No-Pants Cake Icing

Sorry, no recipes to be found here.

Housekeeping instead.

THANK YOU!  I forgot to mention it a few weeks ago when this blog officially hit 1000 views.  It's now about 1300.  Despite being a creative person (or perhaps because of it), I really like concrete results.  1300+ page views says I must be doing something right.  I appreciate every single one of them.  (Page views, readers, every time I check out a set of search terms for myself and realize this blog is fourth from the top on the first page of a search result.)

Based on the last few posts, it may appear that I have suddenly become bitter about a certain distressing interval in my life.  Not really.  It's just that I suddenly feel okay talking about it.  I know that might seem a little extreme, since it's been over a year, but there are probably still people who met me after my break-up who do not yet know that I was ever engaged at all.  Some things are just too painful.  Also, I admit that I sometimes feel a little guilty about posting all these stories about Grandmom, since she hasn't signed an official release or anything, so I try and cast around for stories that exclusively involve me (I officially give myself permission to write about me).  I didn't start this blog with the idea of making it a digital scrapbook, but that is what it turned into. 

And that brings me to my third point: writing is a process.  I know, that sounds like a big steaming pile, as one of my uncles would say.  It's so indirect and non-specific that it suggests that I, or any writer who utters it (all of them) is a jealous miser crouching over his or her hoard of writing knowledge and beating back potential knowledge thiefs with the phrase "it's a process."  I mean, it terms of a concrete answer to how writing is done, you might as well have this conversation:

Curious Person: So, how do you write?
Writer: Magic.  (Just for the record, I'm making ghost hands, aka Jazz Hands up by my face, and followed that up with saying "oooooh!")

But it is.  Witness this blog.  Did not mean for it to be a scrapbook.  It is now a scrapbook.  I like it that way.  While Grandmom does not have any dire health concerns right at the moment, she is my Grandmother, which pretty much states that she is old.  This way, I'll have compiled all my happy memories of her in one place, so that hopefully there will never come a day when all I'll remember is that I've forgotten an awful lot.

To conclude: ADD is not a disease.  Institutionalized childhood immobilization is.  Aka "School".  And we wonder why a third of all American children are obese.  Obese.  That's not counting the ones that are merely overweight.  I don't even know the numbers for the ones that are depressed and anxious.  Yet here I sit.  Well-educated despite it all, unmedicated, happy, totally scatty, and not obese. 

Oh yeah!  I forgot about the No-Pants Cake Icing.  It's a better title than it is a story, but it pretty much sums up Grandmom and me.  There's a picture of me about five years old (and I remember the day) wearing a complete 80's style leotard-and-tights combo icing a cake from my EZ Bake oven.  Taken by Grandmom, of course.  I loved Grandmom and Grandmom loved to cook, so I wanted to learn to cook like Grandmom.  I happened to have my leotard on that day and why change?  And Grandmom took a picture.

Roasted Asparagus / Vladimir Lenin in a Can

I'm almost embarrassed to post this recipe, because it's barely a recipe to start with.  But, I guess I should take heart because I've seen recipes for and been subjected to many a dish made with loving hands that essentially involved dumping various premade items (the infamous Cream of Mushroom soup, for example) into a casserole and then baking it until it was all hot and bubbly.  Because, you know, I like my poison hot and bubbly.  Okay, that was a little extreme!  Those dishes are not poisonous unless you have some kind of allergy, but they definitely are not my favorite.  Anyway, returning to the Roasted Asparagus.  It's delicious, but also super-easy.  So easy that when you're savoring every mouthful you think "That was it?"  That, my friends, is the joy of much of Italian cooking-- it relies on the quality and character of the ingredients to shine on their own with little intervention on the cook's part.  Translate: a lot of it is easy to prepare!  Without further ado:

Roasted Asparagus

1-2 bunches of fresh asparagus (I always buy one and wish I had bought two!)
salt to taste
oil of your choice.  I know, this is where I should be touting Extra Virgin Olive Oil at $49.99 per 3 liter can.  But let's be honest: canola oil tastes just fine, and is also cheaper than the aforementioned liquid gold.

Preheat the oven to about 400-425F.  Wash your asparagus and trim off the ends-- I'm not sure what the official rule is for asparagus, but I cut off the white part.  I'm not super-picky, so I don't mind if my asparagus is a little tough, especially if it's later in the season and I'm feeling grateful for having asparagus at all!  Put your asparagus in a single layer (this is important) in as large a dish as you need to accomplish that.  Drizzle it with your oil, and sprinkle it with salt.  Put the dish in the oven and roast it for about 10-12 minutes, or until your asparagus is a little wrinkly-looking and is nice and floppy.  That's the best way I can describe it.  You can make your jokes to yourself about floppy asparagus, but that's how it's supposed to be.  Floppy.  Anyway, at this point take your dish out of the oven and resist the temptation to try and eat the floppy asparagus right away, because it needs to cool or it will burn your mouth.  After about 5 minutes it should be okay.  This is the best way I've ever had asparagus!  If you've done it just right the stems will be tender-al dente and the tops will be ever so slightly crispy.
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My aunt told me about her discovery of asparagus, which was just a few years ago.  The way she cooks it now is very similar, only on the stovetop.  Before then she had avoided it because all she'd ever known was the canned asparagus they had when she was growing up.  If you think properly cooked fresh asparagus is floppy, you should see canned asparagus!  It's like the exhumed embalmed cadaver of asparagus-- the Lenin of asparagus, if you will.  It somehow has retained all of the qualities that could be considered offensive about fresh asparagus and also amplified them, and yet also become in other ways totally unlike fresh asparagus.  In a nutshell, it smells like rotten eggs, tastes like pease porridge in the pot nine days old, and has the texture of newborn poop.  Additionally it is a lurid neon green in some form of travesty against the natural asparagus, much like botox on a ninety-year-old heavy drinker.  In conclusion, please do not ever eat canned asparagus.  Thank goodness for fresh asparagus!  It is so delicious and so easy to prepare!

Cornflake Porkchops / Sitting on the Patio with Grandmom

Cornflake Pork Chops

4-6 thin pork chops (sometimes packaged as "breakfast chops"-- or you can slice or pound pork tenderloin into 1/2-inch thickness)
1 C. lightly crushed cornflake cereal (don't pulverize it to powder-- there should still be recognizable pieces of flake)
2-3 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 C. flour
Oil for cooking
salt and pepper to taste

Put the crushed cornflakes, flour, and eggs individually (i.e. not mixed with each other) into three pie pans or deep plates.  Heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat.  Salt and pepper the chops on each side.  Dredge them in: the flour, the egg, and the cornflakes.  Fry them in the skillet on both sides until they are a light golden brown.  It's important not to overheat your oil initially, because ideally your coating should be crisp and brown and your chop fully cooked at the same time.  Too hot: burnt on the outside, raw on the inside.  Too cool: soggy on the outside, done on the inside.  For most stoves, the "medium" setting, whatever that is, is just right.  Basically, your chops should sizzle and fry without an excessive amount of popping, snapping, or volume.  Drain your chops on whatever it is that you like to drain things.  Serve hot!  They are pretty good leftover, too.

I don't know if you've noticed by now, but a lot of times an Italian's idea of the ideal thing to do with meat is to fry it.  This comes in a close second to stewing it in a sauce and serving it over pasta.  This is a modern, but very Italian-themed, take on the first option.  It comes straight out of Grandmom's kitchen, and has even been adopted by my uncle Ron, whose family deeply appreciates his firm grasp of hearty homestyle cooking.
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This is one of my favorite Grandmom memories.  Grandmom loves to sit out on her patio and watch the world go by.  She likes it even more if someone sits out there with her.  Since Grandpop does not like to sit out on the patio, she especially enjoys when I visit and sit out on the patio with her.  (Grandpop is inside, enjoying time on the couch with his first love, Bob Barker.)

So, one afternoon between lunch and supper, we sat out.  Cars passed, the wind blew, the flowers on the patio sat there-- it was a rare kind of pleasure that doesn't take place as often anymore.  I gazed off into the middle distance, which is occupied in Grandmom's neighborhood by a couple of local businesses and large Victorian houses.  On the roof of one of these houses alit two large birds.  They may have been vultures-- it was too far away for me to be sure.  I hadn't yet got over my surprise at seeing two big vultures on the peaked roof of a gingerbread house when they began "doing it."  Knocking boots.  Or, more appropriately since they were birds, knocking buttholes.  I'm serious.  Look it up.   So vigorously, in fact, that I wasn't sure which would happen first: them getting done and flying their separate ways, or them falling off the roof mid-act. 

Grandmom broke me out of my stupefied reverie to say, "Look at that!"  I looked over at her.  "Over there!" she pointed in the vague general direction of where I had been looking.  I immediately began searching around for something else she could have been pointing at.  Maybe the small business next door that has been there since the 50's?  "No!" Grandmom insisted.  "There!  Those two birds!" she continued.  I looked around at her.  "You think they make babies?" 

No let me just interject at this point to state that, as far as I know about their relationship, my grandparents adopted my dad and uncle.  I think I've only seen them kiss two or three times in my life.  We've definitely never had "the talk".  So imagine my astound when my Grandmom turns to me and, in her own words, asks me if she thinks those two large birds are having relations.  Especially when they are.  Over and over again.  Loudly.

"Yes," I answered, "I think they are."

Easter, Canduci-Style

So, since one of the purposes of this blog is to share family memories, I thought I'd do a post of some of my Canduci Easter memories.  Any family members who read this blog are welcome to contribute their own using the "comment" feature!  Or, of course, you can e-mail them to me at canduci.family.recipes@gmail.com and I'll give them their very own post.

Easter egg hunts.  Oh, the Easter egg hunts.  I don't know what it was like for the adults, but for the kids it was pure bloodsport.  Greatgrandmom's yard would be full of hidden real boiled eggs in rainbow pastel hues, and after all the grandkids, greatnieces and -nephews, and the like had arrived and been mustered into order, we would be released to go hunt for them.  I'm fairly certain that any civilized manners we had been taught at that point were totally undermined by the fierce urge we all shared to FIND ALL THE EGGS.  Or at least put enough in our basket to make it difficult to carry.  Once plastic eggs came into being, we could also later brag about how many eggs we found with money (whole pennies and dimes at our disposal!!!) or chocolate candies. I'm not going to swear to this, but I might possibly remember pushing and shoving going on. Definitely tears. And that was just the little girls!

After the egg hunt, there would be some version of a Canduci feast, which in my small mind was highlighted by the butter pressed into the shape of a lamb. When we got home, all stuffed unto death with delicious food, I would tear into the yellow-cake-with-chocolate-frosting-and-decorated-with--icing-flowers-egg-shaped-cake-with-my-name-written-in-icing-on-the-top cake that Grandmom would buy for me every year. Sheer heaven. It was like joy on top of delight on top of wonder. ICING. CHOCOLATE. MY NAME IN FROSTING. SEASONALLY-THEMED AND TOTALLY UNECESSARY. We Canduci family children well knew that cake came one time a year: on our birthdays. Okay, or vicariously on other peoples' birthdays. I still find other peoples' birthdays nearly as exciting as my own for this reason. That cake probably taught me more about God's love and grace than any number of tedious color-in-Jonah Sunday school classes.

Butteriest Butter / Great-grandmom Pulls her Tricks

You know that butter you get in a seafood restaurant to dip your crab legs or lobster in?  That butter that is somehow the epitome of butter, and of the concept of butteriness?  Well, today I discovered how to make it.  No, it's not just melted butter.  And no, it's definitely not vegetarian.  But it's great on anything!

1 stick of butter
1 clove of garlic, minced
3 anchovy filets, drained and patted dry (I didn't pat mine, but I guess you could)

Melt the butter in a small saucepan.  Once it's all melted and also stopped foaming for the most part (only a few seconds after it finishes melting), toss in the minced garlic and let it sizzle for a few seconds.  Then, remove the butter from the heat and throw in the anchovy filets.  Mash them up as much as you can, prefereably with a wooden spoon.
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That's it.  I served it over cooked cauliflower today and I couldn't get enough of it.  Not that I dislike cauliflower to begin with.  I am an adult and buy my own groceries, so I don't have to eat cauliflower if I didn't like it.  Which I do, and I did.  But that was some of the most badass cauliflower I've ever eaten.  This sauce was also poured over hot cooked spaghetti or linguine by Great-grandmom Canduci, and while I can't recall ever having it, my mom liked it so much that, despite not even liking anchovies, she still remembers that pasta and how delicious it was.  The secret is that you can't taste the anchovies, at least not in the traditional sense.  They are definitely the "secret ingredient", but the end product is not fishy or even oily.  Just buttery.  So deliciously buttery!

Grand-grandmom Canduci was a card.  I got reminded of some good stories about her when I was putting up the broccoli rabe post, and decided I would share them.

Gardening: see "How to Get a Free Trip to the Grocery Store"

Great-grandmom was a wiley and resourceful old fox and, according to her children, a wiley and resourceful young fox too.  Great-grandmom's method of getting stuff done around the house that she needed to delegate or just didn't want to do herself was to rope the unsuspecting bystander (read: family member) in with a statement something along the lines of "Hey, can you come help me with this?"  Who's to turn down a sweet old Italian lady?  HAH!  Inevitably you would look up from pulling weeds or whatever it was you were "helping her" with and she would be gone!  She even did this to me with the crab grass in her front walk, and she died when I was about 8 years old so I know I must have been a fairly small child at the time.  Wiley indeed!  To pull her tricks even with a little child!  I remember the deep sense of irritation I felt. 

This is also the method Great-grandmom used when, in her later years, she needed a ride to the grocery store.  "Can you give me ride?  Is on the way!" she would ask innocently.  "Of course!" was the only allowable answer-- remember, this is the woman who smacked her own adult sons with the wooden spoon she was cooking with for failing to compliment her cooking.  (FYI: the answer is always "Oh, it is so delicious," to an Italian woman.  Otherwise: smacking.)  So, the driver in question would load up Great-grandmom and drive over the the Acme ("Ack-em-mah") and she would then turn to them and say, innocently, "Oh, can you help me carry groceries?  Is only a few things.  Short trip."  So, the driver would get out of the car (remember, at this point she or he has been promised that it will be "short trip" that is "on the way", meaning the driver still has other business to attend to) and become more and more incredulous as Great-grandmom worked her way through the entire grocery and at least one full cartload.  It's obvious that her victims (read: family members) were truly fooled only a few times.  But what are you going to say to Great-grandmom?  No?  No.  In fact, you beat her at her own game, if you could, by claiming to have a strict appointment that you were running late for, or almost out of gas.  Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.

Red Sauce with Crabs

12 small crabs*
olive oil for sauteing
6-8 cloves of garlic
a splash of red wine
Tomato sauce made with: 3 big and 2 little tomatoes, a little sugar, fresh basil to taste, and 2 bay leaves

Clean the crabs and saute them with the garlic in a little olive oil.  Add in the rest of the ingredients and cook until done.**
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*This reminds me of the time Grandmom and I decided to eat crabs since I was up there and Grandmom therefore had justification for buying them.  We both love seafood.  Grandpop does not.  Or rather, he didn't before their marriage, went through a 20-year period where he did like it after being tricked into eating it, much the same way he learned to appreciate rabbit, and then in recent years has returned to his original seafood-hating state.  So we went to the grocery store to purchase some crabs, which in New Jersey is not a difficult thing to do.  But lo and behold!  That day, there were no large, luscious Alaskan crab legs or Snow crab legs for us to take home and boil up with a hint of Old Bay and dunk in hot melted butter.  No.  The only crabs to be gotten in the midst of the summer were little blue crabs.  So we bought them, and took them home, and made this sauce with them, which we ate on top of linguine.  The funny part is that you have to understand that when this recipe says "clean the crabs" it doesn't mean "take all the meat out of the shells"-- it just means "run them bad boys under some water so you don't eat sand and crab poop."  So the crabs should be, and were, in shell.  Hard shells.  And they were little crabs.  So, we started out with a serving platter piled high, I mean high, with tiny cooked crabs, and we, seafood lovers that we are, and stubborn people that we are, commenced to eating them.  When we conceded that we were done, two and a half hours later, we had made it about 3/4ths of the way down, sucking every tiny claw to its very core along the way.  Grandpop had left the table after finishing his non-seafood alternative about a half-hour into the crab festival muttering something about how we were eating too much.  But, as anybody who has ever tried to eat a tiny crab can tell you, there ain't a lot of meat in them tiny crabs.  I think we got more calories from the linguine.  But it was a delicious and messy experience and, honestly, that's what eating crabs should be.

**"Until done."  Possibly the two most obscure words in the English language.  It assumes so much of the recipe reader, like that they know what done is, what it looks like, and about how long it takes to get there.  In this case, you should have a nice saucy tomato sauce (not cooked salsa), and your crabs should be safe to consume without fear of horrible digestive consequences.  So at least 30 minutes on medium-low (think "simmer").  Maybe an hour.  An added benefit to making this sauce is that you have deliciously crabby red sauce left long after you finish off your tiny crabs, which you can soak into good Italian bread (the sauce, not the tiny crabs) or coat more luxurious pasta with.  A good pasta sauce should go a long way.

Javelinas / True Love, Fifties-Style

2-2/3 C. all-purpose flour
1/3 C. whole wheat flour
1 TB. baking powder
1/2 C. milk
1/4 C. shortening
1/2 C. molasses
2/3 C. brown sugar
1 tsp. anise seeds
1 C. golden raisins
1 egg, separated
1 tsp. vanilla
granulated sugar, for dusting

Preheat the oven to 350F.  Combine the flours and baking powder.  In a separate bowl, blend together the shortening and brown sugar.  Add in the molasses and vanilla.  Beat in the egg yolk.  Combine the flour and egg mixtures.  Blend in the raisins and anise seed.  Add milk to moisten until the consistency is somewhat akin to scone dough.  Turn out onto a floured work surface and knead briefly, just until the dough hangs together well.  Pat into a round, then pat the round out to 1/2-inch (1 cm-ish) thickness.  Cut into rounds with a biscuit cutter --or-- use a pig-shaped cookie cutter.  Place them on a greased baking sheet about a half-inch apart and brush the tops with the reserved egg white.  Sprinkle them with generously with granulated sugar.  Bake for 18-20 minutes or until done.  (They will rise somewhat and the sugar on top will brown.)
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The difference between Grandmom and me (so I thought) was that I had a more adventurous and reckless nature.  Grandmom doesn't go out of the house with the dryer still running.  I still occasionally put things in the oven that are going to take a long time before I leave the house on purpose.  I don't do so very often, because eventually I am overcome by the possibility of returning to my house to find it a smoking ruin.  It's never happened, but you try driving home hoping your house hasn't recently been put out by the fire department and see how inclined you are to do it again.  There you go.  Some people, like Grandmom, could not even bear the possibility.  I, on the other hand, eventually forget the possibility and live to tempt disaster once again.  And so I thought that was the way things stood amongst us, until Grandmom told me about her other fiance. Yes, all this time I thought Grandpop was her first love.  In my imagination it could have been taken right from a script for "The Donna Reed Show".  But oh, no, I was wrong.  She was about 20 years old, and she had been seeing this other boy from her high school since she was fourteen, so about six years.  Eventually, they got engaged.  And then, she and my Grandpop (who also went to the same school) both went to a party hosted by mutual friends.  At some point during the party, Grandpop called out "WHO WANTS TO SIT ON MY LAP?!"  And Grandmom decided that she wanted to.  She told me that at that moment she knew that she loved that other guy "like a brother", and she broke it off to go out with Grandpop!  So I guess I come by it naturally.

Sea Legs Salad / The Art of War at Lunchtime

1 pkg sea legs, cut into 2-inch (5cm)-long chunks*
1/4 onion, minced fine
1/4 C. mayonnaise
salt and pepper to taste

Combine all in a bowl, tossing until the sea legs are well-coated with spices and mayonnaise.  Serve on a hard roll.
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*I think the official name for this product is surimi, but Grandmom has always called it "sea legs".  Another word for it is "imitation crab meat".  It is pretty crabby, I have to admit.  It's the stuff you find in your no-raw-fish-allowed sushi roll.  It's made of white fish, so it's definitely not vegetarian!

This recipe is akin to the hotdog sanwiches, in that it is simple, unpretentious, and very tasty.  If I had to pick between canned tuna salad and sea legs salad, I would pick the sea legs any day of the week.  Typically this is served at lunch, the most perilous time of the day if you're trying not to eat your weight.  (Incidentally, I found a picture of me from when I was fat, and I was pretty cute!  I'm glad for my health that I'm slimmer, but I think I let myself get too stressed out about it at the time.)  Anyway, if you're still having fat flashbacks like Steve Carrell's character in the movie remake of "Get Smart", lunchtime can be intimidating.  Not only is "finish, finish" fully in play, but there's also the added peer- (Grandmom-) pressure to "eat up the leftovers".  Because, you know, "must not throw away".  Except Grandmom made enough food the last three nights for a group of "4-6" and there's only 3 of you: you (see above need to not get fat again), Grandmom (practices what she preaches), and Grandpop, who has learned the fine art of "no" over 58 years of marriage.  Eventually you learn some survival strategies-- eat really, reaaaally slowly, take first helpings that are a third of what you would actually want, and learn to give the Italian Guilt Trip as good as you get it.  Yes, it's true: sometimes the only way to get Grandmom to cease and desist is to launch something like "You're trying to make me fat!  You want me to be fat?!?! (make "I caught a fish thiiiis biiig" hands)"

Vegetarian Meatballs, Italian-Style / When A Romantic Comedy Causes Noise Ordinance Violation

1 16oz. can cooked cannelini beans
1/3 C. Italian-style breadcrumbs
1 C. cooked barley (or rice would probably do as well)*
1/4 C. oatmeal**
1 egg
1/2 of a tomato, chopped
2-3 TB. of chopped onion
2-3 TB. Parmesan cheese + some for topping (if you prefer)
pepper and garlic powder to taste

cooking oil
spaghetti sauce

Process the cannelini beans in a food processor until they are coarsely chopped.  Combine them in a bowl with the rest of the ingredients (except for the cooking oil and spaghetti sauce).  Add more oatmeal or breadcrumbs if necessary until the mixture is about like a meatloaf would be in consistency.  (Ergo, cohesive but somewhat loose.)  Preheat the oven to 400F.  Put the cooking oil in a thin layer on the bottom of a glass baking dish.  One at a time, and with wet hands, form meatballs out of the bean mixture.*** Place them in the baking dish so that they don't touch each other.  Put the dish in the oven and bake them for 30-45 minutes, or until hot and fairly firm.  Remove them from the oven and pour a little spaghetti sauce over each meatball.  (I refuse to call it a beanball.)  Return them to the oven and bake about 5 more minutes.  Put your meatballs on a serving platter or dish.  Top them with spaghetti sauce and Parmesan cheese like you would a regular meatball.  Heck, if you feel extra crafty cook some pasta and serve them all in with that.
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*Yes, I used leftover barley.  Grandmom raised me well.  As further proof, I also used the beans, tomato, and onion from an unsatisfactory batch of Bean & Pasta Soup I made earlier this week without the benefit of chicken stock.  (Not intentionally-- I forgot I had bought seafood stock for the Loco Moco and didn't want to try that in my Bean & Pasta Soup, so used plain water as the base.  Yes, ugh.)  The pasta part of the soup is now sitting in my freezer, from whence came the barley.  Love me, love my leftovers. 

**You could dispense with the barley and rice and only use an equivalent amount of oatmeal if you wanted, although the barley gave the meatballs a nice bite.  I used the barley because a) I thought I could, b) FINISH FINISH NO THROW AWAY! and c) when I was making my grocery list I didn't include oatmeal because I knew I had some instant in the cabinet...instant maple-brown sugar flavored!  So basically what happened was this: I dumped the whole packet in, casually read the side of the paper as I was about to throw it away, and then hurriedly dumped out as much of the instant oatmeal as I could.  I then defrosted the barley.  Before I overcompensated with pepper they were some pretty maple syrup-flavored meatballs.

***This basically looks like you're playing a very slow and solemn game of "hot potato" with the vegetarian meatball.  And yes, the wet hands do really make it easier.  It has the same result as when you flour your hands before handling pastry or oil your hands before handling candy.  What this says about my vegetarian meatballs, I don't know.

Grandmom and I once had a shouting match over the tv.  Grandmom likes Romantic Comedies.  I do not, but hey, my choices were: sit in another room from the person I came to visit or watch a Romantic Comedy with her.  It happened to be "The Wedding Planner", starring J. Lo as The Lovelorn Underappreciated Career Woman Looking for Love and Matthew Mcconaughey as The Antihero Who Supposedly Wins the Audience with His Bad Boy Charm.  Long story short, by the end of the movie I was shouting at the tv like it was the superbowl for J.Lo's character to go with the nice Italian boy who came all the way from Italy to meet her, and my mild, gentle Grandmom was shouting right back, "BUT SHE DOESN'T LOVE HIM!!!!"   Only in an Italian household would two women watching a Romantic Comedy on a couch in front of the tv become loud. We may or may not have had ice cream afterwards.  Ice cream heals all wounds.

Recipe for a Plum Tree

1 apple tree trunk
plum tree branches
the knowledge and ability to graft fruit trees

Graft the plum branches on the apple tree.  It will produce the sweetest, juiciest plums you have ever eaten in your life.  No kidding.  Seriously.  My Great-grandfather Nunzio made this chimera, which was cut down in the mid-eighties and I still remember how good the plums were.  You know how plums from the store can be a little bitter sometimes?  Well, not these plums.  They were the best plums I've ever eaten.  So, I'm posting this in hopes that someone else will graft a plum tree onto an apple tree and, through a convoluted process of trickle down, I will eventually get to have these good plums again.
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No, I'm not out of real recipes.  I just mislaid my pile of them temporarily.

Peanut Butter Cookies

1-1/3 C. crunchy peanut butter
3/4 C. granulated sugar (or you could use brown sugar too)
2 C. flour
1/4 C. molasses
1 tsp. baking soda
1 large egg

Preheat the oven to 350F.  Butter a baking sheet or line it with parchment paper.  Mix together the flour and baking soda.  In a separate bowl, combine the crunchy peanut butter and sugar.  Add in the egg and molasses one at a time.  Combine with the flour, mixing until well-blended.  Shape into walnut-sized balls (small cookies) or egg-sized (but not -shaped) balls (large cookies) and place about 2 inches apart.  Put some more sugar in a small bowl.  Dip a fork in the sugar and press it into the top of a cookie until it is partially flattened.  Redip it in sugar, then press it into the cookie again to make a criss-cross pattern and complete the flattening.  Do this for all the cookies.  Bake them for 10-12 minutes or until lightly golden on top.
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My grandparents are very traditional.  They also have a healthy marriage, which makes for some interesting divergences from "traditional".  For example, Grandmom is responsible for all the housekeeping (much to her chagrin), except for the yard, garage, and indoor vacuuming.  Yes, I said vacuuming.  Grandpop at some point must have been relegated to the vacuuming (possibly under duress) but has learned to love it with a deep abiding passion that requires him to own and maintain a vacuum for each vacuuming situation.  So, Grandpop has a vacuum for each floor (3), a shop vacuum (the garage), as well as a dustbuster (the stairs) and bissel sweeper (light mess).  This information may transform the conditions of women everywhere.  Dear Laundry Detergent Companies: please market your products as containing many moving parts or complicated steps that require systematic attendance that only a man could achieve.

Another way that Grandpop has broken out of his traditional man role is that he has always been the Chief Executive of Making Peanut Butter Cookies for Me.  It is his specialty, and only Grandpop can make them exactly right.

Old-Fashioned Sundaes / Taking "bite me" too far

2-3 scoops of vanilla ice cream
pineapple jelly
creme de menthe
spray whipped cream
maraschino cherries

Put the ice cream in a fancy dish, because this is the 50's and ice cream is still an event.  Put the rest on top.  Go ahead, put six cherries on, that's what they're for.  Eat up.
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I have many fond memories of these sundaes.  They are weird and delicious, as are the best parts of life.  In fact, I hearby officially repudiate all that is vanilla womanhood.  I work with a lot of women, and therefore it makes my opinion and expert opinion when I say I have had all I can take of personalities like perfectly formed ice-cream scoops with exactly one half a banana, spray whipped cream and a single cherry on top.  "Don't mess my topping" is how those sundaes go through life.  Life is messy, life is sticky, and life is definitely imperfect and that's exactly the way I like it.  With creme de menthe and pineapple jelly on top.

Chicken Cacciatore

2 TB vinegar
2 TB brown sugar
1/4 C. lemonjuice
1 C. ketchup 2 bay leaves
1 TB paprika
3 TB Worchestershire sauce
1 TB prepared mustard
1 C. cold water
1/2 C. choppede celery
1/2 C. chopped green pepper
1 medium onion, chopped
salt and garlic salt to taste

3-4 lb chicken pieces
small can of mushrooms*
1/4 C. sautern or sherry

Combine all ingredients except for mushrooms and chicken and simmer 5-10 minutes.  In a skillet, brown the chicken pieces.  Pour the sauce over this, adding 1/4 C. of the wine of your choice.  Cover and simmer 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until the chicken is tender.  About 15 minutes before, add the small can of mushrooms.  Can make the day before and heat it to serve.
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This recipe is an enigma to me.  It's fairly old, being definitely written before 1965.  With all its "authentic family recipe" credentials it includes such glorious ingredients as ketchup from a jar and, to prevent any confusion, "prepared" mustard.  Yet at the same time it has you adding sautern or sherry wine, depending on what your discerning palate prefers.  I found it in amongst Grandmom's recipes while looking for a chicken marsala recipe to fix for a fancy dinner.  Grandmom tells me this recipe came from her sister, Rose Canduci, who died long before I was born.  She says that the recipe instructions were written by Rose but that the title was written by her (Grandmom).  She says that their handwriting was always almost exactly alike, and I can attest to it.  I was under the impression that the same person wrote the title later on as an afterthought.  I'm excited to include a recipe by my Great-Aunt Rose in this blog. 

*If you want to fancy this recipe all the way up to authenticity and homemadeness, I suggest you find another Chicken Cacciatore recipe.  However, if you're satisfied with a few minor improvements, or can't find an ingredient or two, here are my suggestions:

8oz. of fresh mushrooms should be an equivalent amount as a "small can of mushrooms." Wash and slice them before putting them in the sauce as directed. 

You could probably skip the mustard if you can't find any, or put it 1/2-to 1 tsp. of dried mustard mixed with a little extra lemon juice or vinegar (or wine!). 

If you can't lay your hands on ketchup, 1/4 C. canned tomato paste mixed with 2-3 TB. brown sugar, 1/4 tsp salt, and 1/2 C. water would probably do.

BUT, I repeat BUT do not try to incorporate all of these substitutions into one dish.  These are "make do" type substitutions.  Putting them all together would almost certainly lead to the culinary waste of a "3-4lbs chicken pieces".  I say "culinary waste" because, if you're really Italian, or just insufferably cheap, you will eat what you created anyway, gagging and choking all the way because "must not waste!"

Creamed Rabbit with Mushrooms / Revenge of the Father-in-Law

2 rabbits, cut up*
1/2 C. flour seasoned with 1/2 tsp. pepper
6 TB. butter
1 small onion, diced
8 large fresh mushrooms, sliced
1-1/2 TB onion soup mix**
2/3 C. hot chicken bouillion
1-1/2 C. sour cream

Dredge rabbit pieces in flour.  Heat 3 TB. of butter in a skillet and fry the rabbit in it.  Add in the onions and fry them until soft, then remove with a slotted spoon.  Cook the rabbit until brown on both sides.  In a separate pan, sautee the mushrooms with the remaining 3 TB. butter until they are golden.  Transfer the mushrooms to the pan with the rabbit pieces, and add back in the cooked onions to the pan as well.  Combine the soup mix and bouillion and pour over the rabbits.  Spoon the sour cream over all.  Cover and let simmer 1 hour or until the rabbits are tender.  Serves 4.

*I swear this is what it says.  I guess you're supposed to already know how to cut up a rabbit.

**This creates a salty, oniony flavor.  However, if you have personal objections to ingredients like onion soup mix, or don't have access to it, here are my suggestions for mimicking its flavor in a recipe.  Remember this recipe calls for 1-1/2 tablespoons, which is not a whole lot.

Mix together equal parts dried onion flakes, salt, and cornstarch.
--or--
Caramelize a small amount of onions, seasoning well with salt and maybe a little red wine or red wine vinegar. 

***
Grandmom told me the story of how when she and my grandpop were newly married they went over for dinner at her parents' house.  Grandpop is a much pickier eater, and Grandmom knew that her dad was planning on serving rabbit.  So, when they got there and Grandpop asked her what it was, she told him it was something else.  He ate it, and loved it...until my Great-grandfather, with a rakish look in his eye, leaned over to Grandpop and asked, "How'd you like it?" Of course Grandpop said it was delicious, and then Greatgrandpop Canduci said, "It's RABBIT!"  I think that was the day my grandpop learned that he liked rabbit.  So moral of the story: picky eaters didn't just fly up out of the ground in the last 15 years.  But it behooves picky eaters to GROW UP, because there are lots of things out there they might like if they could only prise the chicken tenders out of their mouths. 

Scrapple

1 lb bulk sausage meat
14 oz. can evaporated milk
3/4 C. water
1/2 C. yellow cornmeal
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper
Cooking oil
flour for breading

In a heavy skillet, brown the meat in its own fat.  Mix together the evaporated milk and water, and add into the pan.  Bring to a boil, then slowly stir in the cornmeal and seasonings.  Cook five minutes, stirring constantly.  Pour all into a loaf pan and chill until firm (overnight).  Unmold and slice into 1/2" thick slices.  Dip the slices in flour and fry in a pan.  OR, dip the slices in crushed cornflakes, then milk, then flour, and then fry.  Good served with ketchup, horseradish, or pancake syrup.
***
Oh, scrapple.  This recipe is a pretty good variety.  Commercial scrapple is a whole other story, akin to the stories of commercial hot dogs and commercial balogna versus the homemade items.  (Is there such a thing as homemade hot dogs?)  How well I remember a particular family friend asking me nearly every time he ate scrapple, "do you know what that's made of?"  And then relishing in the denouement once again, while taking luxuriously large bites of scrapple or alternating descriptions of its content with songs of praise about how delicious it was.  He was and is truly an odd bird.  As, in my opinion, is anybody who eats scrapple.  Maybe he taught his lesson well: more scrapple for him!