more professional if you go for the cast-iron one.
We put the butter in, as Martha says to do, and melted it over low heat.
Next: time to core and peel the apples. Giovanna needed a large tarte, since so many guests were coming, so she decided we’d need fourteen apples. And this is where it started to get ugly. Giovanna has a lovely woman, Giuseppina, who helps her out from time to time, cleaning and cooking and waiting on tables. Giuseppina pushed half of the apples in my direction, she gave me a knife so I could start peeling, and she picked up her own knife at the same time. I did my best to visualize my knife skills class, got my confidence up, and began. I inserted the blade carefully under the skin, began slicing away, got maybe an inch of peel off. Satisfied that it looked good, I did the same thing again, and then again, carefully and precisely. When I finished with my first apple—cleanly peeled, looking very professional—I turned proudly to Giuseppina, who was staring at me with a confused expression. In addition to staring, she was also holding twelve perfectly peeled apples. Pride instantly evaporated and transformed into dismay. To make me feel worse, Giuseppina took the final apple and peeled it while I watched—she stuck the knife in and in less than five seconds the peel was off, with one continuous slice as if she were quickly unwrapping a small gift engulfed in tissue paper. Shaking her head, she handed me a different knife so I could start coring. But before I could move, Giovanna raced over, grabbed the knife out of my hand, and replaced it with an apple corer. She didn’t have to say anything. I knew she didn’t want to have to take me to the Gangi emergency room. Giuseppina stuck with her knife. I did manage to core more than one apple; I did four; she did the remaining ten. The process seemed easy enough when I started: an apple corer is inserted into the apple, directly over the core, and pushed straight down, then removed with the core in its grip. I’m not sure how I managed this, but the tip of my corer kept coming out the side of the apple instead of at the bottom. Each time, I had to insert the thing twice. All of the apples I cored looked as if some giant worm had managed to slither inside from a perfectly round third hole somewhere to the right or left of the core. My one tip on this step is: although Giuseppina could peel and core her apples in the time it took the butter to melt in the pan, I suggest coring the apples before you turn the heat on under the butter.
My Mother's Kitchen Page 23
