From Scratch
Page 28
Sicilians say that when you open a bottle of olive oil, you should smell the earth inside. Antioxidant rich, verdant, it should sing of life in a bottle. I grabbed a bottle of olive oil that sat on the table and poured some over fresh bread. I could taste the aromatic legacy of the artichokes, tomatoes, and eucalyptus that grew on the periphery of town. Their essence had infused the life of the olive trees nearby. Being near Nonna had done that for me; every dish she made would be a culinary afterimage.
* * *
Just before noon, my dad rang my cell to say that the driver had just pulled into the entrance to town.
“Stay there, I’m coming,” I said, feeling strangely giddy.
“Well, where else I am gonna go? I don’t speak a word of Italian and don’t even know where I am,” he chided. I could hear the excitement in his voice.
“You’re in Sicily, Dad. You made it to Sicily.”
I called to Zoela to come down from the upstairs bedroom.
She shot down the stairs with Rosalia in tow. “Vieni con me—Come with me,” she commanded her friend. Zoela was full of agency. “Ti faccio conoscere i miei nonni dall’America—I’m going to introduce you to my American grandparents.”
Within minutes we were all headed down Via Gramsci on foot, Zoela running ahead of me, Rosalia keeping pace.
I had waited two decades for this moment.
After we all exchanged hugs there in the street, couplets of onlookers came up to the car to say “Benvenuti.” It seemed that news of their arrival had already begun to circulate.
Then we made the trek back up to Nonna’s house. All the widows and wives of Via Gramsci poured out of their front doors to say “Benvenuti” as we made our way up the street. But the vision that took hold of my heart was Nonna standing proudly in her doorway.
“Ciao, Gene. Ciao, Aubrey. Venite—Come,” she said as she pulled back the lace and invited them inside.
This was what she had not been able to do when her son was alive. But she was doing it now.
“Tell her thank you for having us,” my dad said to me.
“Already done, Dad,” I said with a smile and a wink. “I got this.”
My dad had never seen me speak so much Italian. He was watching me carefully, as if from on the other side of an invisible partition between us that until now he hadn’t known existed. His little girl had made a place for herself as far from East Texas as one could imagine.
“Ask Nonna if we can help her prepare anything,” Aubrey said, pointing to the pot boiling on the stove. Aubrey was ready to dive in. They did not want Nonna to have to do everything.
“It’s already done,” I said.
“Yeah, Nonna will never let you do anything in her kitchen,” Zoela piped in. “You are her guest, you just eat. That’s the way it is here.”
Thirty minutes later, we were seated at an abundant table. I was translating furiously as I twisted my fork around strands of pasta delicately coated with a sauce as unpretentious as the woman who served it. She wanted to make sure that my parents liked the food, that they were happy. I noticed Nonna zero in on Aubrey, who appeared to her to be eating very little.
“Lei non mangia tanto—She doesn’t eat much,” I said quietly into her ear to preempt any hurt feelings.
Nonna threw her hand back and turned directly to Aubrey, “Mangia! Eat more, we have lots of food here.” She began lifting plates in Aubrey’s direction. “Mangia!”
We toasted to Saro. I made sure my dad tasted homemade Sicilian wine left over from the days when Saro’s dad had made his own vintage: remnants of pulp and sediment on the bottom, sharp tannins on top, the robust flavor of fragrant grapes in the middle. Nothing passed through; it was unprocessed, home distilled. The kind of stuff that my grandmother used to say could put hair on your chest.
“Think of it like a Sicilian Ripple,” I joked, referring to the cheap alcoholic drink famous in 1970s black sitcoms and blaxploitation movies.
“Then I’ll have a sip but not more. You don’t want me speaking Portuguese, do you?”
The Sicilian novelist and essayist Leonardo Sciascia once said, “Translation is the other side of a tapestry.” It was something Saro had told me one day when he was attempting to translate a poem from Sicilian into English.
There at the table, it was clear that being with Saro had been like weaving a beautiful, complicated tapestry. After his death, being with his family was like looking at the flip side of that tapestry. The stitching showed, the bulky knots, the places where the fringe had frayed. But it was still part of the same beautiful piece.
* * *
After lunch, I walked my parents to Nonna’s sister’s house at the end of town, where they would stay. We passed people all along the way, each stopping to greet us and exchange hellos. They kissed dozens of cheeks and shook dozens of hands with the people who seemed as much to me like family as my own. Each offered advice to my dad and Aubrey, told them what it meant to be from Aliminusa, and I translated for them.
My favorite was the man who lived above the bank and had a bird’s-eye view of the comings and goings in the piazza. “We are all the children of God, just look at our hands.” He held up his hand, palm facing my dad. “But notice, each finger is different. One is short, one is long, one is crooked. They each do different things. But we are all part of the same family.”
Later, we passed Signor Shecco, nicknamed “Mister Mule” because he had one of the last remaining mules in town and often took her for a walk draped in colorful fringe, a tradition from the turn of the last century. He said to my dad, “Siamo quattro gatti qua, porta a porta col cimitero—We are just four cats here, door to door with the cemetery.” He held up four arthritic fingers and waited for me to translate. “We are four cats” means “Our numbers are small”; “door to door with the cemetery” means “old and dying.”
Then Signor Shecco continued, “Ma siamo buoni, buoni e stretti. Capisce? Sua figlia è una di noi.—But we are good, and we are close. Understand? Your daughter is one of us.”
My dad smiled and thanked the man.
As we walked away, Dad looked back at the man with the mule, he looked around town at the cobblestones and buildings seemingly as old as time, and he said to Aubrey, “Being here, I understand my son-in-law in a whole new way. But I really understand my daughter more than ever.” I was overcome by his words.
Late afternoon turned to dusk, and we readied ourselves for the procession of Sant’Anna. In filmmaking, we call that time of day “magic hour,” the moment when the diffused rays of the sun make everything more beautiful. Here the faded stone walls of the town become a canvas upon which every color of the Mediterranean can be celebrated. It is that time of day that gives Sicily its timelessness.
Zoela and I collected my parents and took them to the town square, where a crowd of townspeople gathered around the church steps. It was time to bring out the statue of Sant’Anna. I looked up at the church, the marble-and-limestone facade, the Roman-numeral clock, the bell tower. It was the same place where two summers earlier I had stood unsure if I could make sense of my life, let alone reimagine it, while the priest blessed Saro’s ashes.
Sant’Anna, I had since learned, was the mother of Mary, the grandmother of Jesus. In Catholicism, Anna is the matriarch of matriarchs, the embodiment of female wisdom. She was perhaps absorbed into Christianity from the pagan goddess of fertility, Anu, whose name means “grace.” Once a year, her statue is taken from the church in Aliminusa, hoisted onto the shoulders of men, and carried through town, a procession of townspeople trailing behind her. Women who are able to walk the length of the town proceed barefoot on the cobblestones immediately behind her with her shadow cast upon them in the setting sun. These women pray to her in times of difficulty and times of celebration. I had also learned that she was the patron saint of widows and travelers. I was born on her day, July 26. I was married on her day. For the people of Aliminusa, that meant she was my personal saint. “You drew a good card,�
�� Nonna told me.
I stood on the street in front of the church, my parents and daughter at my side as the priest said the prayer and the band began to play. Zoela waved to Rosalia as she played the clarinet. The saint emerged from the large double-hung carved wooden doors. It was indeed magic hour.
Coincidence and fate are two words for the same phenomenon. The coincidence of a chance meeting in Florence had fated me to stand here decades later, thousands of miles from my home of origin but simultaneously in a home I had chosen, tasting my first flavors of renewal. Saro’s love, his life, and his loss had forged me, softening me to life and strengthening me in the broken places.
As the statue was carried down the steps and the procession began, I did not move. There was nowhere to go just then; the journey for the moment was complete. Inside me I felt a bittersweet evolution. I would leave this place aware that there was a lot of living to come. The wound of loss had become a scar of love. I knew that in whatever experience was yet to come, I would be ever more in love with the poet-chef in elf boots who had lit the fire for a lifetime.
I closed my eyes, held Zoela’s hand, and asked, “Anu—Ana—Grace” to follow me—one mother, one widow, one traveler, wherever I would go next.
RECIPES
FIRST SUMMER
Carciofi con Pomodori e Menta (Artichokes Braised in Tomatoes with Mint)
Pesto di Pomodori Secchi, Oliva e Mandorle (Sundried Tomatoes and Almond Tapanade)
Spaghetti con Pesto alla Trapanese (Sicilian Almond Pesto Pasta)
Insalata di Rucola con Pomodori e Ricotta Salata (Arugula Salad with Tomatoes and Ricotta Salata)
Olive Aromatiche (Aromatic Olives)
SECOND SUMMER
Ditalini con Lenticchie (Ditalini Pasta with Lentils)
Purea de Fave con Crostini (Pureed Fava Beans with Crostini)
Pesce Spada alla Griglia con Salsa Salmoriglio (Grilled Swordfish with Salsa Salmoriglio)
Caponata Classica (Classic Caponata)
Melanzane alla Parmigiana (Eggplant Parmigiana)
Sfuagghiu (“Schiavelli’s Cake”)
THIRD SUMMER
Salsa Pronta (Classic Tomato Sauce)
Pasta con Zucchini (Sicilian Summer Pasta)
Penne con Finocchio e Fave (Penne with Fennel and Fava Beans)
Insalata di Finocchio (Shaved Fennel and Citrus Salad)
Granita di Gelsi Neri (Mulberry Granita)
First Summer
CARCIOFI CON POMODORI E MENTA
Artichokes Braised in Tomatoes with Mint
Each spring my mother-in-law makes artichokes this way. She is kind enough to freeze them for me to enjoy when I arrive in summer. When I take my first bite, I think of them as being braised in kindness. At home in Los Angeles, Saro made this variation of her dish whenever artichokes were in season.
1 (28-ounce) can whole peeled tomatoes, preferably Italian San Marzano
11/2 cups dry white wine
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes, crushed
2 teaspoons Sicilian sea salt, plus more to taste
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
8 garlic cloves
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1 cup fresh mint leaves, lightly packed
6 medium artichokes
2 lemons, halved
Place the tomatoes in a large, heavy pot and crush them with your hands or a fork. Add the wine, red pepper flakes, 2 teaspoons salt, 1/2 cup olive oil, and 2 cups water. Set aside.
In a food processor, pulse the garlic, bread crumbs, and mint leaves until coarsely chopped. While the motor is going, stream in the remaining 1/2 cup olive oil to make a thick paste. Set aside.
Remove several layers of dark green outer leaves from the artichoke. Keep going until you reach the tender light green leaves. Use a serrated knife to cut off the top 1 inch or more of the artichokes and trim the stem ends. Rub the cut ends with lemon halves to prevent browning. Use a paring knife or vegetable peeler to remove the tough outer green layer from the base and stem to reveal the pale green flesh underneath. Rub with lemon. Cut in half through the stem and rub the cut sides with lemon. Use a spoon to scoop out the choke and pull out the spiky inner leaves.
With a spoon, rub the pesto all over the artichoke halves. Place them into the large pot in a single layer with the tomato mixture, submerging them. Sprinkle a thin layer of bread crumbs on the surface.
Bring to a simmer over a medium-low flame and cook, covered, turning the artichokes once or twice, until they are fork tender, about 55 to 60 minutes.
Serves 6 to 8.
PESTO DI POMODORI SECCHI, OLIVA E MANDORLE
Sundried Tomatoes and Almond Tapanade
This Sicilian-inspired pesto is a staple in our home. I keep it on hand to smear on crostini, spread on sandwiches, or, most notably, use as a mouth-watering pasta sauce. The combination of almonds, sundried tomatoes, and oil-cured black olives always takes me right back to Sicily.
1/2 cup raw almonds, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons minced fresh rosemary leaves
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil leaves
2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
20 pitted oil-cured olives
10 to 15 sundried tomatoes in oil, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Coarse sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Put the almonds, rosemary, basil, vinegar, sugar, paprika, olives, tomatoes, and garlic into a food processor. Blend, streaming in the olive oil as you go, until finely chopped into a thick paste. Add more olive oil if you want a smoother consistency. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Makes about 11/2 cups.
SPAGHETTI CON PESTO ALLA TRAPANESE
Sicilian Almond Pesto Pasta
This was one of the first dishes I learned to make after that first summer in Sicily. It’s simple and direct. Though it originates from the city of Trapani, it is found on menus all over the island. I have eaten it everywhere from Stromboli to Palermo to Taormina. Each time the chef adds his or her own touch, adding less tomato or more. When making it stateside, I prepare it at the height of the summer tomato season because the dish is all about the simplicity of natural flavors coming together in perfect harmony. Each ingredient is a star.
4 cloves garlic
3/4 cup raw almonds
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
5 cups basil
1 medium to large raw tomato, peeled and chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
Sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper to taste
1 (16-ounce) spaghetti
Grated pecorino or parmigiano cheese for garnishing (optional)
In a blender, combine the garlic and almonds. Blend, streaming in half of the olive oil until it forms a uniform, even cream.
Add the basil, the tomatoes, and the other half of the oil while blending to make it extra smooth. Add sea salt and pepper to taste. Let the sauce sit while you cook the pasta.
Drain the pasta, return it to the pot, and add the pesto, mixing gently and thoroughly. Add a touch more olive oil to help coat the pasta with the sauce. Serve immediately. I like to dust it with grated pecorino or parmigiano cheese.
Serves 4 to 6.
INSALATA DI RUCOLA CON POMODORI E RICOTTA SALATA
Arugula Salad with Tomatoes and Ricotta Salata
I found this recipe in Saro’s personal notes. He intended it as an antipasto in a menu he entitled “Summer Dinner on a Sicilian Terrace.” When I first came across it, I felt nothing but the bittersweetness of imagining another dinner with him on some terrace in Sicily. Now I make this simple salad for my friends as part of summer in Silver Lake.
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon honey
3 bunches arugula, stems discarded
11/2 pounds fresh summer tomatoes, cut into quarters<
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1 small red onion, thinly sliced
1/2 pound ricotta salata cheese, shaved with a peeler
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
To make the dressing, in a small bowl, whisk together the oil, vinegar, and honey with a pinch of salt.
Make a bed of arugula on a plate. Top with tomatoes, place sliced onion throughout, and top with the ricotta salata. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Drizzle with the dressing. Serve immediately.
Serves 4 to 6.
OLIVE AROMATICHE
Aromatic Olives
Aromatic olives are always resting in bowls on the table during Nonna’s meals. She has two varieties, black and green, picked from the family orchard. She makes a batch when we arrive, and I eat them for the duration of our stay. In Los Angeles, I make my own and serve them on my favorite Sicilian ceramic dishes at parties.
Aromatic Black Olives
1 pound oil-cured black olives
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon coarsely chopped rosemary leaves
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
Grated zest of 1 orange and 1/2 lemon
Pinch of brown sugar
In a bowl, combine the olives with the olive oil, vinegar, garlic, rosemary, red pepper flakes, orange and lemon zests, and brown sugar. Stir well and allow to marinate for an hour or so. Serve at room temperature.
Aromatic Green Olives
1 pound pitted green olives
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 cup carrots, finely diced