Archives For food

Forget About Perfectionism. Pursue Excellence Instead.

March 28, 2012 — 5 Comments

For many years, I would walk into my Nonna’s kitchen and be greeted by the aroma of what I thought was the perfect tomato sauce.

In most Italian American households, the ritual of the “Sunday Sauce” was a standard way to celebrate the weekend. But in my family, tomato sauce wasn’t just relegated to Sunday. It could show up any day of the week.

My grandmother’s sauce was so good because of the painstaking work that went into it. When in season, she would clean, cook, and jar bushels and bushels of ripe Roma tomatoes from a local farmer. Those tomatoes would be the base of her sauce.

She would make enough for a year’s supply. The work that went into was so physically grueling that most family members that she called on for help would not be able to keep up with her.

Now that she’s been gone for awhile, and that fabulous sauce is no more, I’ve been trying my hand in the kitchen with my sauce pot, trying to recreate that magic. And you know what? Trying to be as good as my Nonna in the kitchen is a concept met with failure.

Failure because I’ve been chasing that perfect tomato sauce from my youth, but it just won’t happen. Because there is no perfect. There is only good, or great (Photo: a recent pot of my creation).

The perfect is the enemy of the good

While chasing perfection, I’ve learned that excellence is attainable with some work, a little practice, and experimentation. My first foray into the art of sauce making, as I remember, wasn’t very good. A little bland, too much acidity, not at all like the flavor I was trying to duplicate.

But I kept trying. Taking different approaches. Instead of just cooking with olive oil, using a little butter as well. Peperoncino added to salt and black pepper. Then maybe some red wine in the next pot. A little sugar. With pork as a base, and without pork.

You probably get the drift. I was trying to find my sweet spot.

The key is the tomato. While I haven’t tackled my Nonna’s work of turning farm fresh tomatoes into shelves of goodness filled jars in my cellar, I use the best tomatoes I can find. I’ve tried many brands along the road to find what I like, and the San Marzano tomato is superior to all others. The Cento brand is the best.

Yes, they are twice the price of your standard canned tomato, but that’s OK. This is one area where I refuse to skimp. And it’s worth it. While I can’t duplicate the aroma and taste of the sauce that used to simmer on my Nonna’s stove, I come damn close.

Note to my kids

Life is a lot like my tomato sauce . It will never be perfect. The more you search for perfection, the less likely you are to find it. This will make you unhappy. There will always be something bigger, better, faster, more expensive, and maybe…tastier…than what you have.

This doesn’t matter. Don’t even pay it attention. Forget about being perfect.

  • Try to be really good, even excellent, in what you like to do.
  • Give it your best shot. Keep trying.
  • If your “sauce” isn’t good the first time – try it again.
  • Don’t quit.
  • Keep “cooking”…with just your effort, that sauce eventually becomes tasty.
  • Life is good with small, everyday things that you love…like tomato sauce.
  • Nonna always said “Life is precious”. Take that to heart. Don’t waste it chasing “perfect”.

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In Family, Inspiration, Italian American, Lifestyle, Memories , , , , , ,
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My “Resolution”? Keep Tradition Alive and Kicking

January 4, 2012 — 6 Comments

The “New Year’s Resolution” is more popular than ever. I myself tend to not put a lot of faith into them, however. They always begin with the best of intentions, but soon crash, burn, and flame out quickly.

You see the same type of resolution, year in and year out. Many people pledge to lose weight, get back in shape, organize their lives.

A couple of months later, that treadmill serves as the prettiest and priciest clothes hanger you’ve ever owned.

(Disclaimer: Because of some feedback from my doctor, 2012 is the year Joey pays far more attention to his health and general fitness. But I don’t own a treadmill.)

My resolution would be to strengthen a habit I already have: keep traditions,  the ones I was fortunate enough to experience growing up, alive and kicking.

Ideally, I would be doing this just for my children, so they could get a taste of the very good life, but if I’m honest with myself…I’m doing it for my own benefit, as well. I never want to forget where I came from.

My old Italian ladies aren’t around anymore. The rituals and methods they practiced survive only if we keep them breathing by our active participation. That guardian of the old school traditions that I want to be? Playing at full strength here in 2012.

Everyone has cultural traditions that bring them closer to their roots, and to that warm, fuzzy feeling you had when you were a kid. I recommend they be part of your list of “resolutions”. Here’s just several ways I’m going to carry them out in the coming year:

In The Kitchen  My wife and I are no slouches in this area, but for Christmas we received some beautiful cookbooks from some very thoughtful people (including my wife’s brother and his girlfriend, my “Outlaw” :) ) that are going to allow us to ratchet up our knowledge of traditional Italian peasant dishes. Many of these recipes are what I ate growing up, and are still a staple of our diet now.

At Table  Eating together as a family has always been a high priority after the kids came along, just like I did when I was young. The table is also where I shared great coffee with my immigrant grandparents in past years, and my wife and I still make espresso in a stainless steel pot every morning to continue the ritual. It’s the best.

In The Vineyard  The house where my grandparents used to live has two ample grape arbors that yield the best grape jelly you will ever taste. Making the jelly from those grapes is hard work, but we love to do it to this day. We still have access to the grape vines, so we’re hoping 2012 brings another sweet batch.

At The Holidays  On Christmas Eve years ago, my family would always serve very traditional fish and seafood dishes to celebrate the holiday. It’s a tradition we’ve let slip recently. I felt insane jealousy (and hunger) when Vince posted pictures of a seafood feast at his house this past Christmas Eve. My wife Suzanne and I have pledged to bring this back home in 2012, and host a traditional Italian Christmas Eve dinner with our relatives.

In My Mind  With today’s need for instant updates and instant gratification and instant everything, it’s little wonder your mind races through the day. My girls (meaning my grandmother and my godmother) had a simple way to quiet their minds—they said prayers. And I think they were on to something, so I’m doing this more lately. Whether it’s prayers, meditation, or just five minutes in the day to sit and be quiet without interruption, the result is clear: it’s definitely good for body, mind, and soul.

Yes, I’m going to exercise more (Had a great workout before writing this) and eat my vegetables, but if I can keep a candle of tradition flickering within my family, 2012 will be a prosperous and very happy New Year.

Photographs of 14th Street courtesy of Gabrielle DeGiorgio

What are your resolutions this year? Is tradition a part of it? Start a discussion in the comment section, and feel free to tweet and/or share. You know someone that needs a little kick in the “traditions”!

In Family, Goals, Italian American, Lifestyle, Memories, Motivation , , , , , , , , ,
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Hi, My Name Is Joe. And I’m Addicted To Food.

September 26, 2011 — 16 Comments

My wife and I indulge in a guilty pleasure each morning before we leave for work. Nope, it’s not what you’re thinking. This little slice of sin that we partake of is seeing what senseless drivel NBC is promoting on the TODAY Show.

I will give credit when it is due. At times, the show will have a story that is riveting and inspiring, like the one about the late Navy SEAL Aaron Vaughn. But, for the most part, I think a lot of what TODAY offers is, to be kind, less than stellar.

It’s like that train wreck that you shouldn’t look at, but you can’t turn away.

What the show seems to specialize in is turning the spotlight on people who do things that are stupid and/or detrimental to their lives, and then refuse to take responsibility for it. For that, you get the reward of an interview with Matt and Ann.

One of this week’s features was “food addiction”. You know, the type of addiction that happens with drugs and alcohol, but with burgers and fries instead.

It was, in a word, awesome. It detailed the life story of a woman who said she tried all kinds of diets, and always struggled with certain types of food. She was addicted to it. She finally opted for surgery as a last resort to lose weight. No mention of attempting a  healthy lifestyle, vegetables, walking, exercise, or taking the stairs instead of the elevator. Just diets (which ultimately fail: lifestyle change = success) and surgery.

I will say, I did empathize. Because I think I’m addicted too.

You heard me right. My name is Joe. And I may have a food addiction.

My drug of choice is Italian food. When I’m not eating it, I’m talking about it with a friend or a co-worker. If I’m not talking about it, I’m probably thinking about it. Or I’m watching my wife cook it. Sometimes, I cook it. I’ve just begun, within the last couple of years, to take a serious interest in what happens in the kitchen. And I’m not bad at it.

I make a mean tomato sauce. And I do some other things very well too.

Yup, say words like marinara, carbonara, puttanesca, cannoli…you may as well be on a street corner, whispering “Hey, pal…you want some of this?”

We all have our issues. I’ve certainly had my struggles with food. When I was a kid, I was the pudgy pre-teen that was an easy target for the occasional cruel comment or joke. I did what I needed to do, taking responsibility for myself, to take that weight off. Back then, I used inspiration from Sly Stallone’s breakthrough project to possibly save my life.

Back when I was a kid, there was no such thing as a frivolous lawsuit against a restaurant you thought made you fat because they put a gun against your head and forced you to super size the fries. Nope, that phrase “personal responsibility” reared its ugly head.

Almost one in three people are obese at this point in our country, and there seems to be some confusion as to why it happens, and what can be done about it. In the battle for the title of most obese nation, America’s the champ. Were number one…

Although weight loss tips may not apply to everybody (read: don’t post an angry comment here on how your glands don’t allow you to lose weight–I’m covering all my bases), some very simple but time tested principles will always work when trying to drop some lbs and get in better shape.

Want some tips from a former fat guy on how to lose weight and keep it off? Sweet. Stop by for the next post to get the “skinny” :) To make sure you don’t miss it, just subscribe already. I won’t spam you, offer you a free e-book (yet), or try to sell you anything other than the advantages of putting some Old School principles into your hectic, short attention span, modern life.

My grandmother and grandfather showed them to me. So I know they’re right.

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In Goals, Italian American, Lifestyle, Motivation, Rants , , , , , , , , ,
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Absolute Requirements of the Italian Kitchen

September 16, 2010 — 4 Comments

Fellow blogger Vince Scordo published this great article about what food ingredients are really required to have a complete kitchen, and to keep those of us of Italian American descent happy and content.

Although I loved Vince’s post, I wanted to add my two cents on some of  these required ingredients and what they mean in my kitchen. My kitchen, and what it holds, was strongly influenced by what my grandmother taught me, as you will see in the following…

Garlic - One of two main ingredients in my gram’s kitchen, it was mandatory that there was an abundant supply ready for peeling and chopping. She used it to cook just about everything, and I have carried on that tradition. As far as rituals go, the preparation of the garlic may have been second only to the cleaning of the green beans.

Olive Oil – The other main ingredient. The kitchen was never without a shiny gold and black can of Filippo Berio, and Gram used it liberally for cooking, as well as dressing salads, bread dip, and general illness prevention. Although my wife and I will occasionally enjoy a nice extra virgin oil drizzled on a tomato & mozzarella salad, I always fall back on the Berio product for its flavor and friendly price point.

Tomatoes - I use 28 oz. cans of store bought crushed tomatoes as a rule, flipping back and forth between some different brands. Gram, however, canned her own, using hundreds of roma tomatoes from a local farmer. The sauce that she made with them is something I could not duplicate if I tried.

It took an amazing amount of back breaking work for her (and anyone that helped) to prepare the tomatoes for storage, and she would make a year’s supply. If you’re not into that kind of manual labor I recommend a nice canned product off the store shelf such as Red Pack or Tuttorosso, which is frequently on sale in my area.

Imported Tuna – All you lovers of the Bumblebee and Starkist brands, fair warning: one try at a high quality, Italian tuna packed in olive oil in a salad or on a sandwich, and it’s highly unlikely you’ll go back to the other brands. Yes, they are a little more pricey, but it is well worth the extra change that you’ll spend!

Cheese – My gram’s favorite road trip was to go to our local import store to buy some olives, mortadella, and a couple of pounds of asiago or imported parmigiano cheese. Sometimes it was more than a couple pounds. When we got back from the store, we’d sit at the kitchen table and have lunch (sandwich and coffee), and then I’d grate some cheese for that night’s dinner or for future use.

Fruit – A terrific memory that I have is the fruit bowl that was always present on the counter at my Gram’s house. It was always filled with apples, grapes, and especially pears, which we loved to peel and eat at the kitchen table.

In addition to the bowl, the yard around the house was filled with fruit trees that yielded pears, cherries, and peaches. And the grapes. Not one, but two arbors dense with the sweetest concord grapes that my wife and I, to this day, make grape jelly with.

If you’ve never had Italian bread toasted with peanut butter (or plain butter) and homemade jelly, you have not lived.

Wine – My grandmother, as well as the rest of her family, was no wine snob. The wine that was at table was usually a full bodied red that came in a very large bottle. Read: gallon jug, usually something like Carlo Rossi. It tasted great along side a dish of macaroni with my gram’s sauce, salad, and Italian bread.

Although I tend to enjoy a variety of white and red wines from Italy, France, and California, more often than not my wife or I will go to the store and pick up a gallon size bottle of red to enjoy with a favorite Italian meal…and we love it!

And in the end, isn’t that what food is about?…love!

In Family, Lifestyle, Memories , , , , ,
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3 Rock Solid Simplicity Tips From The Old School

May 19, 2010 — Leave a comment

There are many simplicity mantras one can follow these days. Whether on the internet, in magazines, or an early morning talk show, you can find tips on simplifying your life and the world around you.

Want “simplicity” choices? There are plenty. Hope you don’t get overwhelmed by them.

Within all the blogs I read, there can be hundreds upon hundreds of tips, some of them conflicting with others, maybe pointing you in one direction when you should be going in another.

If you are among those who have grown weary of all the simplicity content that is so prevalent now, I offer a solution. You can simplify this as well. All the “tips” that you read about, sometimes in great numbers, can be drilled down to a couple that are really important.

Life can be complicated. Technology complicates it even further. I also understand there may be a generational cut off of younger people that have not been guided by the hand of relatives or mentors that practiced and preached a simple approach to life.

I was very fortunate to have a grandmother and grandfather that showed me on a daily basis that your days on this earth do not have to seem complicated or confusing. You can make things easier on yourself, and in the process, make life easier for others.

My grandmother, in particular, had a couple of different mantras that she would repeat over and over again. These lessons could be thought of as simplicity tips that she lived, and tried to pass along. The first is one I’ve written about before, but it’s important enough to bear repeating:

“Life is precious.”

Or, life is a gift that should be spent wisely because we know not how much of this gift we will receive. She thought it a privilege as well, without having a sense of entitlement for anything. Everything had to be earned. She rarely took anything for granted.

This is an important thing to remember, every day. I think of it almost as a mission statement of sorts, instead of a “simplicity tip”.

“Food is everything.”

My grandmother knew the importance of a vegetarian diet before it was in vogue. Now, she was not a complete vegetarian. She loved a nice Porterhouse as much as any carnivore, and she made more meatballs in her life than anyone I’ll ever know. But, more times than not, she was cooking spinach, escarole, broccoli, and green beans, to toss the vegetables with either rice or pasta.

I ate a lot of rice and broccoli in my 47 years. A lot of pasta fagioli. And I drank a lot of spinach juice (she thought the cooked juice helped keep you regular). I ate a lot of simple, healthy dishes that were heavy on the vegetables. My grandparents (and other family members) knew the importance of the quality of the foods you ate, and the long term impact it may have on longevity.

“Life is worth living.”

This is along the lines of “Life is precious”, but deserves its own bullet. Once you realize that life is in fact the best present ever, you have to do your best to enjoy it, do important things, and live it with the people that mean the most to you. The members of this generation spent most of their adult lives on the job to support their families, but they also knew the meaning of their down time and how they could use it to create special memories.

The traditional Sunday Dinner comes to mind. There was rarely a Sunday when parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins were not gathered around the dining room table to eat, drink, and have a mini celebration of life. Making it worth living.

That’s it. Three things. Simple, huh? See life as the equivalent of a gift that should be opened, and that we have fun with. Fuel your body with the right foods to have the abilty to fully appreciate this life. Spend your life wisely. Remember your obligations, but also remember to relax and know how to have a good time.

“Life is not complicated. We just make it so”

In Family, Motivation, Simplicity , , ,
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