European traveler

Even though I pay the price all night long after eating peppers, those vitamin filled guys are wonderful. I can’t live without them.

How can one possibly eat a sausage sandwich without one? Or a steak sandwich? Or even a cold meat sandwich? It’s practically Un Italian/American if you do!

Can’t be done.

Anyway, here is my late mom’s all time authentic, right off the boat recipe for roasted peppers.

These little babies are legendary.

Sometimes, when I have made a particularly good batch, I feel like nailing one or two on the wall, just to admire them.

You should see the size of peppers in Sicily. Not like the puny ones here in the States.

Huge. Brilliant in color, succulent (gosh I love that word….never use it much though)

Anyway, you will need:

4 green or red peppers
¼ cup Extra Virgin Olive oil
Garlic powder
Salt to taste.

First, get a nice glass of wine as you gather all those things and sip it. This is the time to be thankful. Despite your harried life, a little mellow time first is in order.

Pre-heat the oven at 450 degrees while you think then over.

When you are nice and mellow, place the peppers on a cookie sheet. Cook those babies until they are BLACK all over. Turn then every once in a while.

Remove from the oven and put them in a paper bag. Let them sit there for a few minutes.

Take one out at a time and rub away the thin black skin. Tear the peppers after you remove the seeds and core.

Place the shards in a bowl and add the olive oil, and salt to taste. Mix well and add a squeeze of lemon.

They can be served hot or cold. They will last for a week in the fridge too. I love any sandwich that has these peppers on them. They make a wonderful sandwhich with piping hot bread too. Yum.

Thanks. Mom.

Well, this usually extremely agile guy took a spill yesterday, and the scene was quite funny.

Here’s the story:

My son Matt called and invited me to his house Wednesday night to have dinner.

All my grandkids were to be there.. Noey, little Matt, and my daughter Jen’s kids Rosie and Johnny.

It was an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, so I figured I’d mooch a meal and hang with the kids.

Lindsay (Matt’s wife) made a delicious Mexican meal and I brought over a great chocolate cake for everyone.

Nothing out of the ordinary ….. just an uneventful meal with people that I profoundly love.

About 8Pm, it was getting dark, I decided to catch the Red Sox game on TV, so I said my good byes and left.

As I was walking down Matt’s steps, I was checking my I-Phone for messages. I also had flip-flops on, just to set up the moment for you. Checking my cell, walking in the dark, wearing flip-flops.

You guessed it…I tripped over the flip-flops, went flying into the air down the stairs, and crashed into Matt’s garbage can that he had just put out.

The scene must have appeared comical: A big fat guy flying thru the air crashing into a garbage can , ending up on his face over a bag of dirty diapers, in the night.

You know what I was thinking about as I did my Superman imitation?

My cell phone.

In mid-air, I twisted and contorted to protect my cell phone, tossing it gently onto the grass the second before I crash-landed.

“Nice technique, Al” I said to myself. “For an old guy, you still move well” I thought.

Anyway, here I am ..on the road in front of my son’s house, spread-eagled there, covered with a bag of dirty diapers.

“Do a system check, Al” I thought to myself.

Legs: working, arms: working: No broken bones:

However, the knees and toes sustained projectile damage. Matt has gravel on the sidewalk, not concrete.

About a dozen pieces of gravel were imbedded in both knees, blood beginning to gush.

“Nice” I thought to myself. “ A free dinner plus a scenic tour through the air”

Getting up and pulling out the bits of gravel stuck here and there, I started my car and drove off.

“Al, the flip-flops” I thought. “Who wears flip-flops at night in the dark? You idiot”

Anyway, yesterday I limped around all day. Last night I bought myself a brand new pair of skid proof flip-flops.

Some people never learn, I guess.

The food was good though.



It’s bad enough that I have to clean my condo in America. However, I have another to worry about…my condo in Sicily.

With visitors renting the place every so often, I want to make sure that the place is Spic and Span.

However, they don’t sell Sic and Span there.

Here, I have a nifty Swifter that zips thru my floor in minutes.

There, I have a plastic bucket with this little thing on top to wring the water out.

Here, I just have to take that pad off the Velcro on the Swifter and throw the pad away.

There, I have to empty the bucket and wring the mop.

Here, I have Mr. Clean.

There, I have Mr Musculo.

You get the picture.

The most difficult part for me, however, is trying to figure out what product to buy at the supermarket.

The directions on the back of the aerosol spray cans, which even in America are so tiny that I need the Hubble telescope to read, and just as bad there…except besides being tiny, are also in Italian.

One time, thinking that I bought something like Lemon Pledge for my furniture, I sprayed a stain remover. Another time I put in a hard water de-calcifier in the washing machine instead of detergent. The worst thing I did, however, was spray talcum power all over the house thinking it was one of those odor eating aerosols.

It came out in a mist, but once it settle on everything, my place looked like the Winter Christmas Display at Macy’s….white stuff all over the place.

Took me a week to clean it up.

Finally, I ended up hiring a man from Bangladesh who now comes in and cleans the whole place wonderfully.

He reads Italian too.

As bad as I make it seem, I actually enjoying cleaning my condo there. As I work up a sweat dusting, washing, and cleaning, I remind myself that I am in Sicily and that kinda cancels everything out!

About a month ago, I entered the 21st century by getting my own Facebook page.

I did this because my kids were posting pictures of my grandkids there, and that was the only way I’d ever see them (wink,wink).

Anyway, I jumped online and signed up.

Easy. Took the name Sicilian Eagle, although everyone uses their own name.

Now, I can’t stop using the damn thing!

They have a little search button where you can type in a person’s name and see if they have a Facebook page.

It didn’t work very well. Most of the names of my old girlfriends ended up taking me to the Facebook page of really old people.

Must be the AARP page I thought.

Anyway, slowly I found people I knew and my friends increased.

Now, I have more friends on Facebook than I do in real life.

I joined some great pages too. One is “Sicilia”, a Facebook page from Sicily that has the most beautiful pictures I have ever seen (It is in Italian, but the pictures are in English)

That’s a joke by the way.

Another one that I joined is Itialia Unita, another web site devoted to Italian things.

Now, I have made friends from all over the place, and I really enjoy it!

I hope that you will consider joining Facebook and make me your friend!

Alfred’s Idiot-Proof Chicken Cutlets And Sauce.

This meal I think I have eaten my whole life. It was a staple in my house and tastes even better as left overs.

For the sauce:

Make a simple basil sauce:

1 or two bottles of possata (of course you can use your canned tomatoes, but I prefer possata)
2 or 3 garlic gloves minced
A good handful of fresh basil, chopped
Salt and pepper (to taste)
4 tbls EVOO

In a frying pan over medium heat, WARM the oil and the garlic. If the garlic turns brown, the heat is too high. After about 3 minutes, add in the possata, then salt and pepper.

Simmer for 20 minutes over a medium heat, then add in the fresh basil and simmer for another ten minutes.

That’s it. Turn off the pan and start the cutlets.

For the cutlets:

1 or 2 pounds chicken breast cutlets with no skin.
Breadcrumbs 2 cups
Fresh parsley, about one half of a handful
1 tbl. Parmesan cheese
2 eggs
Salt and pepper
A good frying oil (try a good vegetable oil)

Breadcrumb preparation:

In a mixing bowl mix thoroughly the bread crumbs, salt pepper, parmesan cheese and parsley. It’s done. Set aside.

Chicken Prep:

Wash the chicken in water and dab it dry.
Take 2 eggs and beat them.
Drag the cutlet first in the egg and then in the breadcrumbs. Gently pat the breadcrumbs into the cutlet. Be gentle here.
Cooking:

In a frying skillet, place the vegetable oil. Enough to coat the skillet ,but don’t drown the cutlets. Get it fairly hot. Place the cutlets in and fry on each side until golden brown. Remove and place on a plate and pat dry with a paper towel.

Final Product.

In an oven dish, layer the sauce and the cutlets. No more than two layers. Sauce, cutlet, sauce, cutlet, sauce.

If you want, add in a little more of the parmesan cheese on top.

Place in an over an 350 degrees for 10 minutes.

Serve.

Then go to heaven.

Many people serve a pasta (a long cut like spaghetti) as a side of serve the cutlets right on top.

Me? I like this in a nice sandwich with a good Italian bread.

Total Prep Time: 30 minutes once you get it down!

Easy!

I won’t forget them, and neither will you. Oldtimers.

They weren’t always old. They were once strong and vibrant.

They are the members of the generation that immediately preceded me…the immigrant generation now in their eighties and nineties.

Most were simple folks. Most started their lives somewhere in Europe. Sicily, Ireland, Poland, Spain, Portugal, Germany.

Either they or their parents came to America as a result of tragedy, poverty, necessity. Very few came because they wanted to. Truth be told, they came here to survive.

Now, they are dying off.

We buried my mom this week. It was a celebration of a long life. While members of my family wept and reminisced, we were happy that we had enjoyed her for so long.

As her friends stopped by to pay their respects…the surviving friends that is…people that I infrequently see now, I pondered life and what it does to a person over time.

Life is like the never ending sea whose waves lap the shoreline. Over time the strength of the sea always wins…slowly dragging the sand of the beach back to whence they came.

As I saw these old timers…many with canes now, others assisted by younger loved ones, still others in wheel chairs, I reflected on their longevity and the life that they lived.

All of them experienced the Great Depression. All of them experienced World War II. Most of them were in their prime of live in the decades of the forties, fifties, and part of the sixties.

Survivors of another era they are.

The had no television, computers, IPODS, DVDs. They had no microwaves, refrigerators that made ice, air conditioners, sleek cars.

Heck, most started life in cramped apartments in a city….Lawrence, Boston, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia.

Almost all had no health insurance, unemployment compensation, worker’s compensation. There was no such thing as a 401-k retirement account…at most a simple “pension” from one of the sweat shops.

They worked in terrible conditions. Most worked “piecemeal”….. they got paid on what they did.

Almost all were bi-lingual latch key kids growing up, although those social terms had not yet been invented.

They amused themselves with simple parlor games.

They saved their money with “Christmas Clubs”, scrimped their way thru life, and if they had anything saved, they gave it to their kids to help them pay for private elementary school, high school or college.

They were the generation of sacrifice.

Now, they are old and dying off every day. Their fragility caused by life and the passage of time.

I thank them. Each and every one of them. Both the departed and those still clinging to life.

They all are my heroes

I attended the Holy Rosary School from grades 1 to 3. I never “adapted” to the nuns and they never adapted to me.

“Conduct” was always an issue to them. It didn’t matter that breakfast in those days was a cup of coffee that you dunked your toast in. It didn’t matter in those days that a nine year old kid had caffeine high by eight o’clock in the morning, I guess.

In those days, coffee for kids was the norm.

Anyway, I was a rambunctious kid and the nuns basically hated me.

My mom was a bull dozer in those days. She was thirty-nine years old and a real work horse.

When I gave her a hard time, a good swat was swiftly administered, but the nuns chose to administer a little psychological punishment in addition to the corporal punishment by either sending a note home or requesting a meeting.

That dreaded meeting.

Upon opening the note that I dutifully had to carry home from the nuns…Sister Catherine Angela in particular was a prolific note-writer…. mom would administer a pre-emptive thrashing to me…kinda like she was loosening up before the big game…and then grab her coat, me and we’d head over to the convent.

The convent.

Where God lived.

That dark, silent place where holy people lived.

Nuns.

What chance did a little kid have, for heaven’s sake? Me against God? Forget it. No chance.

Standing there as good old Sister Catherine Angela informed mom about my behavior…none of it good…a gnawing feeling gripped my already hysterical stomach.

The walk home was particularly brutal. Squeezing my arm like a vise, I knew she wasn’t a happy camper.

However, I found an unsuspecting ally in mom. “That nun is an idiot” she’d say “But you are a bigger idiot for getting in trouble”

To make a long story short, the day the next report card came in was my last day at Holy Rosary.

I had gotten an “F” in conduct. Not only an “F”, but a red “F”.

Only the worst of the worst got red Fs. Future criminals, thugs and Liberals. Those type of people.

I remember vividly that day as she opened up the envelope, saw the red “F”, and then committed the biggest sacrilege ever…she ripped the report card in half!

Oh my God. I was going to hell. I was going to burn worse that Satan.

My mom intentionally, and with malice aforethought, destroyed Church property. In no time the Cardinal and maybe even the Pope will hear about this. I will be ex-communicated for sure. I don’t care how many candy bars my mom had to sell for the nuns, I am still screwed.

Ripping a report card trumps candy bars…everyone knows that.

Horrified, I gasped as mom grabbed my arm. Back to the sacred convent we went.

Sister Catherine Angela met us at the door and then mom finished her act of heresy…she took out the report card, ripped it into TINY pieces, and threw it in her face.

I suspected that something out of the ordinary was taking place. This didn’t seem to be the normal mom-Sister Catherine Angela meeting with subsequent thrashing that I was accustomed to.

No, this was better. Much better. Kinda like in its own category better. One for the Ages, I thought.

“He’s out” mom said. “I am sending him to Sacred Heart”

Sacred Heart.

Hell. The Sing Sing for problem kids. Sacred Heart School for Boys in Andover. Renowned far and wide as a school for “problem” boys.

Run by The Brothers Of The Sacred Heart…a misnomer if there ever was one. Young kids who wore black robes and kicked the crap out of you for at looking at them . The Green Berets of Catholicism.

Renowned for its academics, they guaranteed success for your youngster…one way or the other. “If nothing else, your son will be literate, polite, and know how to study when we get through with him” he promised mom.

Truer words were never spoken. Knowledge administered with the back of the hand, the front of the hand, hockey sticks, you name it.

For five long years I sat at that desk with hands folded, heels of the shoes touching, and if I opened my mouth even a smidgen, they would close it for me.

Learning Gestapo style.

Any way, I ended up doing five years hard labor at Sacred Heart. Attending class six days a week. We received a WEEKLY report card.

Yup, the old kid here spent time in the Guantanamo of the Church.

My friends there would ask me why I was there. Some of these guys were real tough.

Fighting, playing hooky from school, stealing, you name it.

However, they all used to gasp when I told them:

“Mom ripped up my report card with the red “F” on it and threw it at the nun”.

In many ways, that story made my reputation at Sacred Heart.

From then on, it was straight up.

Thanks, mom!. 

(note: my mom passed away this week at age 90.) This little piece is dedicated to her.

Ice Cream Or Gelato?

I have been asked many times which I prefer…ice cream or gelato.

The answer to that question is : it depends on where I am eating it.

Ice cream here is far better here than in Italy. On the other hand, gelato there is far better than here.

Why? Well, around here, there are many dairies that make their own milk as some of them are working farms. Their milk is creamy and fresh. In Italy, very few dairies re-direct their milk to ice cream producers as the vasts majority of these producers make gelato as opposed to ice cream.

On the other hand, in Italy since only the large “commercial” manufacturers make ice cream , you will find that stuff in the frozen food aisle in the grocery store. It is just like ours: rock solid and not fresh.

Gelato in Italy, on the other hand is fresh, creamy, yummy.

Probably the biggest difference, however, is the prime ingredient: milk.

Here, most dairy cows eat wheat and grass chemically aided or genetically altered. This is not allowed in Europe. Did you know that 75% of all farmland in Italy would be considered “organic” here? The percentage is far less in the states.

That is why gelato tastes “different” here than in Italy. While some of it is tasty and very good and may even use imported flavorings from Italy, the basic ingredient…milk….is the difference-maker.

In the states there is nothing like licking a delicious ice cream on a hot day. The same hold true for gelato in Italy.

Price wise, gelato is much more expensive too. Why? Well, if you buy ice cream from “national” producers in the states, the ice cream is made in huge batches. In Italy, most gelataririas make small batches….sometime only a few liters at a time.

Her, toppings are usually candy, M&Ms, Reeces, chocolate…while in Italy fresh fruit or nuts is usually the preferred topping.

By the way, I have never found a banana split or a milk shake in Italy either.

Either way, ice cream or gelato is a great way to satisfy that sweet tooth.

Sherbet or Sorbito? Here the differences are less. In the states there is a wider range of flavors while in Italy lemon is by far the most popular.
Hmm…writing this piece is making me hungry! Gotta go and find something sweet to eat!

The Mighty Sicilian Crispelle

Have you ever eaten a crispelle?

I am talking about those fried dough type of things that are stuffed either with anchovie, ricotta cheese or are “plain” covered with sugar.

Yup, those delectable delights that go straight to your stomach and sit there all day long…and if you are an old geezer like me….are a cause to reach for the Zantac later in the day.

Why oh why do I subject myself to the yearly torture of eating about six of those bombs at one sitting and then spending the rest of the day regretting that I did that?

Well, because I love them, that’s why.

Labor Day weekend is the time to munch these things and for me the local Feast Of The Three Saints in Lawrence, Ma. is the place.

In Sicily I tried eating them several times, but the pain was too much. Instead of frying these little indigestion creators in a decent trans fatty acid free oil, the Sicilians fry them in lard…old fashioned dead animal fat….and these things are intestine killers for sure.

My fried Peter makes them here in the states. He has been doing it for a long time and is the “maestro” of the crispelle.

Yesterday I had my annual allotment and for the rest of the weekend I will pay the price.

Why, Alfred, do you do this to yourself every year? Why don’t you adopt a healthy lifestyle and just say no?

Are you nuts?

Eating them has been a right of passage for almost six decades now. Why, a year without a crispell would be like them canceling Christmas for Pete’s sake.

Nope…I will keep munching these things and suffer every year.

Some people will never learn.

Then again, why learn?

My Mom’s String Bean And Potato Summer Salad

Trying to find mayonnaise in Sicily is almost impossible. When you are lucky enough to find it, it is usually on one of the lower shelves , and the brand is unrecognizable.

Sicilians rarely eat mayo in the summer….way too hot.

However, this salad is found everywhere, is easy to make, and lasts a week in the fridge.

A great hot weather salad!

Ingredients:

3 or 5 pounds of a small potato, depending on how much you want to make.Something small (Russerts) is better.
1 pound of fresh green beans ( fresh is great but frozen will do)
Olive oil
White wine vinegar
Salt and pepper

Directions:

If the potatoes have a thin skin, don’t peel them. If they are course, peel them. In any case, boil the potatoes, drain the water and once at room temp, put them in the fridge to cool.

Do the same thing with the green beans: boil them for a few minutes, drain and chill.

After they have chilled for an hour or so, cut the potatoes in half if you used small ones or on quarters if they are big.

Combine the potatoes and the beans in a nice bowl . Add in olive oil (maybe about 3 or four tablespoons), the vinegar (same amount or to taste), salt and pepper.

Toss.

Then put back in the fridge for an hour or so.

If you barbeque, this is great with any meat or chicken dish.

In the wintertime, the same recipe can be used except skip the refrigeration steps and serve warm.

I love this stuff. Plus, it keeps for a good while in the ‘fridge!