Foodie Fatale

Connecticut Shoreline Favorite: Rhubarb Confections at 4 & 20 Blackbirds

by Foodie Fatale on May 9, 2012

My parents had a garden for about 5 years when I was little. When they decided they didn’t want the garden anymore, they tilled the soil to remove all of the fruits and vegetables. Despite their efforts, three small rhubard plants remained, mysteriously relocated to the middle of our back yard. Once spring arrived, rhubarb was a common treat in our house. My mother often used the vegetable (yes, it is considered a vegetable!) to make strawberry rhubarb pie with raisins- or a simple compote to put over vanilla ice cream. I still love its tart taste and hearty texture.

IMG 5978 300x225 Connecticut Shoreline Favorite: Rhubarb Confections at 4 & 20 Blackbirds

Rhubarb Crumb Tart

During the past few weeks, I’ve been quite taken with the rhubarb confections Nancy Ackerman serves at at 4 & 20 blackbirds in Guilford, CT. You should know that I consider Nancy to be something of a baker-artist. I visit her shop weekly and am continually delighted by the simple, inventive, delicious food she creates. She makes what inspires her. I love the feeling of anticipation as I cross her door- inhaling and trying to guess what she felt inspired to make that day. And lately, thankfully, it has involved rhubarb.

Rhubarb is a little early this spring. Nancy buys her at Bishop’s Orchards, and last week used a bundle from a regular customer’s garden.

I have never eaten a muffin at 4 & 20 I haven’t loved, and the Rhubarb Muffin is no exception (Connecticut Magazine gave it well-deserved praise in 2009). It is not too sweet and contains generous pieces of rhubarb throughout. Nancy brushes the top with butter, then coats it with a mixture of cinnamon and sugar, which bakes into a lovely thin crust. The interior has a wonderfully firm texture (this is not a muffin that will crumble and fall apart when you break it open).

Nancy’s Rhubarb Crumb Tart is perfect in every way. The perfectly cooked crust is flaky and buttery crust -crunchy yet delicate. Inside, the rhubarb is cooked into a smooth sauce-like consistency that resembles applesauce. And unlike other rhubarb pies and tarts I have encountered, it retains the wonderful tartness of the rhubarb, which is not diluted by the addition of too much sugar.

Whether it is her Rhubarb Muffin, Rhubarb Crumb Tart, Rhubarb Bread Pudding (she has a way with bread pudding!), or other inspirations, don’t miss the opportunity to taste Nancy Ackerman’s delicious rhubarb confections at 4 & 20 blackbirds.

IMG 5993 300x225 Connecticut Shoreline Favorite: Rhubarb Confections at 4 & 20 Blackbirds

Rhubarb Bread Pudding

4 & 20 Blackbirds
610 Village Walk, Guilford, CT 203.458.6900
http://420blackbirds.com/
Hours: Tues: 7:30am-4:00pm; Thurs: 7:30am-4:00pm; Fri: 7:30am-6:00pm; Sat: 7:30am-4:00pm

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Connecticut Shoreline Favorite: Foxglove & Madison Cheese

by Foodie Fatale on April 25, 2012

in Connecticut,My Family,Oh God, I love Dairy.,The Family Business,Women In Food

Before I left home for college, my mother solemnly gave me a piece of very sage advice:
“Jocelyn,” she said “never buy cheap parmesan.”

So even when I was scraping the bottom of my purse for subway fare in my early twenties, I remembered my mother’s words and always managed to have good cheese. Luckily, my first apartment in the New York City was across the street from Di Palo’s in Little Italy and I visited weekly. It is the standard to which I hold all cheese purveyors. The line at Di Palo’s was predictably long and slow, but I never minded. When it was your turn, it didn’t matter if you were spending $5 or $150, owner Louie gave you his undivided attention. And this is what made cheese shopping there so satisfying. It wasn’t the quality and selection of cheeses- although these were stellar. It was the unhurried way in which Louie guided you through each taste- describing the environmental conditions that created the cheese (“This cheese came from cows who grazed on fresh spring grass on a hillside in Tuscany…”). He encouraged you to savor the nuances and waited expectedly to see if you recognized what he described.

And still today, the service I receive when I shop for cheese is more important than the product selection. So when I stopped into Foxglove and Madison Cheese in Madison, CT recently, I was delighted by my experience with owner Fawn Nebinger.

Fawn is an artist; her work hangs on the walls of the shop, which also carries a wide array of specialty foods and custom gift baskets. She fell in love with cheese several years ago on a warm August day at her father’s lakeside Connecticut house. Her sister worked at a cheese store and brought a feast of cheeses for the family to try. Fawn described to me the coup de foudre she experienced as she tasted the perfectly soft and enticing Humbolt Fog. Fawn devoured the cheese and when it was done sat contemplating the plate, wondering if her family would notice if she used her finger to gather the remaining morsels. It was at that moment that she decided to open her own cheese shop. A woman after my own heart.

Foxglove and Madison Cheese carries a selection of cheeses, which are divided into clear categories on a large black chalkboard: “Bloomy Rind,” “Pungent and Stinky,” “Sheep Cheeses,”etc. Fawn was happy not only to give samples of cheeses I asked to try- but also suggested new cheeses, encouraging me to expand my palate. No rush, and no disappointment when I didn’t like something.

She proudly described Foxglove’s signature gourmet grilled cheeses. Let me first say I love the recklessness of a grilled cheese made with really good cheese. It is akin to Julia Child’s well known declaration that you should ”Only cook with wine you’d drink.”

Fawn offers many different sandwiches; I tried a sandwich made with fresh whole grain bread from Judie’s European Bakery and Cafe and a French Raclette. The texture of the Judie’s bread perfectly balanced the sweet melted raclette. Fawn used plenty of butter and a sandwich press to create this simple but gourmet lunch. It was filling and deliciously satisfying. I’ll never go back to Land-o-lakes again.

Make a point to visit Fawn Nebinger and her son Ian Hagerty – take your time, enjoy both the excellent cheese and service. You won’t be disappointed.

Foxglove and Madison Cheese
119 Samson Rock Drive, Madison, CT 203.245.5168
http://www.foxgloveandmadisoncheese.com
Hours: Tues.- Sat., 10am-6pm; Closed Sun. & Mon. (Call ahead if you might arrive after 6pm- Fawn often happy to wait!)

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In the kitchen at Easter:Theresa Argento shares a delicious slice of her Italian culture (Revisited)

by Foodie Fatale on April 2, 2012

in Connecticut,Lessons,Recipes,Women In Food

Whether or not you celebrate Easter, it’s the perfect time to make Theresa Argento’s Italian ham pie….
(Originally published in the New Haven Register April 19, 2011. All photos by Charlene Ribera Photography.

In the kitchen at Easter – Theresa Argento shares a delicious slice of her Italian culture
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
By Jocelyn Ruggiero

For me, holidays are defined by the foods I eat. In my Italian-American family, there are foods sacred to particular days.

No matter how much we might yearn for these foods throughout the year, we wait until the appointed day to indulge.

I am convinced that the waiting makes these foods taste even better. Which is why we wait. Nothing defines Easter for me more than “pizza piena,” or, as we say in my family, “pizzagaina.” When I recall with longing the Easter dinners I spent as a child around my Aunt Phil’s dining room table, it is pizzagaina that I taste.

The basic pie is a savory delight: fluffy egg and cheese, generously filled with salty ham and peppered ham. Every family uses a variation of these ingredients. I remember the March morning many years ago in my great Aunt Phil’s kitchen when she and my Grandfather Lou gave me a lesson in making pizzagaina. They had a longstanding debate about which of them made it better. And so that morning of my lesson there was some friendly Italian-style talk-shouting.

My grandfather put his hands together as if in prayer, shaking them downward slowly to emphasize his instructions (“Now, Phil, you gotta CUT the ham in small pieces … ”). My aunt added extra salt when my grandfather wasn’t looking, and swore because her oven wasn’t working right (it never was).

In the end, they sat at the kitchen table with a fresh pot of coffee, laughed and told stories as we ate the fruit of their combined labor. It was delicious.

I haven’t made pizzagaina on my own since that morning. But I decided this year that it was time for me to try again, especially since my own 3-year-old twins are eager to “cook like mama.”

A refresher lesson was in order. My grandfather and great aunt have long since passed away, and so I went to the most venerated local expert on Italian-American culture and cooking that I could find — Theresa Argento.

Eighty-eight-year-old Theresa is a force of nature. She has since 1978 been the co-chairperson of the yearly St. Andrew Festival in Wooster Square. She leads countless volunteer activities at St. Michael’s Church, including a sixth edition community cookbook. Her work as president of the St. Andrew’s Ladies Society provides scholarship money for young people. She is also chairwoman of the Amalfi Sister Cities program. If you attended the Cherry Blossom Festival in Wooster Square recently, you would have seen her booth displaying the photos she has collected, documenting the history of the historic area. She has worked her whole life to preserve the culture and heritage of the community into which she was born.

We have a mutual friend, but had never met before. Theresa opened the door of her New Haven home and greeted me with a hug and kiss. She led me through her immaculate house, proudly showing me the photos of her parents, her two daughters, four grandchildren and extended family that line the abode.

Her living room was neatly organized with rows of chocolates and goodies for the Easter egg hunt she will conduct on Holy Saturday for the little ones in her family. Everything will be labeled so that each child gets the same amount of candy. She gathered two chocolate bars and placed them firmly in my hands — “a little something for your children.” Her husband, Pat, used to joke that she was so generous she just might give him away some day. She never did of course, and they were married happily for 56 years until he died in 2003.

We sat down at her kitchen table, which was covered in a spotless cloth woven with sparkling silver threads. Each evening, Theresa cooks a full meal and sits here to eat with her daughter Nettie, who teases that she wouldn’t eat if it weren’t for her mother’s cooking. She served espresso as we talked, periodically laughing and telling me, “I’m a crazy lady!!”

Theresa texts her grandchildren and drives herself to her various committees and appointments, reserving Fridays to visit family graves, including that of her late daughter Frances. She keeps a bottle of Limoncello from Amalfi in her freezer, and a date book stuffed with her many appointments and contacts.

Her parents, Matteo and Antonetta Carrano, were Italian immigrants from Amalfi. They owned Carrano’s Fruit Market in Wooster Square. Theresa attended Commercial High School, and there learned her trade as an accountant and auditor, skills that still serve her in her volunteer work. As a young woman, she kept busy “gallivanting from one meeting to another”; it was not until she was married that she learned to cook. I can testify to the fact that her mother taught her well.

Like me, Theresa enjoys Easter even more than Christmas, because, as she says, it is a “food holiday.”

The dishes she and her family eat this season are familiar to me — variations on the meals my parents and grandparents grew up eating during the Easter season: fried asparagus, eggplant and fish and anginette cookies on Palm Sunday. Pizzagaina, spaghetti pie and Easter bread on Holy Saturday. On Easter, antipasta, dandelion soup, macaroni, artichokes, asparagus, ham and the sweet pies: wheat, rice, ricotta and cream.

Pizzagaina is eaten throughout the week, as long as it lasts … . It is so delectable that it can be eaten at any meal.

My Aunt Phil and grandfather made their pizzagaina with a crust, but Theresa likes to make a crustless version, and this is what she wanted me to share with you.

She feels it is a simpler way to make the pizzagaina, and she wants more than anything for the younger generation to learn to make traditional Italian foods, so that a small, but meaningful piece of heritage can be passed on and shared at your table like it is at hers.

Whether your family comes from Italy or Africa or Mexico or Ireland, and whether or not you celebrate Easter, I invite you to share in Theresa’s heritage and mine by making pizzagaina for your family this week. And remember, if you want it to taste even better, you must not make it again until next April. That is the tradition.

We invite you to comment at nhregister.com/life. Let us know how you liked the pizzagaina, and share your family’s spring food traditions.

THERESA ARGENTO’S CRUSTLESS HAM PIE, A.K.A. PIZZAGAINA
-12 eggs
-1 pound ricotta
-¾ cup milk
-1½ cup flour
-2½ tablespoons baking powder
-Grated Romano cheese
-1½ pound diced farmer cheese; a local option would be Liuzzi’s basket cheese
-1 pound diced ham
-1 pound diced prosciutto, see note

Using a mixer, blend eggs, ricotta, milk, flour and baking powder. Add remaining ingredients.
Pour into greased and floured 10- by 14-inch baking dish. (Theresa uses lard).
Bake in a preheated 350-degree oven for 1 hour, or until center of the pie is cooked.

Note: Theresa replaces the prosciutto with peppered ham. She asks her butcher to cut it and the regular ham one-quarter inch thick.

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Zeppole at Petonito’s Pastry Shop: A Taste of History

by Foodie Fatale on March 6, 2012

in Connecticut,Oh God, I love Dairy.,The Family Business

It’s the time of year for my favorite Italian pastry- St. Joseph’s Day Zeppole from Petonito’s Pastry Shop in East Haven.Please enjoy this story, originally published in the New Haven Advocate in March 2011.
………….
Lately, I have noted with growing appreciation and sadness the family businesses that grace the CT Shoreline. As I have patronized these businesses, I have wondered: how will they survive when the older generations pass? And what will happen to all of the memories and knowledge that are part of their history? Just like with my own family, I don’t want these things to be lost.

Please enjoy my article about one such business- Petonito’s Pastry Shop in East Haven, as it appears in this week’s New Haven Advocate.

All photos of my visit to Petonito’s (and delightful pastry lesson!) were taken by Fran McMullen Photography.

: Fran McMullen Photography

……………………………………………………………………….
NEW HAVEN ADVOCATE
DINING OUT: Review Of Petonito’s Pastry Shop In East Haven
by Jocelyn Ruggiero
Wednesday, March 16, 2011 11:22am
Italian zeppole pastry are a springtime classic

Depending on your penchant, you can have them three different ways.

I have a proclivity for the cannoli cream-filled, but then again, I cannot live without the vanilla or chocolate Italian cream-filled. I need them all.

The uninitiated might mistake them for cream puffs or doughnuts. But Neapolitans know better. These are the pastry known as zeppole — made in celebration of the March 19 feast of San Giuseppe (St. Joseph).

St. Joseph is the patron saint of pastry chefs, and in Southern Italy, his day is feted with these sweet and flavorful pastries. This tradition lives on in Italian-American communities, including our own in greater New Haven.

Biting into a zeppole is immensely satisfying. Once your teeth have pierced the crust of the sweet, spongy dough, they sink luxuriously into the filling. The cannoli cream variety are filled with a dense, sweet, ricotta-based cream that’s not overwhelmingly sweet. Tiny flecks of chocolate add flavor and give it a complex, full-bodied consistency. Alternatively, the velvety Italian cream-filled (chocolate or vanilla) are sweeter and smoother, with a custard consistency.

My favorite zeppole are made daily at Petonito’s Pastry Shop in East Haven from early February through Easter (which falls on April 24 this year). During those months, Petonito’s makes more than 5,000 zeppole ($2.75 each). Owner Mark Petonito and baker Mark Severino use the exact same recipe as Mark’s father, Salvatore “Sal” Petonito (who, sadly, passed away March 1), when he founded the bakery almost 60 years ago. A torn, flour-encrusted index card reveals the senior Petonito’s handwritten zeppole recipe, casually stored with other cards in a plastic box on a corner shelf.

“My father’s always done it this way,” Mark Petonito says. “I’ve always done it this way, and as long as I’m here it’s only going to be done one way. I’ll never change.”

The creation of zeppole is a lengthy process lasting more than four hours at Petonito’s. The ingredients are mainly sourced locally: ricotta from North Haven’s Liuzzi Cheese and East Haven’s Calabro Cheese; eggs from Soffer Egg Farm in Branford. Everything is carefully measured using weighted scales dating from the beginning of the last century.

The soft, silky dough is squeezed through a pastry bag into 4-inch circles with a hole in the center, then deep-fried in vegetable oil until a firm, golden cake-y crust is formed.

: Mark Severino and Foodie Fatale

Once cooled, the round pastry is cut in half horizontally and filled, then sprinkled with powdered sugar and garnished with a maraschino cherry.

Petonito’s Pastry Shop is tucked away in a commercial complex in East Haven. Smiling pictures of family and customers are taped to the walls. As you stand at the glass counter to place your order, you are tempted by a vast assortment of traditional Italian pastries baked here daily: cannoli, sfogliatelle, boconnotto, pasticiotto, etc., not to mention a wide array of cookies. If you are lucky, Mary Torre will be working at the counter. She has served pastry for more than 70 years and is a spirited Italian woman who might give your cheek a squeeze after she wraps your cardboard pastry box in red and white string.

Peeking beyond the counter you will see the ovens, flour-covered work tables and baking equipment where pastries, cookies and wedding cakes are created. Some of the machines are 100-year-old “functional antiques” maintained in the garage of Petonito’s cousin who is a machinist. No one manufactures replacement parts for this equipment. Without the cousin, they could not be used.

Before he started the bakery, the late Salvatore Petonito, born in 1922 to immigrants, grew up during the Depression in Wooster Square, the epicenter of Italian culture in New Haven.

: Sal Petonito and classmates, Wooster Square

Sal’s father John delivered coal to local businesses until he was hit by a car, injuring his leg. With John unable to work, Sal and his brothers took jobs to support the family. In 1933, 11-year-old Sal found a home at Lucibello’s Italian Pastry Shop in Fair Haven. That first Christmas season he worked day and night, and when the work was finished, Mr. Lucibello sent Sal home with a five-dollar bill. The young boy proudly brought the money to his father, who, shocked by the large sum, marched his son back to return the money, convinced Mr. Lucibello had made a mistake. But Mr. Lucibello put the bill back in the boy’s hand, telling him, “No mistake, Sal, you earned that money.” It is a story that Mark Petonito recalls with pride and love.

The Italian community around Wooster Square was a close-knit group. After Sal’s father John could no longer work, a friend named “Foot” collected broken pieces of macaroni from the bakery where he worked and gave them to young Sal once a week. Sal’s mother used them to make a pot of pasta fagioli that would feed the family of eight. (Fifty years later, whenever Foot visited Sal’s bakery, he left with the gift of dozens of sfogliatelle.)

Sal continued to work at Lucibello’s until he joined the Navy as a baker during World War II. On June 8, 1944, as the Susan B. Anthony delivered 2,000 American troops to the Normandy coast, young Sal placed his coconut cakes into the ship’s vast oven. Minutes later, the vessel hit two mines. It lost power and sank within hours, taking the coconut cakes with it. Sal and the crew evacuated safely.

: Sal Petonito at Lucibello’s Bakery (2nd from right)

After the war, he returned to Lucibello’s, and in 1954 opened Petonito’s Pastry Shop on Grand Avenue. There were two other locations (a second on Grand Avenue and another in East Haven) before Petonito’s settled into its current address in 1973. Like Sal, Mark learned to bake from an early age, working alongside his father. His family’s pastry business is the only one he has ever known.

: Mark Petonito and Foodie Fatale

For the past six years another Mark — baker Mark Severino — has been making pastries and custom wedding cakes along with Mark Petonito. Severino started worked at Petonito’s in 1973, when he was in high school, and is one of only a handful of people trained by Sal. “You could have come in here in 1962 — you come back in 2011 and have the same thing,” says Mark Petonito.

: Mark Petonito, Sal Petonito, Mark Severino

And that is what I find is so thrilling about Petonito’s: the same food, the same taste, generation after generation. My own great-grandfather Giuseppe and my Uncle Joey celebrated the feast of their namesake in New Haven eating zeppole exactly like the ones I find at Petonito’s today.

As long as Petonito’s exists in that tiny East Haven plaza, steeped in tradition, I will be a customer. Every spring I will buy zeppole, share them with my kids, and relish the same pastry that my great-grandparents tasted when they first immigrated to New Haven 100 years ago. Food connects us to our past and binds us to our community and I don’t want to live without that connection.

Petonito’s Pastry Shop
190 Main St., East Haven, 203-469-1817
petonitospastryshop.com
Hours: Tue.-Sat., 8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m.; Sun., 8:30 a.m.-1p.m. Closed Mon.

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Chickens, Eggs, Heritage.

February 13, 2012

Jocelyn: She’s so beautiful! Gail: That’s a rooster. Jocelyn: Oh. He’s so beautiful. (embarrassed laughter) …………………….. Although I love eggs, I am not exactly a farm girl and know nothing about hens. I buy my eggs local and organic, usually at the grocery store- in the summer from a local farmer’s market. But never from [...]

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Aunt Phil’s Italian Crab Sauce: A Rich Family Feast

December 21, 2011

It’s not too late to plan an Italian Christmas Eve with red crab sauce! Enjoy this post about my Aunt Phil, originally posted December, 2010…. Buon Appetito! …….. Rich red sauce, made from San Marzano tomatoes, infused with the sweet taste of Maryland blue crabs, olive oil and fresh garlic. Generously dripped over semolina linguine [...]

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Memories of Summer: My Mother’s Cucumber Martini

December 9, 2011

Inhale deeply. A clean, crisp and unmistakably Green bouquet…. The liquid appears frosty cold despite its summer smell. Shreds of muddled cucumber are suspended in opalescent liquid. An arched slice cucumber balances on the side of the glass, while scattered dark green dill floats on the surface. The taste mirrors the scent… refreshing ..bright…and Green….. My [...]

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Thanksgiving and Sue Kasserman’s Cranberry Chutney

November 23, 2011

When it is first mixed together, the contrast of the vivid ingredient colors is shockingly beautiful. Their dissonant textures are a symphony for the eyes. Its consumption is gratifying as much for its taste as these textures. The tartness of the plump cranberries dominates. If you have cooked them just right, they will burst slightly as [...]

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I Can’t Live without Carmel Carrano’s Apple Cake (Revisited)

November 7, 2011

The perfect accompaniment to crisp fall weather and fresh apples? Carmel Carrano’s Apple Cake. Enjoy once more. (Original posting December 2, 2010) ……………….. Before there was Marie Hélène Brunet-Lhoste, there was Carmel Carrano. Carmel was a friend of the family. She and her husband Al were customers at my grandfather Lou’s appliance store in New [...]

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The Apple Lover’s Cookbook (Loving Heirloom Apples in Connecticut)

October 20, 2011

“When I’m in an orchard I feel like I’m in heaven…” –Amy Traverso Yankee Magazine Food and Home Editor Amy Traverso has a passion for apples. The Apple Lover’s Cookbook is the Windsor native’s newly published love letter to the ubiquitous fruit. Her enthusiasm began as a child, as she spent fall afternoons amidst the [...]

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← Previous Entries

Connecticut Shoreline Favorite: Rhubarb Confections at 4 & 20 Blackbirds

Connecticut Shoreline Favorite: Foxglove & Madison Cheese

In the kitchen at Easter:Theresa Argento shares a delicious slice of her Italian culture (Revisited)

In the kitchen at Easter – Theresa Argento shares a delicious slice of her Italian culture
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
By Jocelyn Ruggiero

Zeppole at Petonito’s Pastry Shop: A Taste of History

Chickens, Eggs, Heritage.

Aunt Phil’s Italian Crab Sauce: A Rich Family Feast

Memories of Summer: My Mother’s Cucumber Martini

Thanksgiving and Sue Kasserman’s Cranberry Chutney

I Can’t Live without Carmel Carrano’s Apple Cake (Revisited)

The Apple Lover’s Cookbook (Loving Heirloom Apples in Connecticut)

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In the kitchen at Easter​ – Theresa Argento shares a delicious slice of her Italian culture Tuesday, April 19, 2011 By Jocelyn Ruggiero

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In the kitchen at Easter – Theresa Argento shares a delicious slice of her Italian culture
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
By Jocelyn Ruggiero