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.

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.

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

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

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!)

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.

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.

……………………………………………………………………….
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.

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’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.

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.

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.

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.

Cambria

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 a hen whose name I know.Given all my foodie adventures, I decided this should change.

I visited my friend Gail, who raises chickens with her mother Sandy at their home in Killingworth, Connecticut.

Kokopelli and Gail, bundled up for winter

Gail and I went to elementary and high school together. We were in band together; she played the soprano saxophone and I played the tuba. More than twenty years later (thanks to Facebook…) I know her better than I did then. And I am very grateful for this.

Gail’s mother Sandy won her family’s first chickens thirty five years ago in a local Lions Club raffle: two roosters in a cardboard box, a “Chicken Dinner for Two.”  Needless to say, Sandy didn’t serve the roosters for dinner, and those roosters marked the beginning of a new era in their house. She and her daughter now raise a variety of mixed breed and heritage poultry.

Gail’s choices in the hens she buys are largely inspired by their colors.  She points to an older hen named Penguin and tells me  ”I love her.  She’s part Milli Fleur- but she came out a totally different color -black and white. Her relatives and ancestors are usually tan color.”  There is great affection in her voice. The array of colors in the coop reminds me of an artist’s palette. Gail shows me  her favorite breeds in a heritage poultry catalogue, noting their colors and personality idiosyncrasies- Australorp, Black Japanese, Brahma, Speckled Sussex, Welsummer, Lakenvelder, Blue Andalusian… I learn that different breeds produce different colored eggs. The eggs Gail gives me to take home are shades of pink, brown, blue, tan and white. She carefully labels each egg with a post-it so I know which hen laid each egg.While Sandy, Gail and I talk, Rosie Quartz (one of the “girls”) lays a small blush egg in the hay. Unlike commercial hens who lay every day, their twelve egg-laying hens are affected by the season and the weather. On a great day they can get eight eggs. On a cold winter day, maybe two.

Neither Gail nor Sandy has ever eaten an egg. They look horrified when I ask them why, telling me they hate everything about the thought of eating an egg-the texture, taste, smell… Sandy remembers with repulsion the coddled eggs on toast her mother served her as a child. She tells me “I wouldn’t eat an egg if you paid me.” Somehow, this makes sense.

Batik

Their hens and roosters are family. They knowingly refer to “The hatch of ’96″- and “The group of Ten.” Their chickens are named with care and cleverness, and catalogued in notebooks: Xena, Simile, Callum, Cambria, Batik Bubba, Elster (“Our best layer ever”), Suede, Comet, Calico and Kokopelli, named for a Southwest myth. Each generation has a few stars.

Iolaus

The oldest star in the family,  a rooster named Kazimir, lies cradled in blankets in a bed in Sandy and Gail’s house. Gail gently lifts his head from a pillow and pets his head with tenderness. Kazimir is in the final days of his life. He has lived well beyond the average age for a rooster. Well-cared for roosters can live up to ten years. Kazimir is almost fourteen years old. Gail and Sandy have at least six chickens over the age of ten.

Mank, Gail. "Tall Boys," pencil, c. 2012

Gail is a talented artist- she uses colored pencils to draw sweet, intimate- detailed portraits of her chickens.

Mank, Gail. "Chakotay as a Baby," pencil, c. 2000

Mank, Gail. "Chakotay as Rooster," pencil, c. 2000

She is also a writer, penning (and illustrating) children’s stories about her poultry. The titles alone are enchanting: “Without a Feather to Her Name: The Story of Panne,” “Peacock Blue; Peahen Green.” The former about a refined velvet vest Gail and Sandy made for their hen Panne when she was born without feathers, the latter about an unexpected visit from peacocks. Gail’s stories should be in bookstores.

Gail and her own handmade cloth chickens

Gail proudly shows me the lovely cloth chickens she makes. They are modeled after chickens in the coop, and are infused with personality.

I leave Gail and Sandy’s house with two dozen eggs. They are pristine, carefully cleaned and polished by Gail. They are a gift.

This morning I fried one of Rosie Quartz’s eggs over easy, and ate it with a little salt and pepper. And although I don’t know exactly why, I can tell you with certainty it was the best egg I ever ate.

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 cooked al dente. It is a rich feast.

If you are not Southern Italian, you may not be familiar with Crab Sauce. In my family, on Christmas Eve we eat in the style of the “Feast of the Seven Fishes.”  Dinner consists of a dizzying array of delicious seafood. Any variation including fried calamari, scungilli, shrimp and flounder, scungilli salad, shrimp cocktail, stuffed quahogs and, central to the meal, a classic staple in my family –  lobster or crab sauce over linguine.

My Aunt Phil was a generous and practical hostess.  She loved her crab sauce and wasn’t willing to have it only once a year. My mother would periodically get a call: “I’m making crab sauce- Come Over!” This was an event that took place during all seasons. You’d arrive at the big duplex on Alden Avenue in New Haven to a house filled with an assortment of friends and relatives- all welcome to the table- and all given heaping plates full of linguine and crab sauce. Phyllis embraced everyone with food, even when her means were not great.

During the winter months Phyllis would make her sauce with frozen crabs, and in the summer, my grandfather Lou would bring her fresh ones, which she would clean herself in the sink of her tiny kitchen.

As fancy as it may sound now, it was (and is) in fact a cheap and easy meal to make.  I bought my two bags of crabs for $10. Aunt Phil could feed a hungry house full of family and visitors for a few dollars.

When I make crab sauce I feel her next to me, swearing and laughing.

If you live on the CT Shoreline there is a little gem of a family-owned grocery store in East Haven called T & J Supermarket. It is an Italian American paradise, especially during the holidays when they celebrate their yearly “Seafood Truckload Sale.”

You will find everything you need to make a seafood feast: frozen lobster tails, calamari, scungilli, crab cakes, scallops, smelts, flounder.

But this week, I came for the frozen Chesapeake Bay Blue Crabs.

There are about ten in each package. Their color is beautiful and is an inviting indication of the flavor to come…

If you are staying home for New Year’s Eve tonight, this is the perfect meal to ring in the New Year. Of course, no special holiday is necessary to make Aunt Phil’s Crab Sauce. It makes any day a holiday.

AUNT PHIL’S CRAB SAUCE
INGREDIENTS
2 cups olive oil
6-8 cloves garlic (chopped or crushed)
Approx. 10 blue crabs (*Alternatively, use a 1 1/4 whole lobster,cut and cleaned, and eight 4oz lobster tails or 15 “slipper” tails)
5-6 cans Italian tomatoes (5 cans of 35 oz/6 cans of 28 oz) *Puree peeled tomatoes in your food processor until smooth
1 can tomato puree
Salt & pepper
Oregano

PREPARATION
Add olive oil to a large sauce pan.

Add blue crabs and cook over low-medium heat 20-30 minutes, until crab shells turn red. Less time if crabs are fresh.
Add garlic

Sauté on low for 10 minute, until the taste of the garlic infuses the olive oil and crabs
Add tomatos and tomato puree
Season with salt, pepper and oregano to taste

Simmer on low for 4-5 hours

Call your loved ones and tell them “I’m making crab sauce- Come Over!”

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 mother has an indispensable skill: she can coax any bartender into sharing even the most guarded cocktail recipe.

Her forays to new restaurants and vacations to locales across the globe are inevitably followed by fervent experimentation in her home kitchen as she tries to recreate the beverage that has inspired her.

I visited her recently just after her return from a trip to Florida. I discovered her in her kitchen feverishly slicing cucumbers, a long line of martini glasses lined up on her counter chilling with cold water and ice cubes. She was working hard to recreate a cucumber martini she had tasted on her trip, tasting and adding her own inspired creativity to the recipe. As always, I benefited greatly from her efforts.

As the unseasonably warm New England weather makes its final appearance, my mother’s Cucumber Martini is the perfect antidote to the inevitable New England frost. Let’s chill a glass and make a toast to the solstice. Only six more months to go…

THE CUCUMBER MARTINI

Ingredients
Vodka
1 lemon
1 cucumber
Simple Syrup (Sugar and Water)
Fresh dill

Preparation
Muddle 5 thin slices cucumber in a cocktail shaker
Add 3 shots chilled vodka
Add juice of 1/2 lemon
Add 1 shot simple syrup*
Add crushed ice
Shake vigorously
Poor into icy martini glasses
Garnish with thin slice cucumber and chopped dill

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 your teeth puncture their skins. Their tartness is balanced by sweet, simple pristine white sugar. Cascading flavors and consistencies:  soft supple raisins, crisp celery,  firm sweet macouns, crunchy walnuts. The persistent taste of orange, and a hint of ginger. The taste ameliorates as the hours pass and it cools. The beautiful colors fade and meld into each other as the red of the cranberry washes over the sauce. A beautifully flavorful and nuanced pleasure.

Growing up, I spent Thanksgiving, like all other holidays, at my Aunt Phil’s house.

Always present among the cast of characters was my Aunty Judy’s best friend Sue Kasserman. Sue was as subtle and laid back as my Aunt was dramatic and boisterous. She was a nurse, and also received her masters in divinity from Yale. With her slow Virginia drawl and understated humor, Sue was a balance to the loudness and chaos of our Italian cacophony.

Sue has been a part of my (now dwindling) family gatherings since I was a baby, and was witness to many events that have become part of our family lore –weddings, wakes, baptisms, and my cousin Anne Marie’s infamous fifth birthday party at which I – then three years old- stood up and sang “You are My Sunshine,” much to Anne Marie’s annoyance (she eventually forgave me). And even as an adult, Sue reminds me of how I regaled her with the Purina Puppy Chow theme song at the drop of a hat during my toddler years (as you may have guessed, I was a singing and dancing kind of kid.) Sue was – and is-  as much a part of our family as anyone related by blood.

Sue made two essential contributions to our Thanksgiving meal. The first, a simple and sincere grace before the meal that for me has never been matched. The second, her most perfect and flavorful cranberry chutney.

In order to have a true appreciation for Sue’s chutney, you must keep in mind that Thanksgiving at my Aunt Phil’s wasn’t terribly different from our other holidays: Antipasta, Italian Wedding soup, manicotti and meatballs, stuffed artichokes, stuffed mushrooms, and finally, when we could barely fit another forkful of food in our stomachs, the requisite turkey and side dishes (including sweet potatoes and apples with toasted marshmallows that Phyllis made just for me). Pies for dessert of course, as well as nuts and Italian cookies.

Amidst this Italian table, Sue’s chutney always stood out to me as being somewhat gourmet and glamorous. This was no gelatinous Ocean Spray brand cranberry sauce, with its telltale sound of releasing suction as the jelly slipps sloppily into the serving dish. Even as a teenager, I appreciated the marvelous texture, taste and appearance of this cranberry delicacy.

After college, my family celebrations shifted with divorces, deaths, and moves and I often found myself eating Thanksgiving dinner at tables other than my Aunt Phil’s. And in those cases, I always made Sue’s chutney.

I called Sue every November days before Thanksgiving to get the recipe- and we enjoyed an annual talk. We laughed about the same stories and shared the same memories. And me- being me- would each year jot the recipe down on the back of an envelope- or a scrap of paper or a post it note or brown grocery bag and promptly lose it once the chutney was made. This went on for many years until I was old and wise enough to write the recipe in the back of my Silver Palate Cookbook, which, of course, never leaves my side.

And now, at my own Thanksgiving table, I still make Sue’s chutney; I double or triple the recipe since I love eating it not only with my Thanksgiving turkey, but in the days that follow all by itself, or with yogurt or ice cream.  It remains to me wonderfully gourmet and glamorous. I savor it not only for its taste, but for Sue Kasserman’s grace.

Sue Kasserman’s Cranberry Chutney
(Adapted from Connecticut Cooks II: Favorite Recipes by David C. Cole)

Yield: 7 cups

Ingredients
4 cups cranberries
2 cups sugar
1 cup water
1 cup orange juice
1 cup raisins
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup diced celery
1 cup diced apple
1 tbs orange rind
1 tsp ground ginger

Preparation

• Combine cranberries, sugar and water in a saucepan and cook over medium heat 20-30 minutes
• Remove saucepan from heat and stir in remaining ingredients
• Let cool and refrigerate before serving

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 Carrano, photo courtesy of Janet Carrano

Carmel was a friend of the family. She and her husband Al were customers at my grandfather Lou’s appliance store in New Haven. She had a big personality and was loud just like my grandfather. Her house was modest and always impeccably clean; my mother tells me she could always see Carmel’s house from two blocks away because her windows glistened so brightly. This was a woman who washed her walls.

But Carmel’s real claim to fame was her baking.

After my grandmother died, Carmel would call my grandfather up on the phone: “C’mon over Lou. Have a cup of coffee.” Inevitably, she’d to complain about an appliance she had bought from him 10 years ago, or ask him to bring his tools so he could fix something for her- a stove, a door knob, a washing machine. He would say- in the affectionate vernacular of my family- “Oh that Carmel is a pain in the you-know-what but my God… those cream puffs.” They’d spend the afternoon drinking coffee and shouting, while eating some delicacy fresh from Carmel’s oven.

She taught my young mother how to make all the classic Italian Easter pies (rice, wheat, cream…). However, it was her Apple Cake that became legendary in our family. Moist, sweet and delicious, this cake bursts with the flavor of fresh apples. She shared her recipe with my mother, and taught her to make the cake.

Back then, when my parents were young and broke and my mother’s clothing consisted mainly of her nurse uniforms, one Christmas my father bought her a very swank outfit – which she promptly returned to buy her first KitchenAid Mixer, so she could bake like Carmel Carrano.

My mother has made this cake every autumn, for as long as I can remember. When I spent my junior year of college in Paris, she spent $50 to mail this cake to me. The postman tried to talk her out of it, reminding her that I was living in the pastry capital of the world,but she knew it was worth it.

This sublime cake is quick and easy to make. I can’t live without it. Thank you, Carmel Carrano.

CARMEL CARRANO’S APPLE CAKE
INGREDIENTS
2 sticks butter
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
Six cups coarsely chopped granny smith apples or any tart firm apple

PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and butter a bundt pan.
Melt butter and slowly cream with sugar.
Add eggs one at a time and continue to blend.
Slowly add flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and mix well.
Add coarsely chopped apples and mix with a wooden spoon.
Pour into bundt pan.
Cook on the middle rack of the oven for approximately 60 minutes.
Test cake by inserting a knife; if the cake is ready, the knife will come out clean.
Be careful not to overcook.

“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 rolling green hills of Belltown Hill Orchards in South Glastonbury. She learned to cook at her grandmother’ Windsor Lockes home, a cheerful social hub on a block filled with fresh gardens, bustling kitchens and big family meals. Traverso’s experiments with apple recipes have continued throughout her adult life.

Opening with an indispensable guide detailing the use, origin, season and taste of 59 (yes, 59!) varieties of apples, The Apple Lover’s Cookbook also contains a wealth of information, history and cooking methods related to the beloved fall staple.  I especially adore the detailed descriptions (texture, flavor and appearance )of the 59 varieties – - most of which were previously unknown to me. The highlight though, is almost one hundred mouth-watering apple recipes for every course and facet of the meal, including condiments and cocktails (many of which I have already tried with success). Accompanied by gorgeous photographs and entertaining anecdotes, The Apple Lover’s Cookbook is the ideal addition to a kitchen freshly stocked with apples from one of Connecticut’s many bountiful orchards.

Amy gave a delightful demonstration at RJ Julia Booksellers last week.  She discussed her favorite recipes, the intricate science of apple cultivation, and the histories of heirloom lines. She unwrapped some precious fruit from brown paper bags and passed around slices of three varieties for her audience to taste: Calville Blanc D’Hiver (orig. late 1600s, France), Roxbury Russet (orig. 1640, Boston) and Ashmead’s Kernel (orig. 1700, England). Saying the names alone was a pleasure, tasting was heaven.  She gave us sheets similiar to what you might get at a  wine tasting, encouraging us to explore our impressions.I loved these specific and provoking questions:

Flavor (What is the balance of sweetness to tartness? What other flavors do you taste? Lemon? Honey? Spice? Lemon? Honey? Spice? Wine? Berry? Green Pepper? Floral?)

Texture (Is it soft? Firm? Juicy? Dry? Crisp? Is the flesh fine or coarse)

We tasted and talked and shared our thoughts. My palate exploded with the tastes of these complex antique fruits.

Inspired and hungry for more, I set off last weekend in search of Heirloom apple varieties grown here in Connecticut. I headed toward the Northeast part of the state, to 18th Century Purity Farm At The Hall Homestead.  This beautiful antique orchard is owned and cultivated by Paul and JoAnn Desrochers.

Paul and JoAnn Desrochers,18th Century Purity Farm At The Hall Homestead

Hall Homestead has been in JoAnn’s family since 1830 when her great great great grandfather came to Connecticut from Rhode Island and planted the majority of the varieties that persist even today. Paul and JoAnn cultivate 88 varieties of apples at three different properties in the area- most of these varieties grow at Hall Homestead. There is a wild and timeless feeling to the fields and trees that spread across the hill beyond their farmhouse and barn.

These apple trees have flourished  in JoAnn’s family for generations, even surviving the devastating effects of the hurricane of 1938 in which dozens of trees were decimated. Her grandfather painstakingly reestablished the trees that still produce today.

JoAnn and Paul took took over the Hall Homestead in 2008; it had declined during the preceding years was completely abandoned when JoAnn’s mother died in 2007. They have nurtured the trees back to health over the past three years, working from dawn until dusk.
JoAnn grew up immersed in apples. She trained as a nutritionist, Paul as a soil scientist. These skills have been the perfect complement to their work with apples. They care deeply about the earth and the health of those who eat their fruits- therefore employing only organic methods in their fields; not a single herbicide is used.

The names of the heirloom varieties on their farm have a certain moxie and musicality: Irish Peach…Roxbury Russet…The names foreshadow  the tastes, which are unlike what you will encounter at your local supermarket.

Even the ever-present varieties like Macoun and Cortland taste different at Hall Homestead, they are ancient varieties of the familiar apples, and with that history comes sublime taste.

I brought home my bounty and stored in my refrigerator. Taking JoAnn’s advice, I removed about an hour before tasting to bring the fruit to room temperature.I lined up my apples and took in the differences in their appearances. In general, the apples had a rougher, earthier quality. Many were beautifully imperfect. I tasted using Amy Traverso’s tasting sheet as my guide. Their flavor s were more complex and nuanced than apples from a grocery store. I savored ate slowly. Some highlights:

The Winter Banana is beautiful and pristine in appearance- pale yellow and deep blush or rose.Very sweet. And yes I tasted and smelled banana immediately. Very unusual and memorable.

Stop. Look at this apple. The Hidden Rose is one of only a few varieties that have an exquisite pale pink flesh- at its center, a pale white color. Mine was very juicy, with a sweet flavor with a nice tart finish at the end.

One of JoAnn’s favorites is the Westfield Seek-No-Further, a perfectly crisp and flavorful fruit. Although there are several strains of Seek-no-further apples, the Westfield, Massachusetts version is, in her opinion, the best.  Amy Traverso describes its taste as consisting of “complex flavors of pear, lemon and vanilla.” Really, try it and you will taste it too.

The Esopus Spitzenburg is best known as Thomas Jefferson’s favorite apple, this sweet red fruit is extremely juicy and floral.

But the Calville Blanc D’Hiver may just be my favorite.  I love its elegant name, and the bumpy exterior. The pale yellow green skin dappled with hints of a pale red. Very lemon-y tart and juicy, with a hint of sweetness. I imagine myself picking my  Calville Blanc D’Hiver from a tree in France in the late 1500s. Parfait!

My refrigerator is stocked full of bags of these beautiful heirloom fruits, steeped in history and nurtured by  loving hands. With the Apple Lover’s Cookbook as my guide, I look forward to cooking and experimenting with them and the incomparable flavors they offer.

……..

Visit JoAnn and Paul at their 18th Century Purity Farm At The Hall Homestead

156 Plainfield Pine Road
Plainfield, CT 06354
860.564.8733

or at area farmers markets:
Wednesday – Ledyard Farmers Market 4 p.m.-7 p.m. st the Ledyard Fairgrounds, 740 /colonel Ledyard Highway
Saturday – Stonington Farmers Market 9 a.m. – noon at the Stonington Town Docks, High Street, Stonington Borough
Sunday – Coventry Regional Farmers Market 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. at the Nathan Hale Homestead, 2299 South Street, Coventry
Sunday – Denison Farmers Market Noon – 3 p.m. at the Denison Homestead, Mystic