Welcome to the Family
Page 11
Frankie got serious. “No,” he said. “Those were for real. The guy in Arizona had a tip for me about electronics being hijacked from airports on the West Coast and moved into cities on the East Coast. We set up a sting operation, and it went bad. A couple of guys got shot.”
“I read about that in the newspaper,” Nicky said. “I saw your name.”
“How?” Tutti asked. “I tore that page out and put it in the trash.”
“I found it, when I took the trash downstairs,” Nicky said. “But it didn't say Uncle Frankie was a policeman.”
“And it didn't say who the ringleader was, either, did it?” Frankie asked.
“No,” Nicky said. “But, was it Dominick?”
“The kid's a genius!” Frankie said. “Speaking of which, that's some sketchbook you got there.” He turned to his brother and said, “I hope you realize what a talent this kid has. Without that sketchbook, I never woulda figured any of this out. It was like a road map.”
“He's a real artist,” Grandma Tutti said. “You should see the drawing he did of me in the kitchen. Like a regular Rembrandt.”
“I saw that one,” Frankie said. “And I got a look at the little cookie, too.”
Nicky said, “What cookie? What do you mean?”
“The cream puff,” Frankie said. “The girl. In the sketchbook.”
“That's Donna Carmenza,” Grandma Tutti said. “Nicky's girlfriend. She was asking where you were, at Santo Pietro. I told her to stop by the house after she was done.”
“You asked her to stop by here?” Nicky asked.
“She said she would come by after lunch.”
“You should get that Tommy over here, too,” Nicky's father said. “Him with his plan for busting out of that warehouse. He's a smart kid, that one—a troublemaker, but smart.”
Nicky clapped his hand over his mouth and gasped.
His uncle said, “What?”
“Tommy … I just thought of something,” Nicky said. “After the police came in, and put the handcuffs on those guys …”
His uncle said, “Yeah, what?”
“What happened to the packages?”
Nicky's father said, “Tommy's got the computer chips!”
“He tricked us!” Frankie said, and started laughing.
“Those chips are worth millions,” Nicky's father said. “Does he have any idea how valuable they are?”
Frankie and Nicky stared at him.
“Okay, stupid question,” he said. “Of course he knows. What're we gonna do?”
Frankie laughed. “Keep your shirt on. I'll go see the little thief later today, and give him a smack.”
“I'm gonna see about getting him a job,” Nicky's father said. “First he's an entrepreneur, with all these little scams. Then when he gets caught, he comes up with the diversion plan. Then he tackles the crook while he's running for the door. And when no one is paying attention, he makes off with a million dollars' worth of computer chips! A guy with that kind of brains shouldn't be running loose in the streets.”
“He should be a lawyer,” Frankie said.
“Or an undercover policeman,” Nicky's father said.
“Someone shoulda been watching him,” Frankie said.
“Someone shoulda been watching both these boys,” Nicky's father said.
“I'm sorry,” Nicky said, and hung his head. “I guess I didn't turn out to be such a goomba after all.”
“What are you talking about?” his uncle said. “You did great! Your grandmother got sick, and you saved the day. Your friend got caught, and you went back for him. You got into a jam, and you fought your way out. You were a great goomba!”
“Which is not always the best thing to be,” Nicky's father added. “I'm glad you connected with your uncle and your grandmother and your culture and all that, but you also acted like a hoodlum. We'll have to have a long talk on the drive home about how you spent your summer vacation.”
“Take it easy, Nicky,” Frankie said. “So he got into a little trouble. It happens to kids all the time.”
“Not like this,” Nicky's father said. “He was passing bad twenties. He was busting into movie theaters. He was attempting to deliver a package of stolen merchandise, for a known criminal. He and his friend—”
“Easy,” Frankie said. “That kind of thing can happen to anybody. Like, to you, for example.”
“To me?” Nicky's father looked surprised. “Not like that. Never.”
Frankie smiled. “You sure? Have you forgotten Stinky?”
Nicky's father said, “Stinky Savonara? What about him?”
“You remember him, that summer, with the softball equipment?”
“No,” Nicky's father said, and glanced at his mother.
“You liar! You do!” Frankie said, then turned to Nicky. “Stinky Savonara's father was a longshoreman. He worked down at the docks. And every once in a while a shipment would come in that interested Stinky—and some of it would, you know, disappear. One summer Stinky and your dad and me and some other guys were all playing softball. We wanted to be a summer softball league team. But we didn't have any uniforms. You couldn't be a league team with no uniforms. So what does Stinky's father find in a shipment? Uniforms! Red and white! Beautiful! With a team name already sewn onto them. So, Nicky here gets the idea to pinch the uniforms and the team name. Overnight, we became the Rimfield Rockets! Hurray for the Rimfield Rockets!”
Nicky's father put his face in his hands and said, “I had forgotten this.”
“I'm not done,” Frankie said. “The plan worked. We got into the league. So what happens at our very first league game? We meet the real Rimfield Rockets, a team from Rimfield, New Jersey—and their sponsor was the Rimfield Police Department! They came after us like gangbusters, with their fists and their bats. We ran off the field so fast we left behind our mitts and gloves and bats and everything!”
Grandma Tutti said, “I never knew why you boys quit softball that summer.”
“So much for Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes Nicky,” Frankie said. “So give your son a break, huh? He's a hero! He caught the bad guys.”
“Okay,” Nicky's father said. “Here's to the hero, then.”
He lifted his coffee mug and said to Nicky, “Salute.” Then he turned to his brother and said, “And, thanks.”
“Hey, thank you,” Frankie said. “There was trouble. Nicky called. And you came! You're a hero, too. This is turning out to be some reunion.”
Nicky smiled. “Yeah, welcome to the family, Dad.”
Grandma Tutti turned from her stove, wooden spoon in hand. “It's not like I imagined it—but it's good,” she announced. “My sons are together again, arguing like brothers. Little Nicky is here with his father. It's like the old days: me and all my boys, in my kitchen, around my table, in my house.”
“Ma! Stop crying!” Frankie said. “You're gonna wreck the marinara.”
“Finish your breakfast,” Grandma Tutti said. “And, Nicky, you should get cleaned up, in case Donna Carmenza comes over. Besides, I gotta start cooking lunch.”
Grandma Tutti's Tomato Sauce
(aka “Gravy,” or Sunday Sauce)
This is the basic recipe for the most basic sauce in Italian cooking. This is the marinara. This is the root. All other recipes grow out from this one. If you can do this, if you can do only this, you can qualify for goomba status in the kitchen. If you can't do this, you are not going to make it. Order out, or whatever.
This is the sauce that goes on all noodles—macaroni, spaghetti, linguine, whatever. You can call it pasta sauce if you want. But don't, if you want to be a goomba. No goomba calls it “pasta.” That's a word they use in Italy. In America, it's a yuppie thing. Not for serious people. You say “macaroni” or “spaghetti.” The end.
This is also the sauce that you use to build your lasagna, your manicotti, your sauce with meatballs, and a hundred other goomba meals. Get this right, and you got the whole thing.
For starters, just try making
the sauce and putting it over noodles. Nothing fancy. No osso buceo yet. No baked rigatoni. Just macaroni. It should taste pretty good, just like that, with a little hard-Crusted Italian bread, and a little Parmesan cheese grated over the top. If it doesn't, again, clear out. You got no business cooking this stuff—or even eating this stuff.
SERVES 4
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
1 28-ounce can tomatoes with their juices, diced
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil or ½ teaspoon dried
¼ teaspoon sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 pound spaghetti
Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a saucepan over medium heat until it becomes fragrant. Mix the garlic with one teaspoon of water and carefully add this to the warm oil. Sauté the garlic and cook without browning it. Add the tomatoes, bring to a boil, then reduce the heat. Simmer for 10 minutes. Add the basil, sugar and salt, and simmer 5 more minutes. Just before serving, blend in the last tablespoon of olive oil.
SPAGHETTI WITH SAUCE
Heat four quarts of water in a big pot. When it is boiling, add the spaghetti. Cook the noodles 11 to 13 minutes, depending on how al dente you want them to be. When they are right, drain the noodles in a colander. Drain them completely.
Serve the spaghetti in a big bowl, with the tomato sauce poured on top. Serve with bread and grated Italian Parmesan cheese. Salutel
STEVEN R. SCHIRRIPA is best known to television audiences as Bobby “Bacala” Baccalieri on the HBO hit series The Sopranos. He has also become a regular field correspondent for The Tonight Show with Jay Lena and appeared as host for Spike TV's Casino Cinema series. Steve is developing a half-hour situation comedy based on his bestselling book A Goomba's Guide to Life, coauthored, along with The Goomba's Book of Love and The Goomba Diet, with Charles Fleming. Steve lives with his wife and their two daughters in New York City and Las Vegas.
CHARLES FLEMING is the coauthor of the New York Times best-seller Three Weeks in October: The Manhunt for the Serial Sniper. He is the author of the Los Angeles Times bestseller High Concept: Don Simpson and the Hollywood Culture of Excess and the novels The Ivory Coast and After Havana. He is a veteran entertainment reporter and columnist for such publications as Newsweek, Variety, and Vanity Fair, and an adjunct professor of journalism at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication. He lives with his wife and their two daughters in Los Angeles.
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