Pass the cranberry

Thanksgiving is a time when even the reluctant cooks among us dust off the pots and pans and have at it. Most agree that it's a time for tradition more than creativity, and look forward to the dishes that grace our tables only once a year. Turkey, stuffing (or dressing, depending on what part of the Country you're from), mashed potatoes, the infamous casseroles...we toil away, leaving a faint dusting of flour throughout the kitchen, panicking over refrigerator and oven space, and generally going all-out for this feast of feasts.

Why, then, do so many of us slack when it comes to a key condiment for the meal's centerpiece?  Yes, I am talking about cranberry sauce, and specifically, that log-shaped mass of Jell-O-like stuff that is unceremoniously plopped from the can at the last minute.

Cranberries deserve better. As the only tart component of this heavy, diversely flavored meal, they cut through the fat and refresh our palate so that we can fully enjoy all of those savory and sweet dishes.  And, unlike some other foods that have made their way onto the Thanksgiving table, they are seasonal and local (to the first Thanksgiving, at least). Cranberries are rich in antioxidants and have bacterial-blocking properties.  So with a few days to go before the holiday, I humbly encourage you to break out the Joy of Cooking, or just flip over that bag of Ocean Spray from the grocery store, and try your hand at homemade cranberry sauce. It's easier than you'd imagine and mighty rewarding.

All content © Emily Bell

Miles of Smiles

My brother Chris is in a small Philadelphia running group called Miles of Smiles.  On Saturday, he and several other members of the group ran the WHYY 12K.  WHYY is Philadelphia's public television and radio station, and is probably best-known as the home of Fresh Air with Terry Gross. 

To support the Miles crew, I offered to cook a "spaghetti dinner" for them the night before the race.  While the physiological mechanism by which pasta enhances performance escapes me (something to do with glycogen stores), I believe that a good dinner shared with friends can restore us and prepare us for life's challenges, and that is what we were aiming for.

Chris's apartment is decorated with an enviable collection of Mid-Century modern furniture, much of which he restored himself, and the walls are covered with his own drawings and paintings, as well as work by his friends.  However; his kitchen lacks certain essentials, among them a cheese grater (mental note for this year's Christmas stocking).  Bachelor apartment cooking requires careful planning and strategy, lest you find yourself at the last stages of preparation, in need of some critical staple you take for granted in your own kitchen, like flour. 

To fortify the Miles runers, I decided to make linguini with shiitake and kale.  Simply prepared (mushrooms and greens are sweated in olive oil with shallot, seasoned with salt, and tossed with pasta), the dish requires no exotic kitchen gadgetry.  It is truly yummy, and (pre-cheese) it would accommodate the no-dairy vegetarian in the group.  I also reasoned that an immunity-booster might be beneficial before running a 7.5 mile race during flu season. 

Chris lives in South Philadelphia, the City's old Italian neighborhood. More culturally and gastronomically diverse now, the neighborhood has nevertheless retained many culinary treasures from its homogeneously Italian days.  These little restaurants and specialty shops have been in business for years, and are so unchanged that they virtually transport you to another era.  Here one finds purveyors unconcerned with food trends, in places that totally lack self-consciousness.  The result is a straightforward, unquestionable authenticity, and the somewhat giddy feeling that you have suddenly found yourself living Moonstruck.

At Chris's suggestion, I headed for 10th and Morris, the location of one of the five satellite shops of P&S Ravioli (their pasta is made at a central location in South Philadelphia).  P&S has been in business since 1966, when the then recently-immigrated DiGiacomo brothers founded it.  The shop at 10th and Morris is a clean and simple space with white walls, and a low counter behind which are several large refrigerators with sliding doors.  Upon entering, I found a 60-something Italian-American woman who called me "hon" and approached our linguini transaction with a charmingly pushy confidence that suggested she knew my pasta needs better than I did.  For example, she convinced me that after all I did need the plastic bag I'd initially refused, to properly carry my two 15oz boxes of fresh linguini, and pint of grated Percorino Romano.  The linguini were rich and toothsome, perfectly textured and tasting of fresh egg.

My next stop was Termini Brothers, one of South Philadelphia's landmark pastry shops.  The internet is full of debate about whether Termini is the best Italian-American bakery in Philadelphia.  While many believe that it is not, almost everyone agrees that it is in the top three.   For me, visiting Termini is such a perfect experience that I have actually been brought to tears during a visit.

The retail shop at Termini is a long, rectangular room.  The ceiling is pressed tin; the floor is made of that tiny, octagonal black and white tile from the '40's.  There are two wood counters on either side (each with a decades-old cash register), and a large island in the middle, with perhaps two dozen varieties of pastry on display.  The service is equally nostalgic.  When you enter (assuming it is not a holiday or busy weekend), you are greeted by one of several women wearing a white smock and gloves.  She guides you around the shop, answering questions, making suggestions, and placing your selections on a tray, which she then takes to one of the wooden counters so that its contents can be placed into a bakery box, and secured neatly with string.  For Friday's dinner I selected cannoli, pecan and walnut squares, fig bars, and little fruit-filled custards. At the checkout, I exchanged small smiles of wordless contentment with the other patrons, and anticipated the moment when I would cut the box's string with a knife and arrange the pastries on a tray.

The Ravioli Diaries

Last month I read Laura Schenone's book, The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken.  Schenone traced her Italian-American ravioli recipe back to its Genoese roots, and the book recounts her experiences along the way.  I found it interesting for several reasons: firstly, when I was at the Culinary Institute of America, I did my research project on a specific Italian-American pizza from Old Forge Pennsylvania, proposing that it was an example of immigrants using what was at hand to approximate a dish they remembered from the Old Country. Secondly, ravioli is a tradition from my own family; my grandmother toiled away many Sundays at her kitchen table with the pasta board and stick, stretching and slapping dough that would eventually be made into little purses of ricotta, egg, parsley, garlic, and parmesan.  Finally, Schenone's ravioli interested me for its own uniqueness -- filled with raw beef and pork, spinach and cream cheese, it's truly different from anything I've seen or tasted, here or abroad.

Anyway, all this ravioli talk gave me a craving, and I decided to make ravioli for the first course at Thanksgiving.  In order to avoid the last-minute craziness that would surely result from making ravioli for 10 on the fly, we decided to prepare the ravioli now and freeze them.  For the filling, a mixture of butternut squash and ricotta seemed a good, seasonal choice.  Just before Thanksgiving dinner is served, we will boil them then toss them in some browned butter and toasted hazelnuts.

To make the pasta, I started with Biba Caggiano's pasta recipe (doubled for a total of 4c flour to 6 large eggs) and added an additional egg because they were a bit small, and a tiny bit of olive oil, which was suggested by one of Schenone's mentors in the book as a way to make the dough easier to work.  The dough ingredients were mixed and kneaded in the Kitchen Aid.  The filling was 12 oz ricotta plus 1 pound steamed butternut squash with a pinch each of salt and nutmeg as the only seasoning.   It's hard to give a recipe for fresh pasta, because it can need more or less flour or egg depending on how much humidity is in the air, and how big the eggs are.  Like bread-baking, it's one of those disciplines that you have to "get a feel for."  If you want to try, The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken is a good place to start.