Uncategorized

And it took me two years to find out.

And now for another installment of our continuing series.

This classic Nonnie recipe is for Fucazzo (pronounced, “foo-GOTS”)—an Italian onion and anchovy pie that, oddly enough, was one of my childhood favorites.

Nonnie made her Fucazzo in the form of a calzone—spreading the ingredients over a layer of pizza dough, covering it with a top layer of dough and brushing it with egg yolk before baking.

My riff on this dish treats it as a pizza; using the always-fabulous Boboli pizza crusts. I also modified Nonnie’s original by adding chile peppers, fresh herbs, goat cheese and a drizzle of extra-virgen olive oil.

However you choose to spin it, the soul of Fucazzo is the jiu-jitsu between the sweetness of onions and tomato sauce vs. the brininess of anchovies and oil-cured black olives.

Just don’t eat a slice before a first date.

I never made Paella during the eight years that I lived in Spain .

Why would I? For a mere 15-20 Euros, I could go to any one of a thousand nearby bars and restaurants and just buy one. For the same reason, I never learned to make deep dish pizza during the years I lived in Chicago or a pick-up truck back-window gun rack during the years I lived in Pennsylvania .

But when I left Spain to live in another country, I realized that this chink in my cooking armor needed to be patched. So I arrived early to a lunch being hosted by a Spanish friend and took careful notes.

PAELLA

– Stock (fish or chicken)
– Meats and/or fish (prawns/calamari, ribs, chicken, rabbit, pork chops, chorizo, etc.)
– Vegetables (onions, tomatoes, garlic, green beans, butterbeans, etc.)
– Saffron, garlic, salt
– Approx. 1 c. rice per person

Step 1: Saute ribs, chicken, rabbit, pork chops, chorizo, etc.

Step 2: Saute and salt onions, tomatoes, garlic, green beans, butterbeans, etc.

Step 3: Add water till it reaches half way up the meat. Turn flame to high and cook until water nearly disappears (approx. 30 minutes).

Step 4: Add rice and sauté.

Step 5: Add 2 c. stock per each 1 c. of rice. If using bomba rice, then 2.5 c. stock per each 1 c. of rice. Stock should cover the rice.

Step 6: Add saffron or tumeric (dissolved in glass of water or stock).

Step 7: Bring to boil, lower flame to medium and leave untouched until syrupy and dry-ish (approx. 25 minutes).

Step 8: Add prawns, clams/mussels and calamari during the last 10 minutes.

When I was a wee lad at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School in Utica, NY during the early 1970s, my classmates and I were fed a steady diet of Coronet films.

Coronet films were produced, more or less, around the time that Howard Taft was contemplating a run for the White House. And they taught me important life lessons like…always stick with dad when using power tools. Or, don´t drink too much soda pop before bed. Or, how Billy keeps his body clean.

They also taught me that Thomas Jefferson Elementary School must’ve had a really, really paltry budget.

For years I’ve been telling people about Coronet films, hoping that someone…anyone…might leap to his feet and shout, “Coronet! OMG…you grew up with those, too?!!!” Instead, they crinkle their brows and mutter something about a revenue recognition meeting that they´re late for.

I was even starting to doubt my own memory when it hit me. YouTube! There might–just might–be a Coronet or two lurking in the bowels of YouTube.

Was there ever! I present an especially kitsch-o-licious nugget above. And no…it’s not a parody. This is the stuff that made me what I am today.

Hat-making contest, anyone?

Thanks, but I think I’ll go find that girl who was bobbing for apples on a string.

My friend Jai asked me last Friday what I had planned for Memorial Day weekend.

“Agatha and I are driving to Wisconsin for International Smoke Day.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s the one day each year that all owners of Weber Smoky Mountain smokers are supposed to fire up the pits and surround the earth with a smoke ring. A guy that I kinda know is having a cookout for the occasion.”

“Have you met this guy?”

“Not really. I just sorta know him through the Internet.”

[Snorts] “You’ve never met him? What if he kills you and chops you into pieces.”

[Pondering for a moment] “Well… for sure he’d make me taste good.”

Quite honestly, I wasn’t worried. I have so far had proper, non-virtual, sight-unseen encounters Mr. and Mrs. The Big Finn, Ang, Nerd and Michael–and all have been most pleasant and cuddly.

So when Agatha and I met our host, The Headless Blogger, we were not surprised to find that he greeted us with a pair of bbq tongs–rather than a blood-encrusted chainsaw.

And he not only has a head, but also a name: “Boney Dog.”

Boney put on an unbelievable spread. A master class of Q. He had (I think) three WSM’s chugging away, plus three Weber Kettle grills.

In the dead flesh category, he served spare ribs, babyback ribs, brisket, burnt ends, chicken thighs, chicken breasts, a smoked turkey and Atomic Camel Turds (i.e., an almond stuffed into a date, stuffed into a jalapeño, wrapped with bacon and then smoked).

All world-class Q.

Boney Dog and Agatha–he, taking a break from smoking; she, taking a break from gorging.

This is a mere fraction of the side dishes that accompanied the Q. There was pasta salad with tomato and basil, black bean and corn salad, an outrageous macaroni and cheese (hey…it’s Wisconsin, yah hey der’!), baked beans, creamy cole slaw, an assortment of fresh fruits, a selection of Q sauces, and hey! What’s that thingee at the bottom right corner of the table.

Why, my god! It’s a durian! How in the name of G. Gordon Liddy did a durian appear on the fruit table?!!!
Boney Dog eats a durian, and wow! He likes it. Actually, probably a dozen of the guests tasted the durian, and most liked it.

To quote Boney’s brother, “That smelly stuff was pretty good.”

Slicing a perfectly smoked brisket.

Boney’s wife, Bobbi, is a way talented dessert cook. To spice things up, she prepared a wide assortment of Jello shots. Choices included mojoto, piña colada, tequila sunrise, root beer float, chai, pear, and…oh, I don’t know. About a thousand others.

For dessert, she offered a “Build your own Tart” bar that had everyone’s heads spinning. I dove into the rhubard mousse and didn’t come up till morning.

I beg to differ. White men can, indeed, smoke.

The day after, Agatha and I stopped at a few roadside joints to stock up on cheese (hey…it’s Wisconsin, yah hey der’!). I’ve never been able the resist the kitsch-o-liscious allure of roadside dives. Here we see Bobby Nelson’s. Alas, Bobby has left for that great wrestling ring in the sky, but the dive that bears his name still dishes the goods.

Well…Ok. Perhaps just a wee bit more cheese, please. It’s not for me. It’s for Venti.

***********

UPDATE:  To see Boney Dog’s report on the event (and more pix, including food porn), go HERE and HERE.

And now for another installment of our continuing series…

Here’s yet-another recipe from Nonnie that screams to be released into the public domain. This time it’s “Nonnie’s Mushroom Stew.”

You know, Nonnie has only one goal in life: That everyone can eat as well as Fat Sal, yet still fit into his ruffley, pea green High School prom tuxedo. We don’t guarantee the latter, but the former is a piece of cake.

By this point, you were probably wondering whether my velvet fingertips would ever again stroke the nape of this lonely blog’s neck. To be honest, I was wondering the same.

My life has experienced a tectonic shift over the past few months. In most ways, it’s better. In some ways, it’s worse. But that’s the way life is.

A byproduct of that shift has been a severe curtailing of my blogging time…and energy. Especially blogging energy. I am, quite simply, much busier now. And when a sliver free time presents itself at the end of each day, I don’t want to sit in front a computer and write blog posts. I want to sit in front of a TV and watch “Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares.”

Christ! What a friggin’ great show!!!

But today I am forcing myself to post. Why? Because I’ve achieved an important life’s goal, and the world needs to hear about it.

* * * * * *

I first learned of durian during an episode of “Michael Palin’s Full Circle ” that I watched in the mid-1990’s. I was intrigued by the prospect of this exotic Asian fruit. A fruit that looked like a rugby ball covered with spikes and is reportedly so stinky that it has been banned from buses and airlines in some countries.

Mr. Palin described durian as being like, “A very smelly custard…rather revolting, really.” But my friends ChiChi and Daffy in Singapore describe it as, “Heavenly.” All things being equal, I don’t take food advice from Brits—Mr. Ramsay notwithstanding, of course.

The durian challenge had therefore lodged itself firmly in my psyche, and I would not rest until I had—for better or for worse—tasted a smelly mouthful. So I embarked on a fervent search for durian in Spain.

Spain, of course, isn’t exactly a “strongly-flavored food-friendly” country. The Spanish seem to believe that strong foods—much like that other risky vice, ice water—causes sore throats, pneumonia and, when conditions are right, death by spontaneous combustion. So…I spent a fair amount of energy criss-crossing Spain trying various means of scoring a durian.

I begged the owners of Thai restaurants in Barcelona and Madrid. Deal or no deal? Hmphff…no deal.

I asked my boss at Acme Low Carb Tongue Depressors, Inc. if he would bring me some when he returned from a business trip to Singapore . He agreed! I was thrilled!!!

When he returned from the trip empty-handed, however, he explained. “I couldn’t bring it on the airplane. It smelled like shit.”

After several years of fruitless (literally and figuratively) efforts, I gave up. I resigned myself to the fact that my dying breath might be tainted with the perfume of absinthe—but certainly not with the funky stench of durian. I accepted fate. I was at peace.

Until.

My accordion-squeezing, babushka-wearing, Polka-dancing girlfriend Agatha and I were shopping at H-Mart—an Asian super, supermarket in the Chicago area. And RIGHT THERE—wedged between the fermented dung beetle sweetbreads and the yak’s dong carpaccio—was the King of the Fruits.

We scooped-up the booty, paid the cashier and rushed home.

I then sharpened an 8 inch chef’s knife, laid the durian on a cutting board, and…BONZAI!!! Split the elusive bastard in two before he could escape.

Gazing from afar, I was smitten by the pleasing aesthetics of its multi-chambered, creamy innards. And then—bending over and crinkling my nose—I took a good, long whiff.

I’ve read that durian smells like garbage. I’ve read that it smells like well-ripened gym socks. I’ve read that it smells like poo. But I disagree.

Durian smells like…rotting garlic. Yes, that’s exactly what it smells like. Rotting garlic.

But I wasn’t there to smell. I was there to taste. And once I became acclimated to the King’s formidable funk, I pulled-out a handful of its creamy flesh and took a bite.

I mean…would you really want to kiss someone with breath like rotting garlic?