A Better Life New York
Steve "The Judge" focuses on the art of enjoying yourself through food, fun and frolic. Steve conducts live Interviews on many popular and controversial topics. Steve has candid conversations about fine dining to BBQ, cigars to cars, history making events and everything in between. Recently, we added a special monthly addition ion collecting Antique Phonographs with experts Wyatt Markus, and Collector/Dealers Joe Hough and Tracy McKinney. Sponsored by Premium Botanicals the maker of Herbal Spectrum a line of full spectrum Hemp based CBD products. http://www.mypbcbd.com
A Better Life New York
Preserving Italian Heritage: Tony Farina's Culinary Journey from Newark to Charleston, with Family Recipes and Future Visions
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Have you ever wondered what it takes to recreate your grandmother’s most treasured recipes? Join us on a heartwarming journey with Tony Farina as he shares the cherished Italian culinary traditions passed down from his mother and grandmother. Growing up in Newark, New Jersey, Tony’s family used food to maintain their Italian heritage. Hear about the meticulous effort Tony's mother put into documenting family recipes like eggplant parmesan and unique meatballs, ensuring that these culinary treasures would be preserved for future generations.
Step back in time with us to family gatherings filled with the aroma of Sunday gravy and macaroni, a staple in Italian-American households. Listen as Tony and I reminisce about sneaking bites of food before dinner and the significance of specific ingredients like breadcrumbs, garlic, and canned tomatoes. The stories about favorite brands like Wonder Bread add a personal touch, highlighting the joy and warmth these culinary traditions bring to family bonds and friendships.
From the art of bread baking to the quest for Grandma's elusive tomato pie recipe, experience the challenges and triumphs of mastering Italian home cooking. Tony discusses the importance of using the right yeast and letting the dough rise properly, while we also explore some of the best pizza and Italian restaurant experiences in New Haven, Brooklyn, and Northern Jersey. Concluding with exciting possibilities for the future, we chat about opening an Italian provision store in Charleston. Tune in for a delightful blend of personal stories, culinary tips, and the essence of Italian home cooking that will leave you both nostalgic and inspired.
Hello everyone, this is Steve from A Better Life. This podcast is brought to you by our sponsors, premium Botanical. They are the makers of Herbal Spectrum, which is a full-spectrum hemp-based CBD. They make salves, liquids, and they have a great mixed berry gummy. You can check them out at wwwmypbcbdcom. Now our podcast.
Speaker 1:Hello everybody, and welcome back to A Better Life with George and Steve. Here we are again. George is still working on his project. He couldn't make it today. He had some things to do as well. So I am here with a special guest, as I may have mentioned it somewhere along the line Tony Farina. Steve, how are you? I'm good, I'm good. Thank you so much for joining us today. So we had a very special day because, first of all, it poured like mad all morning and now it's as beautiful day as it possibly could be. We'd been talking a long time, tony and I, about his old family recipes and some of his mother's and grandmother's ways of making good old sundae sauce, as well as meatballs, sausage, and we had a little angel hair today. So it was really. I feel like I'm about to burst, but I am getting close to an espresso Tone. Tell me, before we get started on the food which we'll get to. So tell me these family recipes. You grew up in New Jersey is that correct?
Speaker 2:Yes, born and raised in Newark, moved out in 1967 when there was a lot of unrest in Newark, new Jersey. We moved to Edison but my mom and her sisters and sister-in-laws kept the traditions going. It all comes down to my mom was a really good cook and she managed and cooked all of the traditional Italian dishes meatballs, sausage, rasol, lasagna, stuffed shells. She was renowned for her eggplant parmesan, which is basically to die for. For most people that I give the eggplant parmesan to just never had anything better. It's a lot of work, but it all comes down to what she fed us and me trying to carry on the tradition for my kids.
Speaker 1:I know I don't have any of my mother's recipes. Nothing's been deposited down on paper. She didn't write anything down. I have no idea what she did. A few things that I would love to know the inner workings of. One is her stuffed cabbage. It was amazing. She made it in this huge pot. She put like tomatoes in between the cabbages and stuff. It was something people came from all over to have it and it was half. My father was Hungarian and Czechoslovakian, so stuffed cabbage is a big deal in their family as well. So she made that a lot and she made sauce. She made a sauce especially if my grandfather was coming over. There was no way he wasn't going to get pasta for dinner. He would add peas, like I told you in the past. But back to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's funny. You mentioned the recipes. So my mom had just a piling of pieces of paper with different recipes on it and as she got older and my daughter and son started getting to teenage years, we had a discussion about how do we transfer those recipes down to next generations. And she spent the last few years actually recording it all in a special book. The first book was for my daughter and the second book is for my son and the second book is only halfway done before my mom passed. So I've got photocopies that I have inserted in my son's book.
Speaker 2:But it's funny when you talk about recipes, because my mom had some specialties. Her eggplant parm, her meatballs were my favorite, but I'm not sure everybody else felt the same way. But she made some great desserts and one of them was her cream puffs and my aunts and cousins used to complain because they swore my mother never gave them the full compliment of the recipe. You know she was like holding something back so that her cream puffs or her eggplant parm was absolutely the best and no one could replicate it. You know, as I started going through some of her recipes I don't know if it's just my own taste or my recollection, but I've modified some of her recipes that she had given me, that she had given my daughter and my son, and actually the meatballs you had today was a slight modification off of what my mom's recipe actually said.
Speaker 2:And I was telling Steve earlier that back then my father came from Campania, avenel Capasoli, and my mother came from Calabria, and my father was used to very dense, hard meatballs and my mother was used to very flaky, moist, break apart meatballs.
Speaker 2:So she would actually make every year, every week, two different meatballs One for my dad based on the way he liked them from his mom, and one for my brother and I that based on her family tradition. So as I started making her meatballs, they were not flaky enough, they did not break up enough. So I kept modifying and doing some research and talking to some other older Italian folks that made meatballs to come up with a kind of a modified recipe. And we had it today and I, as I told Steve, they were a little bit denser than what they should have been today. So I must have done something a little different than I usually do, but it's all handmade. The meatballs sometimes are big, they're small, sometimes they have a little bit too much breadcrumbs and egg in, and sometimes a little less, but that's what it's all about.
Speaker 1:So meatballs. Since we're there for the moment, let's start.
Speaker 2:If you will discuss your recipe a little bit, Sure, I won't give you the details, but I'll give you the general understanding. So where do you start?
Speaker 1:Let's go back to— let's talk about ingredients.
Speaker 2:Yep, let's go back to the way I was raised. So we were middle class, living in Newark, new Jersey, one income and then two incomes. So we start with just basically chopped meat, which is ground beef, and we use 80-20 because you want a little bit of the fat in there, and we mix that with eggs, some milk, parmesan cheese, some breadcrumbs. So my grandmother and my mother used to put bread in milk and get it all nice and soppy and then put it into the meatball mix. My mother converted to bread crumbs at one point in time and we actually used seasoned bread crumbs with Italian seasoning in them and we mixed that with the ground beef and then you put it together. And you don't want to put it together too hard, you're not making a snowball, you want to have it where it's a little loose. So that's another thing I might've done. I might've made them a little bit too hard, I might've packed them a little too hard for Steve.
Speaker 1:So do you brown them in a pan or do you bake them in the oven?
Speaker 2:So we bake them in the oven, and this is really the key to the sauce. So when you bake them in the oven, you're baking them in a mix of oil, onions, garlic and some seasonings and you got the sausage and the meatballs on the pan in the oven. I brown my sausages first because I like them a little firm, and we let them bake and then we take them out, put them in the sauce. We take all the drippings not the onions, not the garlic, some garlic and we pour it into the sauce and then we let it bake for three hours, simmer for three hours on the pot.
Speaker 1:So wait a minute.
Speaker 2:Am I talking too fast?
Speaker 1:No, I'm just trying to get it right. So the meatballs are on a cookie sheet, right On a cookie sheet, With a lip on it right.
Speaker 2:And you pour oil garlic and onion in there. So you put oil in there so that they don't stick. I put onion and garlic in there.
Speaker 1:So like minced onion.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you don't want the onion too small because you don't want to put too much onion in your sauce.
Speaker 1:It disappears.
Speaker 2:So you want to either strain it or, if it's big enough onions, just drain it and hold the onion back. I put some garlic in my sauce. I like to have garlic in there to simmer. We didn't have any garlic when we were eating today. You didn't see any cloves of garlic. Sometimes you'll find one in there, so you pull them out, or do you?
Speaker 2:No, I pull most of the garlic out, I put all the onions out and then the fat that comes out of the meatballs with the oil I pour right into the sauce and then I put the meatballs and the sausage in there and it simmers for three hours with all that mix.
Speaker 1:Interesting.
Speaker 2:It is interesting.
Speaker 1:Breadcrumbs huh.
Speaker 2:Yes, breadcrumbs makes it a little flaky. Right, you don't want a meatloaf, you don't want a round meatloaf, you want something that's a little bit more, that can break up, gives it a little bit of substance. And, once again, middle income can't have enough ground beef to feed the family. So you got to insert some bread, or, in this case, breadcrumbs, to fill it out. And the key, with sauce, and everyone's got their own recipes, but you need some piece of pork in your sauce. So I use sausage, people use brajol, which is a beef, but people use pork chops or pork ribs of some sort and put them in there. We like sausage, so we've always used sausages. And when you fry your sausage first, and once again you're getting that nice sauce, that oily sauce from the sausage that goes in the sauce also that nice sauce, that oily sauce from the sausage that goes in the sauce also.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's funny you said that because I made a pork rib sauce a little while ago and it came out fantastic. I never did it before but I had a rack of ribs. I cooked rack of ribs for one of the football games and I didn't smoke them because I wasn't in the mood, I just threw them in the oven and I only had so many pans. I had two racks left over. I threw them in the mood, I just threw them in the oven and I only had so many pans. I had two racks left over. I threw them in a thing with a bunch of tomato sauce and cooked sauce with it and the sauce came out amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:With the ribs in it, it really was good. So it was like a meal in itself. You had a couple of ribs and some sauce, much like you have a couple of meatballs and some sauce, but you have a couple of meatballs and some sauce. But it was different it was great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you think about it Growing up. We ate macaroni. We called it macaroni back then, not pasta. We ate macaronis and some type of gravy meat because it was gravy, it wasn't sauce. You had brown gravy and red gravy. Growing up, this was red gravy, so you would call the meat and the red gravy as gravy meat. So what are we having for dinner tonight? We're having macaroni and gravy meat and we'd have sausage and brussel or meatballs, but we would traditionally eat macaroni and meatballs or gravy meat Tuesdays, thursdays and Sunday consistently every week. Really, yeah. So if you remember, there used to be an old commercial.
Speaker 2:Prince Spaghetti Day right, wednesday is Prince Spaghetti Day. I think it was actually originated in Boston because everybody I knew growing up in Newark and all the other Italian kids growing up, it was Tuesday, thursday, sunday and Tuesdays and Thursdays would be at night. Sunday would be a two o'clock meal in the afternoon and you'd have sandwiches or something late at night. We had a lot of pasta and meatballs and sausage. It was something I'm trying to carry on with my kids. I don't think they eat it as much as I do, but yeah, you do what you do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't ever remember it being like that. We had it routinely every week. I know when people came over, my mother was going to make a sundae sauce that she made meatballs, sausage and then lamb.
Speaker 1:She had these little lamb chops she got from somewhere. I've never seen them again and my father loved them. I remember that Maybe that's why she did it, and she would cook it all in the sauce together and then you would get the sauce on your pasta and then a bowl of meat would be either go around or whatever, and people picked up what they like. I didn't eat the lamb. I loved sausage and I loved her meatballs. So my mom used breadcrumbs too. She's somewhat similar. I think she did what you said, that she poured the oil or whatever from, she would fry the meatballs in a pan and she would add cloves of garlic to the oil and then she would put those into the sauce when she was cooking it. Sure, but I most remember never onions, always just garlic, oil, salt and pepper, maybe some oregano, maybe some red wine that's something a lot of people add to a sauce and the meatballs were basically an egg. I don't remember more than one egg, but there must have been times. An egg, breadcrumbs, onion in the meatballs.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:But cut very small and it was, like you said, 80-20 chopped meat. It never was. Later on, when I found out that people were using pork, veal and beef, I was like why? But I know that's, you're right, it was a cost-efficient way of just using regular beef and when we were young the money was something very few and far between. I think my father I remember when he drove a laundry truck. I think he made a little over $100 a week, a little over, and our mortgage was about the same, a little bit more than $100, the GI Bill and all that stuff. So it was two kids trying to keep up with the Joneses living in an area where other people have everything. It was an interesting point of view, but certainly pasta and tomato sauce. My mom always used canned tomatoes. She never used canned sauce, she would use puree and whole and then chop them up with her hands.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, so it was a little chunkier sauce.
Speaker 1:It was a little chunkier, but then she would do something to it. I don't know if she immersion blended or something, because it was very like your sauce today very smooth, pureed, almost Today was very good. The sausage was great. It's the process right. It's really that it all sits in there and cooks together and my mother would make them the day before because she really believed that the meatballs tasted better after sitting in the refrigerator overnight, and I believed it too.
Speaker 1:I would sneak into the Sunday meal while it was sitting in overnight and take a piece of Wonder Bread white bread and pick a meatball out, smush it in and eat it on the bread, and it was a good combo. It's funny because my former mother-in-law, who soon passed, used to use only Petrich Farm white bread in her meatballs had to be Petrich Farms and it was soaked in milk and then she worked it in with her hands into the meatballs sausage. She would open up sausage even though you could buy it not in casings. She used to buy it in the casings and cut it open and make meatballs out of that.
Speaker 2:It was good she made lasagna that way too the lasagna was really good like that. It's funny you mentioned the white bread, because I used to do the same thing. I would, while my mother was cooking the pasta, the sauce, I would, while my mother was cooking the pasta, the sauce, the gravy, I would go in with some Wonder Bread and I would just take the gravy and pour it right on the top of Wonder Bread, try to grab as much of a meatball as I could and run out of the kitchen eating it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there was a fine line to where you took too much, certainly when she started to wonder if she had enough food for the people that were coming. You would, she would, my mother would make you.
Speaker 2:Definitely she wouldn't be mad, but she'd make you feel bad that you shouldn't have done it but you think about those traditions when I was going to college down in lawrenceville and we were probably an hour away from edison at the time every once in a while on the weekend, if things weren't going on at the fraternity, I would invite a friend or two to come home for a Sunday gravy, and it became something that everybody was looking to get an invitation to, and I actually used it occasionally to get myself a new girlfriend. I would invite a girl up to my mom's house for gravy on a Sunday afternoon and, lo and behold, I had myself a new girlfriend. Lo and behold, I had myself a new girlfriend.
Speaker 1:That's funny because I always think of my cousin Stefan so obviously he's on my father's side, who was Czechoslovakian and Hungarian or whatever they were, and Polish I think three things. My cousin loved my mom's horse because at home that's not what his mother made, because his mother was my father's sister and his father was, I think, part Russian and part Hungarian or whatever. He used to tell me he was a Bolshevik, but obviously he was not. So they didn't make Italian sauce like that and I routinely, when I go to a restaurant especially a good Italian restaurant, all these fancy things on the menu I order meatballs and sauce.
Speaker 2:It's a perfect way of telling if it's a good traditional Italian restaurant. I usually always start with chicken parm and if chicken parm with the sauce and the macaroni on the side with some sauce on it, if that's good, then I know I'm in a good restaurant.
Speaker 1:That's true. Tony and I last ate. We've ate at a few Italian restaurants around where we are. We ate at Castelletto, which was Tony blew his mind. He couldn't believe how good it was. It was so good. I know my friend Paulie Castelletto owns a restaurant and he's been begging me to do a podcast live from there. I have not done it, but he says he'll. He'll bring out all the old Italian specialties, but one day that's going to happen.
Speaker 1:Um, we've eaten at Nona, which is very good, and I did a review. Uh, I don't know if it was last week or the week before from here Anona, and then we also ate at Sergio's in Portchester, and that's very good as well.
Speaker 1:Yes, it is Castellano's, probably my favorite, but they're all good. Anona is nice because it's right in the middle of town and, like I mentioned during my review, it's right around the corner from a really nice cigar lounge that you can go have a cigar on after you had this wonderful meal. But, like I said in my review, and Tony's the one that had the homemade ravioli right, that's correct. Yeah, and it was very, very good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, speaking of raviolis, my grandmother on my father's side used to make homemade raviolis and as she got older the recipe changed a little bit and she wasn't as skilled at making them. So at one point in time when I was young I'd be eating one of her raviolis and it'd have eggshells in it. So I never forget making such a big commotion about it to my mom and dad. I'm not eating these raviolis because they got eggshells in them and how much shit did sorry.
Speaker 1:how much trouble did you get in on your way home?
Speaker 2:I was lambasted and was forced to eat those raviolis regardless of what was in them. They were phenomenal, but and they were big. Today raviolis are small. These are big raviolis. You don't eat two or three of them.
Speaker 2:But another recipe from my grandmother that we have not been able to master is her tomato pie, which is it's like a Sicilian pizza, but it's a little bit different. It's thick, the sauce goes, the mozzarella, the cheese goes on first, then the sauce goes over the top, and then you do breadcrumbs on top of that and you bake it. Sauce goes over the top, and then you do breadcrumbs on top of that and you bake it, and we're able to get everything but the crust. The crust is just not at the level. It was when my grandmother used to make it and we can't figure out how. It wasn't a recipe, it was people watching her and trying to formulate a recipe. So tell me about it. What did she use for a crust? She just used flour. We think there's a different amount of oil that she used in the actual, the formation of the crust and also in the pan. We don't think we've used enough oil because it doesn't come up like almost crispy where it's Breaks apart.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it was just flour, or she made like a dough.
Speaker 2:Oh, she made a dough. Yeah, it was a dough. You're thinking huh, Mm-hmm yeah.
Speaker 1:Did it have yeast in it?
Speaker 2:No, oh, yeah, it did. Oh, it absolutely did. And it rises but it becomes too bready, Not enough. It's not crispy enough. It has an oil bottom to it, Almost not caramelized, but along those lines just can't seem to get. It. Could be the pan we use a double pan now with our cookie sheets, I don't know. It's one of the challenges that we've been able to have not been able to master yet. I got cousins doing variations Every once in a while. I'll take a stab at it. My brother, who's a pretty good cook, will take a stab at it. Haven't mastered it yet.
Speaker 1:So the dough, she would let it rise and then she'd spread it out.
Speaker 2:That is correct. She would put it in a bowl, she'd put a wet dish towel on top, let it sit on top of the oven and then bang it down and put it in a big 14 by whatever cookie sheet.
Speaker 1:So maybe you're using the wrong yeast.
Speaker 2:Possibly. I don't think she was using flour to make bread. I think she was using traditional gold metal flour, because that's what we did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she probably. There's quick rise yeast and there's regular yeast, and then there's the Italian stuff comes in a chunk and I bet you that's what she used. It's the kind they use in Neapolitan pizza. You think she used gold metal flour. She didn't use double O or anything like that, right?
Speaker 2:Too hard to come by? I don't know In those days. But I do remember seeing chunks of yeast, so maybe you've got a little bit of an idea there.
Speaker 1:Right. So the Italian yeast comes in as like a big chunk and you like it almost looks like a Havla bar, that kind of thing, and you cut a piece off and then you mix it in and break it up and mix it in. That's the yeast you really eat to make pizza. If you're really going to do the Novelabar way, that's the way to do it. And you remember that that dough does rise. Sometimes most people let it rise overnight in a refrigerator, but when it's cooked it doesn't rise a lot. So that may be the tip.
Speaker 2:Interesting.
Speaker 1:I bake a lot of bread. That would be my first forte. I love that challenge. By the way, I would love that challenge. I don't know if I totally understand. It's funny because we have a guy George has a friend and he's come on our podcast. We did a two. I don't know if you heard it. You may have listened to it hank pizza, I think I did he does the.
Speaker 1:He's the frico king or whatever. If you ever saw his pie and it's like a detroit style. I don't know where they get this name from, but it has a crispy crust. If see, you have to go on his, I said his name Hank Pizza. You go on his website and look at his crust when he cuts it, it just goes.
Speaker 2:And is it thick or is it thin?
Speaker 1:The pie is thick, yeah, okay, I don't know how thick the crust is, I have to look but the outside has this crisp and I don't know if that's from cheese or what.
Speaker 2:Combination probably.
Speaker 1:And I somewhat wonder whether she mixed or somewhat put Parmesan cheese on her crust where that would prevent it from rising and giving it a crispier tendency. That may be something else you want to try.
Speaker 2:I'll give you the recipe. You can take a whack at it if you like Especially that it has a dough.
Speaker 1:That's all of it, Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and she makes a special sauce which is more of a marinara sauce that she puts on the pizza.
Speaker 1:That's something we didn't discuss. Your sauce, so you told me what you do with the oil. Do you do anything else?
Speaker 2:No, it's pretty basic Puree, half puree, half tomato sauce and, as I was mentioning to you earlier, it's hard to define those special tomatoes in a sauce. They usually have them in puree or they'll have them in peeled tomatoes, the Marzano tomatoes. So I stay away from those unless I really want to start getting into a blender and making it the right way. But I usually just do half puree, half sauce, lots of different Italian seasonings, parsley, basil, oregano, mix it all in and then the meat with the drippings really adds the kind of seasoning to it that you experienced today.
Speaker 1:So you use dry seasonings or do you use fresh and then throw it in?
Speaker 2:I do both. Depends on how quick I want to make my sauce If I use dry seasonings, or do you use fresh and then throw it in? I do both. Depends on how quick I want to make my sauce. If I have fresh seasonings, I'll cut it all up. If not, then I'll use some dry seasoning out of a jar.
Speaker 1:Another thought of that crust I'm thinking about that. I have a set of books that basically has every bread recipe on the face of the earth, has every bread recipe on the face of the earth. It's a five or seven volume goes through every history, every kind of bread, everything from panettone to whatever you could think of, any Arab breads, all those Middle Eastern breads. Everything is in this book, in this set of books. I think it costs like $700. It's in my closet and I've made a lot out of it and it tells you how to make every part, goes through the tools, goes through the methods of making the dough, every method, every one. Some people use water, some people use milk, as you would for naan or something like that. Really quite an interesting group of books. It weighs 1,000 pounds and cost too much money. But it's years ago and I probably mentioned this on the podcast before I was lucky enough to go a few times to get lessons at Boulay's restaurant.
Speaker 1:He had recently passed away in Georgia. We talked about it on one of the podcasts in the past, but he had a restaurant and on the side one of the entrances he had like a bar and it was really just a school for teaching people how to cook, and he had these unbelievable ovens, those steam ovens, the ones that cost $50,000 to put in your kitchen. So he had all those and we used to talk about baking bread and he realized that I'm pretty obsessed with baking bread. He couldn't believe how much knowledge I had. And he made bread without flour. He made bread. He really blew my mind a lot of times because he made these non-gluten kind of bread.
Speaker 1:He took me down in the kitchen, which was in the basement or down below the main floor anyway, and they had a 55 gallon drum full of sourdough starter. The thing was like and I spoke about this before, so the listeners remember this it was like the movie the Thing. It was this big blob, you could actually see it rise, and I still have some of that starter in the freezer. He gave me a jar of it and I took it home and grew it and then froze a lot of it, and I still have some of that starter in the freezer. He gave me a jar of it and I took it home and grew it and then froze a lot of it, and I still have some.
Speaker 2:Where do you cook your bread? In your oven.
Speaker 1:In my oven, inside a crock.
Speaker 2:Is that what it takes?
Speaker 1:the crock. That's what it takes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd love to be able to master doing something with breads and crusts and things like that.
Speaker 1:It's a completely different method right, and others have heard me talk about this, but I have the recipe. Poulin makes organic sourdough I don't want to say whole wheat, but like a whole wheat and regular flour famous in France because obviously the baguette is the wonder of the world over there. Matter of fact, government regulates the cost of bread and other things and how it's made. So when the woman who I learned from I shouldn't say learned from physically, but learned from video and other things and reading her father or her grandfather started the bakery there and he couldn't compete with making old baguettes so he made sourdough, and sourdough has a longer shelf life than a baguette, which may be a day.
Speaker 1:You could get a week or maybe two out of a sourdough because of the nature of the bacteria. So poor people would come and buy it because they could keep the loaf and it would live on and on and they wouldn't have to throw it out like a baguette or consume it. So I started making those loaves and they're amazing, but they're a little bit different. I'll show you some picture. I can't believe you never saw it before because I always post it, but so this is the pull-on.
Speaker 2:Wow, it looks like the bread we had today I know.
Speaker 1:This is better. The bread today was pretty good. This is better because it's a whole wheat grainy kind of bread and it has that soury taste and I know I have a loaf of sour I bought today too. I haven't cracked into it, considering that I sliced my finger open once again in the exact same spot, if you guys remember that I spoke about how I sliced it open and it was infected forever and I couldn't bend it forever. When I was smoking meat at the fundraiser the other day, on the exact same spot. Now that it finally healed, I sliced it open again while I was cutting bread, and that was because they didn't leave the bread in the oven long enough, even though it was totally cooked. They didn't crisp it enough. For whatever reason it's a business they got to roll it along, so the knife bounced off and sliced my hand. I may have had something to do with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, user error right.
Speaker 1:User error yeah.
Speaker 2:But blood was spilled for sauce and spaghetti today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it really was bleeding. I didn't think I was going to be able to get it to stop because it was just pouring out into the sink. You would think that I murdered somebody. It was like an oj simpson sink picture but I finally got it to stop. But I couldn't get it to stop bleeding long enough to get that band-aid out of the package. There's blood all over the all over my bathroom. I had to wipe it all up but anyway, so that how that pull on heavy crust rises in a crock. I contemplated making it for today, but it takes longer If we were eating at night. It really takes a whole day. I imagine.
Speaker 1:The only thing because of the heavier grain, it doesn't have that traditional sour dough with all those big nooks and cranny in the bread. Because of the grain, where it's organic and briny, it has the flavor and it's great because you can toast it days later and it still comes out as good and you use that real fatty French butter that's got all the fat in it. It's like you should say on the label double the fat. But that's great bread. I know I'm obsessed with bread and I'm obsessed with dough and getting it to rise perfectly and I need to start baking it again. I promised some people and I'm obsessed with dough and getting it to rise perfectly and I need to start baking it again. I promised some people and I haven't done it yet and I'm going to.
Speaker 2:Bread will make or break your meal. Good bread will make a bad meal better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we got lucky today because this morning I went he said good bread. If it's not good bread, don't get it is what he told me. So I went went to the checos today near the chico's or whatever you call it. I went there today and the bread had just come out of the oven with wraps sitting on the counter, still warm. So I got spared the embarrassment of the only thing I had to do for the meal today that's not true.
Speaker 2:You got the pasta I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:I went to the store and got the pasta too, but I already had it here. That was the store and got the pasta too, but I already had it here. That was the only one we use is the only one I already had here.
Speaker 2:I got all the other ones. So, lee, let's talk about an eggplant parm recipe.
Speaker 1:Now I've been hearing about this eggplant parm and I almost took a shot at trying to do it myself, just by what he told me, to be honest, but I didn't want to take the grief over it, what he saw, but go ahead, tell me about it.
Speaker 2:Obviously you got to get eggplants in season. I've tried to. Eggplants will show up in the grocery store any month, doesn't matter. But when they're not in season they just don't have the same flavors and I've learned that the hard way. So you start out with your eggplants in season, you peel them and then you slice them cylindrical so you have little discs of eggplant. How thick, typically about an eighth of an inch we do super thin.
Speaker 1:So do you use a mandolin or you try to cut them with a knife.
Speaker 2:I cut them with a knife. It would be better using a gadget. That would be consistent. Maybe try that going forward. But what you end up doing this is mom's recipe. I've had a lot of people tell me they've had similar but never exactly the same.
Speaker 2:So you take as you get your slices, you lay them on a plate and ideally you laid them on a plate that has grates to where the oil can seep through, to where the oil can seep through. You put a layer of eggplant, you put salt, you put another layer of eggplant salt all the way up and then you press them. You fill a pot full of water and you put it at the very top of the pile and you just press them for about a good 30 minutes and have all the bitterness and all the juices come out. You pat them down, you flour an egg, deep fry them and then you start layering them in a casserole dish. And the way you layer them is you put sauce first and if you think about this, all the traditional Italian dishes that I've been used to growing up with, the foundation has been my mother's gravy.
Speaker 2:So you have to have some leftover gravy to make eggplant. You have to have leftover gravy to make lasagna or manigat or stuffed shells. So you put a layer of gravy down and you start. You put a layer of eggplant, a little Parmesan, a little mozzarella, put a little bit of sauce and then you just raise it all the way up to where it's like a casserole. It almost looks like lasagna when it comes out of the oven, but the bitterness is gone. It's a sweet taste. It's healthy for you, other than the deep frying. A buddy of mine actually tried baking the eggplant instead of deep frying it and said it was pretty close to what we're used to. So I guess the next time I try to do it I'll end up baking it. But it's a project. Eggplant parm. You need two people. It's a lot of work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I used to eat this restaurant in Boca Raton. I don't remember the name of it, I'm sure it's not there anymore but they used to have these towers of thin fried eggplant and it was literally like a round tower, all the same size, covered with sauce and with cheese. They would bake it in the oven. You'd get this like little tower and it was absolutely the best eggplant I ever had in my life.
Speaker 2:You haven't had mine yet, have you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that's a lot of talk. I don't know how true it is. He didn't bring any eggplant today. He could have done that.
Speaker 2:Your kitchen is not big enough to make eggplant parm.
Speaker 1:Listen, I've made 50 pounds of pastrami in there. I've made makes a mess. Don't get me wrong when I get done looking or when I come back from cooking, because that stuff smoked so I had to go to the smoker. I had to go to the smoker and it's difficult to keep it clean. So usually now what I do because I have a housekeeper once a week coming clean now I make sure if I'm going to make a messy cook, I'm going to do it the day before she comes, which is Wednesday.
Speaker 2:I'm sure she appreciates that. What's Meg doing today? Meg is in Nebraska, left Thursday. We'll come back tomorrow. Monday. She's helping her father organize his apartment for the move Because as we move to Charleston South Carolina, ed will be coming and living around the corner from us down in Charleston South Carolina.
Speaker 1:Really that's her dad. That's her dad.
Speaker 2:That's her dad. He's out there by himself. For the most part. The woman he was seeing went into an assisted living home, so he's kind of on his own. He's got some friends, but he's 84 years old, it's time. Friends.
Speaker 1:And the warmer weather, because Nebraska is freezing, cold, windy too, it's just because of the wind. It's freezing, cold, windy too, it's just because of the wind. It's so flat and the wind. I had a friend when I was a kid. He was stationed in Nebraska and obviously it was much colder 50 years ago, 45 years ago, and he said Nebraska. He was stationed all over the place in Nebraska. He was stationed in South Dakota.
Speaker 2:He told me Nebraska was the coldest place he's ever been in his life. It's beautiful, though.
Speaker 1:Because of the wind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's beautiful, it's flat. Your point is absolutely right on.
Speaker 1:Flat. That's what it is. Flat, it's as flat as anything could be. Other farmers out there, where do they grow corn?
Speaker 2:Best corn's in southern Jersey, Best tomatoes best corn are in southern Jersey. We have that argument all the time me and the clan from Nebraska.
Speaker 1:Really. I know the tomatoes are. Corn is good, jersey corn's good, but the tomatoes are something. It's funny because I had a friend who's in. He sent me a video. He is in Croatia and he showed me a tomato and bit into it and it was this like red live awesome tomato. And he said this is a tomato. I had to come to Croatia to try it. And I'm thinking about when I was a kid and all the times in New Jersey when it was tomato season. You knew it because every place had tomatoes for sale.
Speaker 2:We have another tradition called a tomato salad, and it's fresh Jersey tomatoes, cubed onions, some Italian seasoning, a little bit of oil and water and let it sit overnight and it just is unbelievable refreshing and healthy.
Speaker 1:No cucumbers.
Speaker 2:No, we don't do cucumbers. I know a lot of people do.
Speaker 1:And red onion.
Speaker 2:I use white sweet onions. But people use red, but I use white sweet. I use white sweet even with my sauce. I like white sweet onions.
Speaker 1:So do I.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Vidalia onions like that type so when my Spanish are yellow.
Speaker 1:When I was making barbecue sauce the other day, we didn't have enough yellow onion at the Italian Club and I was like what's the deal? We don't have yellow onions. He goes, oh, I usually use red. And I was like red. I never used red, but I used red. It came out pretty well because you puree the barbecue sauce when you're done, so it mixes in, but it had a nice flavor. I can't complain about the barbecue sauce. It was perfect.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, if you're going to go to Stanford.
Speaker 1:We talk about pizza, george, and I talk about pizza all the time. Let's hear you. I forgot, I forgot all about that. I'm glad you brought it up. Let's talk about Connecticut pizzas.
Speaker 2:Come on tell me about how it's better than anywhere in the universe. I wouldn't say better than anywhere in the universe, but I think there's a distinction. When you think about New Haven style pizza and some of the Brooklyn and Northern Jersey pizza joints Both, I think, are 9, 10 type ratings A little bit different but very good. And my favorite from New Haven is Sally's. They just opened one in downtown Stanford and that's where you and I went and I think you were happy with what you were eating.
Speaker 1:It was very good. I can't complain. It was very good, I don't know, but it was very good. I really liked it. But sometimes when I look at pizza I don't want to say it almost looked a little processed. To me it was a feeling, not a taste or anything else.
Speaker 2:It just seemed that it wasn't as handmade as what I'm used to, but the flavor and the taste and everything was amazing. Yeah, the crust is good. They make it on site, so that was just a perception going in. You're a little bit tainted. I think I beat you up a little bit too much, for what was that artesian pizza joint you and George were talking about?
Speaker 1:It's right here in Hartsdale. Hartsdale House of pizza Talk about it all the time. I should have sent you the video somebody sent me of all the different slices they had.
Speaker 2:So there's another one in Westchester called Johnny's. I know Mount Vernon, I think it is.
Speaker 1:I have no idea. I was driving around Mount Vernon the other day and I said I think Johnny's is around here.
Speaker 2:I have no idea where it is, you would drive right by it. It's nondescript. So I went there because we have a gentleman that works for us in Westchester and he raves about Johnny's.
Speaker 1:I have been there.
Speaker 2:And I rave about New Haven, listen, very similar in my view to Sally's, that type of style crusty thin, more sauce than cheese, but I still go Sally's number one. If you're going to compare Connecticut New Haven-type style pizza and I can't recall the names of the ones in Jersey that I've eaten at, but they're very similar. So that was pizza. You talk about Italian restaurants. You've got Columbus Park, downtown Stanford, phenomenal Italian restaurant.
Speaker 1:I've never been there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the other one which is actually better but extremely difficult to get into is Cafe Silvum, which is on the south side of South Stanford. I think it's called All homemade pasta. Same thing with Columbus Park all homemade pasta, but really good dishes. Cafe Silvum is a little bit more traditional, columbus Park is a little bit more. It's got a little bit of a flair to it, but it's very good. Both of them are very good restaurants.
Speaker 1:I'll keep those in mind. It's funny just to get back to pizza for a minute. So the other night I had worked late. It was Friday. I went over to meet George. He got out at whatever 9 o'clock at night and I was in Mimarnik and one of my favorite pizza places of all time is Sal's for Sicilian pie. Sicilian pie is known without Westchester as the number one unbelievable Sicilian. But I have to say the last two times I was in there it wasn't as good as it used to be. The second to last time I was in there they said usually it's oh, I'll take. I want corners. Can I have the next one that came out? They always had one in. Oh no, don't take that. Don't take what you don't want. Wait for the next one.
Speaker 1:I used to go to South's Pizza 1130 at night. You'd be hungry. You just got out of doing something. Wherever you were, the food wasn't there. You weren't sure you ever go to those places where you have to go to an event. You don't know if they're going to feed you. You don't know if they're not going to feed you. You know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, whether you're going to like it or not.
Speaker 1:So I remember I got out of the event. We went over to Sal's got slices. He was sat in the car just got slices. It was like 10.45. I think they're open to midnight. They were still pulling hot pies out of the thing.
Speaker 1:So two times ago I went oh it's Sunday night, we close at 9. 9? You close at 9? Dinner's not even. This is the town. People are rolling around, the people are just coming out to eat 9 o'clock. They work in the city by the time they get home on the bus on a Friday night. Oh, we close at 9. Now, when did that start? We don't have any slices left. I was like what? So I took a slice of something I didn't want but I needed to eat something. So Friday that was a Sunday. So Friday I go in there. I hit 9.05. Oh, we're closed. What do you mean? We're closed. It's 9.05 on a Friday night. In downtown Mamaroneck the streets are packed with people. You couldn't even get a parking spot. Oh, we close at 9. Now. We close at 9 every night. Now.
Speaker 1:Change of ownership. Change of ownership the original owner sold to one of the guys that worked for him or one of the guys that he was partners with and brought him out. The ownership changed. The pizza is no. First of all, they used to be whatever you want kind of attitude to. We're doing you a favor attitude. Sal's my favorite Sicilian pizza place. I've never had Sicilian so good except Hard Steel House of Pizza. Sicilian is pretty good.
Speaker 2:They have artesian pizza. How could it be Sicilian?
Speaker 1:It's good pie. You'll see. I'm going to have to order one when you're here. All right, so South, many decades. People I know went there when they were kids decades ago. Pizza was better than anyone. Matter of fact, what's his name? When he won Wingfoot Went there and had afterwards a Shambo. What's his name? When he won Wingfoot went there and had afterwards Shambo. What's his name? Whatever his name is, you know who I'm talking about. He went and had Sal's Pizza. After he was done, he had the US. He had the trophy under his arm, his trophy in one hand and a slice of Sal's in the other.
Speaker 2:okay, Cross Sal's off the list. I'm not going.
Speaker 1:I'm never going back there. And they just didn't care. They were full of themselves and I was like what? And so I started asking other people. They said, yeah, that's what it is. So I don't know what happened to your Sal's Pizza. It's a shame. It's a shame. You could take the best thing in the world and you want to live off your old reputation because it's nowhere what it used to be that's not unusual, it's not unusual unfortunately it is.
Speaker 1:But having said that, I bashed sows and I promised myself I was gonna bash sows because they were so mean to me when I was in there. We're like it wasn't just get out of here. Five after nine, we don't have any slices to sell, come, come on. So I went next door to Smokehouse and I'll give you a review of how it was there another day, but I think we've spoken enough for one podcast.
Speaker 2:We have spoken.
Speaker 1:Yes, thank you, tony, so much for coming here and cooking.
Speaker 2:Thank you for… it's an honor, steve …be here please.
Speaker 1:A guest appearance here, tony. He is back and forth from beautiful downtown Stanford. And now in what town? Mount Pleasant. Mount Pleasant, south Carolina, the place where everybody's moving to South.
Speaker 2:Carolina Feels that way.
Speaker 1:Feels like everybody I know now lives in South Carolina and it's a big state so you know the greatest whole hog barbecue guy is there.
Speaker 2:I tell you what they don't have good Italian food. Down in Charleston, in the surrounding area. Everyone's complaining about the pizza, Everyone's complaining about the Italian provisions. So I was actually thinking that maybe I'd open up an Italian provision place when I get settled down there and start bringing some bread and mozzarella and provolone and prosciutto down there and start serving it the right way.
Speaker 1:That could be done. Bread you're going to have to bake, so you're going to need the ovens or whatever. There's an awesome bakery in Fort Lauderdale, florida, on Las Olas Boulevard, and I've mentioned it before. I can't even remember the name of it. So it could be done. If it's done there, it's done everywhere. Of course, he used to import the water from New York, but now my friend has built a water filtration system that he's selling all over in Florida to all the restaurants all over in Florida and he's in Fort Lauderdale and he really is and I don't know the name of his company. I will certainly mention it when we come back. His filtration systems have changed the water for restaurants and baking in Florida and that part of Florida and soon to be all over. They built an amazing system. He spent his whole life doing water filtration and he's created something that's really amazing, so Interesting. So that is, if you're going to bake, created something that's really amazing Interesting.
Speaker 1:So that is, if you're going to bake bread, that's what you need. Anyway, thank you so much. Thank you for everything. Great to have you here. Welcome to the first time to the studio here, and that's it. Hopefully, next week we'll be with George and I'm sure we're going to have Tony on again. Thank you all. Enjoy the rest of your day, night or morning, whatever the case may be.
