Review: The Open Kitchen, Charlotte, North Carolina

A Great Old-School Italian-American Place

I was in Charlotte, North Carolina recently to attend a show at the Belk Theater at Blumenthal Performing Arts Center (a fabulous venue, by the way) and was hunting for an Italian eatery for our theater party of four.

Many years ago, my default Italian place in Charlotte was a lovely spot called Zarrelli's, run by a charming Neapolitan immigrant named Aniello “Neal” Zarrelli. Sadly, Neal died in 2017 at the age of 87 and his wonderfully warm and welcoming restaurant passed into the Queen City's culinary history.

Charlotte is an up-and-coming food city and there is no shortage of modern, upscale Italian restaurants in the metropolitan area. But I do so miss Zarrelli's and it's traditional menu and atmosphere. So when my online search led me to a story about the city's first pizza restaurant, I was intrigued.

Located on West Morehead Street between Freedom Drive and I-77, The Open Kitchen was founded by brothers Speros and Steve Kokenes back in 1952 to serve the factory workers in what was then a heavily industrial neighborhood. And if the surname “Kokenes” doesn't sound particularly Italian to you, that's because it's not: the brothers were of Greek heritage. Steve was born in Washington, DC and that's where he first encountered a relatively new dish called “pizza” or "pizza pie" as it was often dubbed in those days.

It's hard to imagine today, as pizza has become so ubiquitous and embedded in American culture, but back then pizza was an exotic dish found only in Italian enclaves in big cities. Gennaro Lombardi, an immigrant from Naples, is generally credited with opening America's first pizzeria in Manhattan's Little Italy back in 1905. American servicemen in WWII developed a taste for the tasty comestible when they encountered it in local places in Italy and they brought that taste back home with them. Soon pizza was moving out of the “in” spots in places like New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia and was spreading across the culinary landscape like wildfire. That fire was fed by entrepreneurs like Dan and Frank Carney, who founded Pizza Hut in Wichita, Kansas in 1958 and by local Italian immigrants like the two that opened the first pizzerias in my small Midwestern home town; Marino's, in 1955 and Luigi's in 1957. Both places were huge hits with area teenagers who were among those that helped pizza take over the American food scene in the next decade.

Anyway, the Kokenes brothers brought the new-fangled dish to this Southern bastion of grits and gravy nearly seventy years ago and it's still going strong in its original, definitely retro location. The neighborhood has changed and is now “trendy,” but the venerable eatery still reflects the Greek and Italian traditions of the family that opened it, and pizza is still at the center of the menu.

I fell in love with the exterior at first sight. Thanks to renovations and expansions in the '60s and '70s, the place doesn't look exactly like it did back in 1952, but it's darn close. Then I stepped through the front door and was immediately transported back in time.

The comforting aroma of Italian food caresses your olfactory sense as soon as you enter. You are seated at a sturdy table covered by a red-checkered cloth and you are presented with menus. You can barely read them, of course, because the place is very dimly lit, just as a traditional red sauce joint should be. The friendly and accommodating server takes your drink order and returns fairly promptly with your beverages and with a basket overflowing with an assortment of fresh bread, little tubs of butter, crackers, and some very slightly stale individually wrapped breadsticks. Remember those? I do. They were the highlight of my meal when I was about ten years old.

Now it's time to order.

As I said, there are a lot of Greek touches to the menu including Chicken Livers Greque, Pizza ala Greque, and a Greek Salad, but the focus is on Italian-American dishes like Baked Ziti and Chicken Parmigiana, along with various other chicken, veal, and seafood offerings. And, of course, lots of pasta. There are a variety of soups, salads, and appetizers from which to choose and several Italian-ish sandwiches, if that's your thing. And, lest we forget the star of the show, there's pizza.

My dining companions all went in different directions. One ordered Lasagna Di Stefano – a blend of pasta, ricotta and provolone cheeses “oozing with our tempting meat sauce.” Another chose the Chicken Parmigiana – “tender chicken, sautéed in a tomato, mushroom, and wine sauce, then covered with mozzarella cheese and baked to perfection. Served with spaghetti ala marinara.” My wife opted for meat ravioli in an “oh-my-god” meat sauce. As for me, hey! Sul serio? Why would I go to Charlotte's first pizza place and not order pizza?

Six 'o clock on a Saturday evening and the place was quite busy, but our food was delivered surprisingly quickly. And it was out-of-this-world good. We all ate until eravamo pieni – ma non troppo pieno per dolce. For you non-paesani, that sort of means we were stuffed but we saved room for dessert. Two chocolate mousse split among the four of us. Decadente e divino! The Open Kitchen features a nice selection of wine and beer and our choices perfectly complimented our wonderful meal.

Nothing we ate broke the bank: my simple cheese pizza was eight bucks, the lasagna was $10.75, the chicken parm was $15.75 and my wife's ravioli was $13.50. I have been to places where one entrée would have cost as much as our entire meal combined and would not necessarily have been anywhere near as good.

You'll find The Open Kitchen at 1318 West Morehead Street. They offer dine-in, curbside, and delivery. Open 11 am to 9 pm Monday through Thursday, from 11 am to 10 pm on Friday, and from 4 to 10 pm on Saturday and Sunday. Reservations are not required and large groups can be accommodated with sufficient prior notice. Dress is casual and parking is onsite, but it's not a very big lot. You can call them at (704) 375-7449 or find them on the Web at www.worldfamousopenkitchen.com.

May the late Neal Zarrelli rest in peace knowing that there is still a great old-school Italian-American place thriving in his city. And The Open Kitchen has definitely made the list as my new “go to” eatery there. Now, if only they had somebody strolling through the dining room singing opera like Neal used to. Beh, non puoi avere tutto. (You can't have everything.)

Time To Stop Wasting Sliced Deli Meat

Keep Your Lunch Meat Out Of The Landfill

Some time ago I wrote about a pretty slick trick for saving bacon. (Bacon Is A Terrible Thing To Waste, April 12, 2017) When there's just one or two of you a pound of bacon can spoil before you eat it all, so I suggested freezing it as a means of preserving it. Not too revolutionary a concept, right? But it was the way in which I froze it that was rather unique. Instead of throwing the whole shingled package into the freezer and then having to deal with trying to separate the slices as you need them, I rolled up each individual slice and froze them that way. Using that trick, you can get an entire pound of bacon into a quart freezer bag and you can take out a single slice or ten of them, depending on your needs, with no fuss or effort. Thaw them in the microwave for thirty seconds or so and you're ready to go.

Well, I found I was having the same issue with packaged deli meats. Deli meats go bad quickly once the packages are opened. You've only got a three to five-day window to use it up and as much as I like ham and cheese sandwiches, I really don't want to have one every day for a week. So once again, the freezer is the answer.

Most deli meats are sliced very thin. I knew throwing the whole package in the freezer was going to be as much of a pain as doing the same thing with bacon. So I tried separating the slices into portions. For example, I usually put four slices of ham on a ham and cheese, so I divided the package into four-slice portions, separated by deli paper, and froze them. It worked okay, but unless they were completely thawed, the thin slices tore as I tried to separate them. And since most packaged deli meats are “water added,” they get wet and messy when you thaw them. Okay. Back to the drawing board. I used the deli paper to separate the individual slices. Eh. All that got me was wet slices wrapped in wet deli paper when the meat was thawed.

And then the little light bulb came on: why not freeze the deli meat slices the same way as I froze the bacon strips?

I picked up an eight-ounce package of Hormel Natural Choice Sliced Smoked Deli Ham. I opened the pack and started to work, taking each slice and rolling it into a neat cylinder. The rolled cylinders went seam side down onto a sheet tray and then into the freezer. After about an hour they were set enough that they wouldn't unroll and they wouldn't stick together, so I removed them from the sheet tray and popped them into a freezer bag. I labeled the bag with the contents and the date, and it went back in the freezer. Now I had a nice little bag of frozen ham rolls. Next time I wanted a sandwich, I got the bag out of the freezer, selected four rolls, put them on a paper towel in the microwave for thirty seconds, and just like that, I had the makings for a nice lunch.

According to the USDA, “Lunch meat is safe indefinitely if kept frozen. Use it within one to two months for best quality.” I've never had a package of ham last me more than two months, so I can't testify to the verity of that statement, but it is certainly a better alternative than letting it go bad in the refrigerator after just a few days.

The same method works for chicken, turkey, roast beef and whatever else you get from your deli or packaged meat aisle. I will say this: it works a lot better with prepackaged meat like the aforementioned Hormel product. Or whatever your brand preference might be. Freshly sliced meat from your store's deli is a little more finicky. Especially poultry. Not a lot of water and not a lot of fat. My wife is a big fan of Boar's Head Ovengold Turkey. Let me tell you, that stuff shreds like a mad thing when it's sliced super thin, which is the way she likes it. Can you say “pulled turkey sandwich?” And freezing it the common way only exacerbates the problem. But it rolls up pretty well if you ask your deli person to separate it as it's being sliced and then process it as soon as you get it home before it has a chance to sit in the meat drawer of your refrigerator.

Hey, there's a lot of talk these days about food waste, so why not try a simple method to help keep your lunch meat out of the landfill? I know it takes a few minutes of tedious effort to roll up slices of ham or roast beef or whatever. (Rolling up bacon is extra fun because it's nice and greasy.) But the payoff is well worth the pain when you can just go to the freezer, unzip your Zip-Loc, and have nice, neat, perfectly portioned, mess-free little meat roll-ups right at hand for whatever your needs might be. It's an especially good idea if you want to save a few bucks by buying in larger quantities than you otherwise would. Think Sam's, Costco, or your local restaurant supply store. Instead of shelling out supermarket prices for little half-pound packages, buy two or three pounds, roll it up and freeze it. And you'll have quick and easy sandwiches for a couple of months.

As I wrote before, a great way to (literally) save your bacon can also work for your ham, roast beef, chicken or whatever you want to serve your family rather than your dog or your trash can. Saves food, saves money. Win-win situation. Try it today.

Want Quick, Easy Bacon? Let George (Foreman) Do It!

I Don't Know Why I Didn't Think Of This Before

I have written quite a lot about bacon over the years. It's one of my favorite topics, to say nothing of its being one of my favorite foods. I've written about bacon in general and I've written about specific bacons. I've written about how to buy bacon, how to store bacon, and how to cook bacon. And it's that last topic that I want to address here.

I have previously noted that my favorite way to prepare the porcine ambrosia that is bacon is the simple, old-fashioned way: fry it up in a pan or on a flattop griddle. And for the most part, that remains true. That's the way my mama taught me almost sixty years ago, and it's still the best of the traditional methods. But what about some of the less traditional methods, hmmm?

Microwave ovens and their attendant gadgetry did not exist back when I first slapped a slice of bacon on a slab of steel. Do I have a microwave now? Yes. Do I have a microwave bacon cooker? Yes. Do I insert the latter into the former on a regular basis? No way. The only time I microwave bacon is if I'm in a desperate hurry or if I don't really care that it comes out with a case of chewy, dried-out rigor mortis. When I'm making bacon bits for a salad or a baked potato, I'll nuke up a couple of slices. Otherwise, almost never.

Another new-fangled cooking device is the air fryer, which is actually nothing more than a countertop convection oven. I wrote fairly recently about using this method to cook bacon, and I'm in favor of it. The major drawback is that you can only cook three or four slices at a time. Not too practical if you're cooking for a lot of people.

Now, when it comes to mass bacon cookery, nothing beats the tried and true restaurant method of putting it on a rack on a sheet pan and sticking it in the oven at 400° for fifteen to twenty minutes. You get nice, flat, crispy bacon with no turning or watching or babysitting. Maybe it's just my palate, but I can detect a slight flavor difference when it's made that way. Nothing that's a deal breaker, though. It's way better than the microwave method. Besides, my wife likes it that way and it's certainly easy. So I'm good with baking your bacon, too.

But here's my epiphany, and it's something that's been staring me in the face for years and I don't know why I didn't think of it before: let George do it.

Boxing legend George Foreman first stuck his name on an electric contact grill back in 1994. His “Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine” was an instant success and has gone through many iterations and upgrades since that first model. Which I still have, by the way. It's been supplanted for everyday use by one of the newer, bigger, more colorful jobs, but the original little white one I bought twenty-five or so years ago still works when I plug it in, a testament to its durability.

George (the grill, not the boxer) does all kinds of things in my kitchen, including making great grilled cheese sandwiches. I had recently put him to work doing just that and he was still sitting on the counter drying out and waiting to be put away last night when I got a hankering for some bacon. And I don't know why it took twenty-five years to occur to me, but it did. I was kind of tired, kind of in a hurry, and I didn't feel like hauling out the air fryer or waiting for the oven or cleaning up the griddle. And I wasn't desperate enough for the microwave. So I thought,“Hmmmm,” as I stood looking at George's shiny red surface. I did a quick Google search to see if anybody else had had the same thought. Caspita! Was I late to the party! Numerous George Foreman grill bacon recipes and videos immediately popped up in my search.

Armed with the knowledge that it could be done and how to do it, I preheated my machine, slipped three slices of bacon on the lower plate, closed the lid and walked away to do other prep. I went back two minutes later, lifted the lid, flipped the bacon, closed it up again and walked away for another two minutes. When I returned, I retrieved three of the prettiest slices of perfectly cooked bacon I had ever seen. They were as flat and as evenly cooked as if I had used the oven method, but it took about a third of the time. I like my bacon a little toward the crispy side but it was still nice and tender, not at all like the undesirable microwaved results.

Truth be told, bacon cooked this way still does not have the same.....character, I guess.....as good ol' pan or griddle-fried bacon. But there's something else it doesn't have: excessive fat. After all, that's the point of a “Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine.” The fat was all rendered out into the nifty little catch tray, making for a much simpler cleanup. So, while grilling bacon on a contact grill does not necessarily make it a “health food,” it does offer a nominally healthier alternative to frying. And it's certainly faster, easier, and cleaner.

Now, if this is something you've been doing for years and it wasn't really a big revelation to you, just roll your eyes, say “Duh!” and go read something else. Mi dispiace. I'm a little slow sometimes. But if I've opened even one eye to a delicious, easy, and sorta healthy way to cook that marvelous, magical meat that is bacon, then I've accomplished my mission.

Oh, man! I don't have any of my absolute favorite Benton's bacon in the house right now. I see a road trip to Madisonville, Tennessee coming on. And with a power inverter in my car, maybe I could plug George in while I'm driving and........nah. But don't be surprised if my hotel room smells like (sigh) bacon.

Forget the Big Box Stores. Equip Your Kitchen At A Restaurant Supply Store

Want To Cook Like A Pro? Shop Where the Pros Shop.

A lot of people started doing a lot of cooking and baking in the last year or so. And most of them made huge mistakes by going to their local big box and/or discount stores to buy the equipment needed for all that culinary activity. After all, where else are you going to go to buy pots and pans and such, right? Not right. Let me tell you where to go. (Hey, people tell me where to go all the time) Go to your local restaurant supply store.

You want to cook like a pro? Shop where the pros shop. Even if you don't want to cook like a pro, even if you just want to throw together a decent meal for your family or bake some cookies or a loaf of bread or something, you should still shop where the pros shop. There are lots of reasons why. The three that come immediately to mind are quality, selection, and price.

Let's look first at quality. Do you know how many times a day the average skillet or saucepan gets tossed around in a restaurant kitchen? I promise you there is not a single piece of cookware you can buy at Walmart or Target that could stand up to that kind of use. Okay, maybe one: a Lodge cast-iron frying pan. Those things are practically indestructible. But when it comes to everyday pots and pans, you will never beat the quality you'll find at a place that serves the food service industry.

Commercial grade cookware and bakeware is tough because it has to be. You really need to spend ten minutes in a restaurant kitchen and you'll see why. I used to have a cook in one of my restaurants who was notorious for beating up cookware. With the pace and pressure in a professional kitchen, nobody expects you to handle your cooking tools like they were made of some rare fragile element. But this guy was so far beyond normal wear and tear that I once threatened to take the cost of the next pan he damaged out of his paycheck. I can't even imagine what would happen to a set of the stuff most people buy for home use. Actually, I would have to imagine it because most health department regulations do not permit non-commercial grade cookware in commercial kitchens. So if the cookware and utensils I buy at a restaurant supply will hold up to the.....shall we say “less than careful”.....handling it gets in a professional kitchen, imagine how long it will last in yours.

Now, are all these pans going to match? Are they all going to be shiny and colorful? Will they have a celebrity chef's name on them? Hell, no. The stuff you're going to bring home from a restaurant supply store is going to be functional and probably a little ugly. But what do you want? Pretty pans with famous names on them that you'll throw out next year when they get warped and scratched and beaten to a pulp or sturdy pans that you'll keep for years and years to come?

Selection is another thing. Go to Wallyworld and I'll tell you what you're going to find: fifty different sets of the same four or five pans. There'll be cheap stainless steel ones and colorful aluminum ones and some painted with copper paint because it's the latest fad, but they're all going to be the same combination of a 7” or 8” sauté pan, a 9” or 10” sauté pan, a 1 quart saucepan, a 2 quart saucepan, and a 4 quart Dutch oven. Throw in lids for all but the smaller sauté pan and you've got yourself a “nine piece set.” Just choose the color or the brand name. Some of them will include a bunch of flimsy spoons and utensils so they can advertise a “twenty piece set” and make you feel like you're getting a real deal. Eh, not so much.

Now, at a restaurant supply store, you're going to find a lot of things you would never in a million years need or use unless you have a very large family. I mean, most people are not going to make soup in a 32 quart stock pot. And the average baker is not going to have much use for a 40” piano whisk. That said, such places are also loaded up with “normal” stuff that the everyday home cook will use: pots, pans, sheet trays, racks, mixing bowls, cutting boards, cutlery, utensils, storage containers, etc. You'll find everything you need to make killer pizza at home. There are baking pans and bread making tools and cake decorating supplies. Aprons and oven mitts and pot holders. And it won't be like going to Target or Bed, Bath and Beyond or Costco where you'll find a whisk or two hanging on a peg. No, you're local restaurant supply will have an entire frickin' wall dedicated to nothing but whisks of every size, shape, and configuration.

You can even find some small appliances there that will easily out perform and out last anything you'll buy in the big box stores. Things like immersion blenders, for instance. But don't try to go in for the big stuff – stoves and refrigeration units and such – because they're meant for commercial use and aren't generally compatible with residential wiring. But for everything else, your restaurant supply store is your one-stop shop. Just be sure to tie a pillow to your chin before you walk through the door for the first time because your jaw will drop when you see the variety of things available at prices you can afford.

Which brings us to the last point; you won't beat the prices and/or value you'll find at a restaurant supply store. I can lay hands on an 8” aluminum frying pan at my local store for eight bucks. Non-stick is thirteen. Okay, I see an 8” non-stick pan advertised at Walmart for six dollars. But you know what the difference is? The one I buy at the restaurant supply store will still be round after I drop it a couple of times and I'll still be cooking in it next year and the year after while you've been back to Walmart twice to replace yours.

On the other side of the spectrum, you can drop by someplace like Williams Sonoma and pick up a nice 8” All-Clad Non-Stick Fry Pan. Just make sure to stop at the bank first 'cause it's gonna cost you $140. When it comes to consumer vs commercial quality, All-Clad, like Lodge, is one of the rare exceptions. Most All-Clad products are tough enough that they can hold up in a professional kitchen. But unless you're some big name TV chef, you're not going to spend two or three-hundred dollars on a single pan. Not when you can buy pans that are equally functional, if somewhat less pretty, for twenty or thirty bucks.

Not everything is cheaper at a restaurant supply store. But, by and large, things will be less expensive simply because you, the retail consumer, are not their primary customer. They are not retailers. They are there to act as wholesalers to businesses buying in bulk. That you can walk in off the street and snag a bargain on one or two individual items is just icing on the cake.

Most restaurant supply stores are open to the public. Some are not. Restaurant Depot, for example, requires you to be a member of the food service industry in order to shop their stores. US Foods CHEF'STORE does not. A lot of communities have locally owned and operated supply stores, which are almost always open to the public. Since it might be something of a safari to go to one of these merchandise meccas, you might want to check the store's shopping policy before you head out.

If all else fails and your local store turns out to be “members only,” don't despair. There's always the Internet. WebstaurantStore.com is a cook's paradise, featuring over 342,000 items in their catalog and shipping to ninety-six percent of the US within two days. Ka Tom Restaurant Supply is another good online source. I have furnished restaurant kitchens from both. Downside: shipping costs. Yeah, Webstaurant has a “plus” program that nets you free ground shipping and priority ordering, but it's a hundred bucks a month, so, no. Check them out at www.webstaurantstore.com and www.katom.com.

I'm not saying I buy every single thing in my home kitchen at restaurant supply stores. The aforementioned Lodge cast-iron cookware is just as good from Walmart as it is from my local supply store and it's priced about the same. And let's be real; a wooden spoon is a wooden spoon no matter where you buy it. But if you've got a restaurant supply store fairly close by, you really ought to invest the time in checking it out. If you know somebody in the food service industry, you might want to take them along as sort of a “native guide” the first time you go. I promise you'll be overwhelmed and maybe a little intimidated. And you'll likely say “what the hell is that for?” quite a bit. But once you get the lay of the land, you'll never go back to the big box stores for your cooking and baking tools. And a lot of restaurant supply stores carry bulk foods as well, so you can often score big savings there, too.

Bottom line: when it comes to quality, selection, and price, you don't have to be a pro to shop like one.

Air Fryer Baked Potatoes? Oh, You'd Better Believe It!

Air Fryer Baked Potatoes Are The New Standard In My Kitchen

You know, I jumped on the air fryer bandwagon when they first became popular a couple of years ago. I figured I'd find something to do with it. Probably frozen French fries. That's what everybody else was using it for. But in the ensuing months I have found so many other uses for this versatile little appliance that I dismissed at first as just another fad gadget. My latest “discovery” is baked potatoes.

Baked potatoes are an often overlooked and a sometimes vilified side item. And that's too bad because when done right they can be a great highlight to a meal or even a meal unto themselves. Yes, yes, I can hear all the carbo-phobics hyperventilating already, but when you consider the vitamin C, potassium, B6, and fiber baked potatoes offer, they're actually fairly healthy, unless, of course, you load them down with a kitchen sink-load of toppings. Then all bets are off. Moderation, remember?

What constitutes the perfect baked potato? Most people would say a crispy skin on the outside and tender, flaky flesh on the inside. But achieving that perfection isn't always that easy. Aside from “outdoorsy” techniques like wrapping them in foil and tossing them in the coals on a grill or roasting them over an open campfire, there are two traditional ways to bake a “baked” potato. The obvious one is in the oven and the other, the one that a lot of fast food places employ, is the microwave. Both have their shortcomings. Admit it; you've had gummy spuds at a restaurant or you've pulled a potato out of the oven at home only to find it half-baked, right? Me, too.

But then I read somewhere about baking potatoes in an air fryer. “Why not?” I thought, and decided to give it a try next time I made baked potatoes. I did and I'm here to tell you I'm never going back to the “traditional” methods. Air fryer baked potatoes are the new standard in my home kitchen.

Now, I'm not really all that surprised by the success of this “new” technique. After all, the sobriquet “air fryer” is just a marketing ploy; the devices don't actually “fry” anything. All an air fryer is is a countertop convection oven and we've been using convection ovens to bake potatoes in restaurants for decades. But full-size convection ovens are still fairly uncommon in home kitchens and the advent of the air fryer brings the power of convection cooking to a convenient countertop appliance. You just have to remember you're not “frying” in an air fryer; you're cooking with superheated circulating air. Once you grasp that concept, your imagination is pretty much the limit to what you can do with an air fryer.

So here's what I did: I prepped two Russet potatoes in the usual way, i.e. I washed and scrubbed them clean, dried them thoroughly, rubbed them down with a light coating of oil, salted them lightly, and poked a few holes in them with the tip of a paring knife. Then, making sure they weren't touching, I placed them in the basket of my air fryer, set the temperature to 400°, and cranked the timer to thirty minutes. Then I moved on to prep other dinner elements. When the air fryer timer went off, I looked in on the spuds. Lookin' good. Nice crispy skin developing. I poked a fork in 'em to see how they were progressing, shook the basket to wiggle them around a little, and gave them another twenty minutes to cook while I finished the pork chops and other stuff. Twenty minutes later, I used tongs to pluck the potatoes out of the basket, plated them, and then cut in to the most perfectly cooked baked potatoes I can ever remember cooking. Wow!

That's not to say I've ever made “bad” baked potatoes in a conventional oven. Sometimes variances in time and temperature and potato size can make them turn out a little uneven. I've never been a big fan of mushy microwaved “baked” potatoes, but I have resorted to finishing a slightly underdone oven-baked potato in the microwave from time to time. The results are almost always less then stellar. No more. No more conventional oven and no more microwave. The air fryer produced absolutely textbook baked potatoes. The skin was crackling crisp and the interior was pillow soft and flaky. My wife was an instant convert to the improved method and I'll be happily baking potatoes in the air fryer from now on.

Of course, there are limits. For instance, you can only fit so many potatoes in an air fryer basket. For a crowd, it's back to the old conventional oven, I guess. Unless you shell out five-hundred bucks for a big honkin' air fryer like the Breville Smart Oven Air. You could probably get a couple more in there, but even that top of the culinary food chain device doesn't have the capacity of a standard thirty-inch oven, which, theoretically, can turn out a crop of forty-eight to fifty average-sized potatoes or thirty-four to thirty-eight Russet bakers if you're baking spudzillas. But if dinner on the fly for two or three or four is your objective, a regular fifty-to-a-hundred-dollar air fryer is all you'll need.

And the usual basics apply. Choose uniform shaped and sized potatoes; if you try to cook one big one and two little ones, somebody's gonna be under or overcooked. Dry your potatoes after you wash them – and DO wash them under cold running water – or you'll get soggy skins. Another way to get soggy skins is to use that old “wrap 'em in foil” trick. Not only will you get soggy skins, but because the foil holds in moisture and steam, you'll wind up with more of a boiled “baked” potato. I don't care how your mama did it, no foil. Poke holes to vent moisture and steam. I've never actually seen a potato pop, but they can do it and you don't want to be on the cleanup end. When it's done, don't let your potato “rest” before you cut into it. It's not a steak. The longer you let it sit the gummier and stickier it's gonna get inside.

Try air fryer baked potatoes tonight. Or tomorrow if you don't have any potatoes or if you don't have an air fryer yet. That'll give you time to stock up. Once you do, you'll never bake potatoes any other way.

You Don't Really Want to Dine “Al Fresco” in Italy

Just Hope There's Not A Prison Nearby

A lot of people like to toss around foreign words and phrases they've picked up as a means of making themselves sound more worldly, cultured, well-traveled, or whatever. And frequently they wind up sounding just the opposite. Take “al fresco” for example.

“We'll be dining al fresco today,” is a fancy way of saying that you plan to eat outdoors. Whether it be on the patio of an upscale restaurant or at a picnic table in the backyard, “al fresco” just seems to carry a certain....catchet, another often misused word. I mean, would you rather sit outside to eat or would you prefer to “dine al fresco?”

Perhaps because the phrase starts with “al” and ends in a vowel, everybody thinks it's Italian. There are even a number of Italian-American restaurants around the country that bear the name “Al Fresco.” So who can blame someone for visiting their favorite Italian eatery and asking to dine “al fresco?” At most Italian-American places, you'd be shown to a lovely seat outdoors. In Italy, however, such a request would get you a shocked or bemused response from the waitstaff and you'd likely be laughed at or at least given a look that says “pazzo turista.”

You see, while“al fresco” is indeed a correct and legitimate term in particular cases, most people aren't very particular in the way they use it. While it is commonly believed that the term is a universal reference to dining in the fresh air, that's technically only the case in Spain, from whence the phrase originated and where it is still properly used to mean sitting outside in the cool open air.

But isn't it also an Italian term for the same thing? Not so much. Yes, fresco is the Italian word for “fresh.” It can also be used to refer to keeping something in the cool or chilled. And al does usually translate loosely to “of the” or “in the manner of.” So it's reasonable to assume that al fresco would mean “in the cool fresh air” like it does in Spanish. But that's where that old linguistic bugaboo idiom comes in.

Most languages are chock full of weird idioms. Believe me, if you tell an Italian you're sitting on the fence over a certain issue, he's gonna look at you real funny. But then that same Italian might tell you that the issue is farsene un baffo. What he's saying is that it's like a mustache; it's there, so don't make a big deal out of it. I'm an actor and it's common for me to say “break a leg” when wishing someone good luck. The Italian equivalent would be “in bocca al lupo,” which translates to “in the mouth of the wolf.” See, you don't ever wish someone “good luck” (buono fortuna) because that means something bad will probably happen. No, you should refer to the legend of Romulus and Remus who were saved from certain doom by being carried away in the mouth of a she-wolf who suckled and raised them to become the founders of Rome. And, for goodness' sake, don't respond to “in bocca al lupo” with “grazie” (thank you). That would be awful. Say instead, “crepi il lupo.” That means “may the wolf die.” Or you can just say “crepi.” Don't ask me why; it's an Italian thing.

But it's also why you don't use the phrase “al fresco” in reference to dining outdoors in Italy. If you want to do that, it would be “al fuori” or “all'aperto. Both mean “outdoors” or “outside.” If you tell an Italian waiter you want to dine “al fresco,” he's gonna look at you funny because you just said you want to eat in prison. Yep. Prison. Aren't idioms fun?

So all you Italian-American restaurateurs who are putting the name “Al Fresco” above your door might want to rethink that moniker. Not many veri italiani are going to want to enter your establishment. And all you would-be Italian diners who want to employ the phrase to sound more Italian should hope there isn't a jail or prison nearby.

Ciao e in bocca al lupo! 

Confessions Of An ALDI Snob

It's All My Mother's Fault

I grew up an extremely brand-conscious kid. It's all my mother's fault. I shopped with her every week from the earliest time I can remember right up through my adult years.

My mother never learned how to drive, so when I was growing up in the 1950s, my Dad, who knew little and cared less about grocery shopping, dutifully drove her to the big new “supermarket” on Saturdays. Where I came in to the picture was if she needed something in the middle of the week or in the middle of the day when Dad wasn't home. In that case she would call the little neighborhood grocer about five blocks down the street and have him pack up her order. (Yes, grocery stores did that sort of thing in those days.) Then she would dispatch five-year-old me and my little red wagon to go to the store and pick it up. Today that would be called child endangerment or something. Back then it was called “normal.” The grocer always knew what brands to pack in my mom's order. Her well-deserved reputation as the queen of picky shoppers preceded her.

Well, Dad died soon after I turned six and unless we could beg a ride to the grocery store with a friend or relative, it was just Mom and me and the wagon. I later traded the wagon for a bicycle and eventually for a car, but, one way or another, I went grocery shopping with my mother nearly every week for the rest of her life. And along the way I picked up all her shopping quirks and eccentricities, including her most notorious foible; brand consciousness.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that Mom would have sooner starved than let a store-branded or off-branded product pass her lips. Those canned peas had better be Green Giant Le Sueur peas or straight back to the store they went. Boxed macaroni and cheese was okay, but only if it was Kraft. Nothing else ever even made it into the cart. It was Land o' Lakes butter or nothing. Generic cereals? Perish the thought! Only Kellogg's, Post, or General Mills cereals needed apply for residence in my mother's pantry. Birdseye, Swanson and Stouffer's were all acceptable frozen choices, but don't you dare drop some cheap, off-brand TV dinner in there.

Intellectually I knew there was nothing whatsoever “wrong” with store brands. In fact, in most cases store brands are processed and packaged by the same companies that produce the ones with the famous labels. But functionally I was my mother's son and so I avoided “cheap” store/generic brands like the plague. And stores that specialized in “discount” foods were also shunned. I only shopped at high-end stores and I only bought high-end brands.

And then ALDI came to town.

Founded in Germany in 1961 by the Albrecht family, ALDI – short for Albrecht-Diskont – bills itself as the world's first grocery discounter. It opened its first US store in Iowa in 1976, built on the company's core premise that “great quality shouldn’t come at a high price; rather, great quality should come with everyday low prices.” And to achieve and maintain those everyday low prices, you won't find hardly a familiar “name brand” in any ALDI store. Oh, there might be a smattering of “real” Coca-Cola or actual Cheerios rather than some knockoffs, but such are the exception rather than the rule. Consequently, up until quite recently, my rule was that you would never find me in an ALDI store. In fact, years ago I frequently wrote articles in this space denigrating “cheap,” “low-quality” food products in general and ALDI stores in specific. I looked down my nose at friends and relatives who shopped there and actually pitied them for not knowing any better. I was, you might say, an ALDI snob.

I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks and overcome a lifetime of learned prejudice. After at least twenty-five years of sneering at ALDI I now find myself shopping there whenever I'm in the neighborhood. And that neighborhood is expanding: ALDI expects to have around 2,500 stores in the US by 2022.

Now, that's not to say that I no longer shop at Publix or Kroger or Harris-Teeter. No, those are still my go-to stores for most things because I still believe that quality counts and high-end stores still provide the most consistently high-quality products. Unlike my ultra-finicky mother, though, I have at least tried store brands and off brands from time to time and I have frequently found them lacking. Usually it's a funky texture or too much sugar or not enough salt or something that affects the taste and overall quality. Just because they come off the same production lines as the fancy brands doesn't mean they're always the same grade. There is a reason why they're so much cheaper, you know.

It's not always true: for instance, I have found very few Publix-branded products that I don't like. But by and large I still tend to stick with the familiar brands I grew up with. And I definitely didn't grow up with any of the brands that populate ALDI shelves, so I still generally shy away from them. Again, not that I haven't tried them. I recently took a chance on a bag of their “Clancy's” brand knockoff of Baked Lays potato chips. Meh. Not so much. They're....okay, but they'll never replace the original in my pantry. And I was equally underwhelmed by some of their other snack offerings. On the other hand, their “Millville” replica of Kellogg's Rice Krispies is dead on. My wife actually prefers some of their cereals, and they carry a thin mint cookie that would make a Girl Scout weep. So it's kind of a crap shoot.

ALDI has this to say about its “exclusive” brands: “More than 90 percent of what you find in our stores is exclusive brand product. Tested in the ALDI Test Kitchen, these products taste the same or better than national brands and are backed by our Double Guarantee. If you’re not 100 percent satisfied, bring it back. We’ll replace the product AND refund your money.” Okay, if you say so. Maybe I'll be swayed someday. But not quite yet.

No, what I really shop for at ALDI are the “perimeter products.” These are the things you find around the perimeter walls of most grocery stores: the produce, the meats, the dairy products, and the frozen foods. This is where ALDI really shines. When it comes to milk, butter, eggs, cheese, etc. nobody can touch ALDI for either price or quality. Same goes for their meat. They have absolutely unbelievable prices on some of the best quality cuts of meat I've seen anywhere outside a butcher shop. The seafood selection is equally good and I've picked up some killer frozen entrees and ice creams at killer prices. They don't have the biggest produce section in the world but what they carry is good stuff and their breads are surprisingly good for store-bought product, which I usually eschew in favor of my own home-baked fare.

And I love the little hidden jewels I occasionally find. Since ALDI is European-based, there are a boatload of European products lining the shelves. The European chocolates you'll find at ALDI are to die for at a price that won't kill you. A particular favorite of mine is a DOP Sicilian olive oil that easily rivals the best “high-end” product I've ever used, and it's dirt cheap. Less than half of what the brand name stuff costs and every bit as good if not better. In fact, ALDI carries lots of DOP/PDO (Denominazione di Origine Protetta/Protected Designation of Origin) products that are rarely found outside expensive specialty shops, a real bonus for any Italian cook.

And one other plus: ALDI has so much good junk to plunder through. They have an aisle devoted to “home goods” and apparel and such. I bought some socks for my wife at a price Walmart couldn't touch. It's really nuts some of the things you can find there. But stock rotates quickly, so buy it when you see it 'cause it probably won't be there tomorrow.

Alright, I'll admit it; I was wrong about ALDI. And their German cousin, Lidl, too. You may not want to do all of your shopping there, because the stores are deliberately small and the selection purposely limited. It's part of the chain's cost-cutting business model. It's a bare-bones, no-frills shopping experience right down to bagging your own groceries in your own bags. And you've probably heard about the quarter for a shopping cart thing, right? The shopping carts are all chain-locked together and you have to insert a quarter into a slot to unlock a cart. Of course, you get your money back when you return the cart to the chain gang. That's the way the store saves by not having to pay some kid to constantly round up carts in the parking lot. It's all very austere and functional, but if you're the kind of shopper who doesn't mind looking around a bit for good finds at good prices, ALDI is a must stop.

Excuse me, now. I have to go prepare a dish of crow and some humble pie. I wonder if I can get the ingredients at ALDI? 

Restaurant Review: First Watch, Winston-Salem, NC

First Watch or Last Choice?

We were in Winston-Salem, North Carolina for some weekend shopping and business when we got a little hungry for a midday brunch. We did a Google search for such places and got a list of three that looked interesting. Based on the reviews, we chose a place called First Watch. I wish we had chosen one of the other two.

In all my many years of dining on the road, from diners in Georgia to themed restaurants in Tennessee to high-dollar eateries in New Orleans and Las Vegas, I have seldom walked away from a place regretting having gone there. So First Watch was a first for me. I actually came away with buyers' remorse, except there was no viable way to return the product for a refund.

Oh, sure, I've eaten at places I didn't like and to which I've said “never again,” but this is the first place I've ever gone where I actively wished I had never wasted my time and money. Especially the money.

This experience also reinforces my long-held opinion that most of the people who write restaurant “reviews” on Google are friends and relatives of the restaurant owners and employees. That certainly must have been the case here because the reviews were overwhelmingly glowing and positive. Even the one where a member of the dining party apparently got food poisoning from a salad and wound up in the hospital. The enthusiastic “reviewer” cited the fact that nobody else got sick as validation for the positive write-up. Uffa!

When we walked into the place on a Saturday afternoon, it was, in spite of COVID protocols, buzzing. In fact, it was buzzing so loudly that we opted to sit outside, even though the weather looked a little dicey. I mean, you couldn't hear yourself think in there. Typical “modern” design: all open spaces and hard surfaces with nothing to absorb or redirect sound. Every noise, from clattering dishes to loud music to even louder conversation just bounces off walls and floors and ceilings and tables and goes right through your head. Thank you, no. We'll take our chances with the thunder and lightning.

Now, the menu ballyhoos the virtues of fresh, local food, and you know those are often buzzwords for “overpriced,” right? I expected that. And, sure, I could've gotten bacon and eggs at the Waffle House down the street for about a third of what I paid here, but this place is “trendy,” you know, and they've got all that atmosphere and fresh food and clever advertising and everything. Okay. Even so, I was shocked at the shekels I had to shovel out for the quality of the food and service I got.

I'm not gonna do the whole menu here because it's full of kitschy names like “Bacado” and “Veg'd Out” and “Key West Crepeggs.” My wife ordered what she thought was a traditional eggs Benedict and I got two eggs, scrambled, with bacon, hash browns and toast. Pretty straightforward fare.

Once we were seated, our server did a creditable imitation of the Invisible Woman. Maybe she was afraid of the impending and aforementioned lightning and thunder, I don't know. When she finally returned some twenty-five or thirty minutes later, she was bearing our feast. And what a feast it was.

I've been in the food service business, okay, and I'm pretty understanding and easy to please and you have to do something fairly egregious to get me to complain about food. When our server set my plate before me and I got one look at the absolutely hammered eggs thereupon, it was one of those egregious occasions. Had I been on the line or on expo duty, I wouldn't have even let such a travesty leave the kitchen. Some poor hen somewhere – somewhere “local,” I'm sure – produced two eggs that were subsequently presented to me in the form of burnt offerings. It's not hard to scramble eggs, it's really not. Whip 'em up with a whisk, maybe with a little milk and some salt if that's your preference, add them to a buttered pan over medium heat and stir them until you get nice, fluffy curds. Or you can do it the way the so-called “cook” at First Watch obviously did it: whisk the eggs up and then dump them into a dry, screaming hot pan and cook them until any semblance of moisture has been driven out and they have been rendered brown and crispy on top and around the edges. Needless to say, I sent them back.

The bacon – which they call “million dollar bacon” – was wafer thin and so laden with grease that I could have let it slide down without chewing it. Maybe I misunderstood and the “million dollar” part was a reference to the price and not the quality.

The hash browns came out as home fries, which is fine. I like home fries. Except when I make them, I remember culinary school 101: if you want something to cook evenly, you have to cut it evenly. When you chop up potatoes so that some of the pieces are big and some are small and some are even smaller, they may look exceedingly “rustic” and “homey,” but they are going to cook exactly the way these did: the big pieces are going to be borderline raw, the smaller pieces are going to be about right, and the teeny pieces are going to be charred mush.

Top it off with a single slice of very dry toast, and you've definitely got a memorable meal. One I wish I could forget.

My wife didn't fare much better with her fare. The poach on her eggs was good. Not “ohmygod” good, but acceptable. But her “traditional” eggs Benedict was anything but. Instead of an English muffin, it was served on some sort of ciabatta roll and it was sliced deli ham rather than Canadian bacon. There were tomatoes on it for some inexplicable reason and it was topped –drowned? – in a Hollandaise that was so loaded with lemon you could have made lemonade with it. And she had the same "three bears-style" potatoes on the side that I had. You know, a mix of undercooked, overcooked, and just right?

And because my mother taught me that if I couldn't say something nice I shouldn't say anything at all, let me say this: Mom, the fresh-squeezed orange juice was delicious.

And then it rained. But we were both finished and done by then; finished with our meal and done with First Watch.

First Watch is a chain, so your experience may vary. But if you happen to find yourself on South Stratford Road in Winston-Salem and are tempted to visit the location there, resist the temptation. Unless you like greasy bacon, overcooked eggs, half-raw potatoes, and lemonade Hollandaise, all served up by an invisible server who will present you with a bill that will make you say, “Why the f**ck did I do that?” Then First Watch should be your first choice. For me, it's the last.

Find First Watch – if you dare – at 1602 S Stratford Rd, Ste 140 in Winston-Salem, NC. Strip mall parking. They're open daily from 7 am until 2:30 pm. Call (336) 773-8440 or go to firstwatch.com. Staff is masked and temp checked and masks for diners are required during COVID protocols. 

Thoughts On McDonald's Perennially Broken Ice Cream Machines

A Strange Irony

When I was young and so was McDonald's (we were both born the same year), my go-to order at the home of the Golden Arches was some of their life-changing French fries and an icy-cold, creamy chocolate milkshake. Later, after Ronald McDonald started selling soft-serve ice cream at his establishments, McDonald's became a great place to stop for a quick cone. Mickey Ds locations were a heck of a lot easier to find than Dairy Queen's and the product they served was almost as good. Almost.

Alas, somewhere around 1990, McDonald's caved in to the activist campaign to eliminate fat and cholesterol in the American diet and stopped frying its exquisite shoestring spuds in beef tallow, opting instead for bland, flavorless vegetable oil. This switch from animal renderings to vegetable squeezings immediately “rendered” McDonald's fries inert, dull, and lifeless. They became nothing more than a run-of-the-mill vehicle to deliver salt and a modicum of texture to your palate.

But, hey! At least we still had ice cream, right? And delicious, fresh, creamy shakes? Eh, not so much. The ice cream formula changed, too. In fact, it literally became a “formula” instead of a fresh dairy product.

And now we don't even have that last vestige of so many youthful memories. Have you tried to order any ice cream products from McDonald's lately? Good luck finding one with an operating ice cream machine. It's actually become an Internet thing: you can go online and find dozens of sites dedicated to tracking and cataloging McDonald's non-operating ice cream machines. There's even an app for it.

However you look at it, it's frustrating as hell. You get your mouth all set for something and whammo! “I'm sorry. Our ice cream machine is out of order.” That's what I heard the other day when, after a warm afternoon of yard work, my wife said, “Hey, why don't you run over to McDonald's and get us some fries and shakes?” Sorry, honey. Settle for a nice cup of water with those fries? At least I didn't go to the extreme that three women went to in Daytona Beach. When they ordered ice cream at the drive-thru and were told the machine was down, they went into the restaurant and proceeded to beat up the kid behind the counter. Or the guy in Delray Beach who pulled a gun on the drive-thru worker when he was told the ice cream machine wasn't working. Obviously, people in Florida take their ice cream very seriously.

Now, I was going to try to do some in-depth research into the phenomenon in order to find some explanation that I could pass on to you desperate, ice cream-starved readers. But, lo and behold, one Andy Greenberg over at Wired has already done way, way more legwork than I'd ever dreamed possible and has detailed everything you've ever wanted to know about McDonald's ice cream machine woes right here. Read it and.....weep.

Speaking of weeping, I'll bet Ray Kroc is weeping in his grave as he spins like one of the five spindles on his iconic “Multimixer 9B.” Isn't it a bit of strange irony that a burger chain founded by a guy who sold milkshake machines for a living should be in such straits today? Totally at the mercy of wonky digital technology?

C'mon, McDonald's! It's the twenty-first century. We have personal computers in our pockets and helicopters on Mars. Don't ya think you could come up with an ice cream machine that works at least fifty percent of the time? Surely somebody's got a cache of the old manual clunkers in the basement somewhere. Drag 'em out! At least they were dependable.

As I said before, McDonald's and I have a long history. I actually went to Store #1 when I was a kid. Located in west suburban Chicago, just off US Hwy 12 in Des Plaines, Ray Kroc always said it was his favorite store before they tore it down and rebuilt it as a museum. Even as a museum, you could see a mannequin in a paper hat standing by what I'm sure was a working shake machine. Ah, for the good old days.

Bah dah bah bah bah, McDonald's, when it comes to your perennially malfunctioning ice cream machines, I'm not lovin' it.

Just Ignore The Latest Lunatic “Hack” For Cooking Pasta

“Every Time This Technique Is Replicated, An Italian Dies”

I thought I'd seen it all. I thought I'd experienced every crackpot “time-saving” and/or “labor-saving” technique and device out there for the simple task of cooking pasta. I've gaped in amazement at all the so-called “hacks” (I really hate that term) that espouse cooking pasta in cold water or that proclaim pasta can be successfully prepared using cups of water rather than quarts. I've shaken my head in bemusement at the rubbery, silicone gizmos that claim to produce “perfect” pasta in the microwave. I've heaved sighs of frustration at American “old wives” who dump oil in pasta cooking water or who don't liberally salt said water. As I said, I thought I'd seen it all: then I saw this.

Some benighted woman in the pasta cooking capital that is northeastern England has gone on record – via TikTok, of course – with the ignominious idea of cooking pasta in its sauce. Sort of.

Now wait! Before you remind me that that is, indeed, the proper Italian way to finish cooking pasta, let me explain this culinary genius's complete method. The woman, named Jasmine, claims that she got the idea from an Italian-American restaurant chain called Frankie & Benny's. Founded in London in 1995 by one Kevin Bacon, (probably not that one), the fact that it is a British Italian-American outfit means it's already at least two degrees separated from anything remotely authentic.

Anyway, according to Jasmine, the best way to prepare your pasta in one pot with a minimum of muss and fuss is as follows: you boil some water in a teakettle. Then you pour a jar of spaghetti sauce directly into a pot and add some of the boiling water from the kettle. Toss your dried spaghetti into the sauce and water mixture and boil it up. Once you reach the desired degree of doneness (and I shudder to think what that might be) you throw in a few meatballs and declare the insipid result to be a delicious Italian dish.

According to the website wantedinmilan.com, one person commenting on this travesty summed up the reaction of Italians everywhere with the statement, “Every time this technique is replicated, an Italian dies.” Let me expand on that. Not only does an Italian die, they die screaming and are joined in their death throes by the spinning of generations of nonne in their graves.

With admittedly facetious apologies to Jasmine and other “experts,” there is one and only one proper way to prepare pasta. Uno. Un. Um. En. Een. Ett. Ein. Éνας. Moja. You get the idea? ONE! And it most assuredly does not involve tossing uncooked pasta into a pot of diluted tomato sauce. Uffa!!! And that's the mildest word I can conjure at the moment.

You gotta have water. Lotsa, lotsa water. The water's gotta be boiling. Lotsa, lotsa bubbles. And it's gotta be salted. Lotsa, lotsa salt. Did you notice that Jasmine didn't include any salt anywhere in her “recipe?” Those are the only ways you can coax desiccated bits of durum wheat flour to give up their starches, achieve perfect al dente tenderness, and absorb flavor. Otherwise, what's the point? Any other method or technique or “hack” (the word reminds me of what a cat does to a hairball) is going to produce an unsatisfying mush.

Now, as I said, finishing the cooked pasta in a pot of sauce is not only a good idea, it's an essential and quintessential Italian technique. Only in Italian-American restaurants, greasy spoon diners, or church “spaghetti dinners” do they actually serve piles of naked spaghetti on a plate doused in cups if not quarts of red sauce. You will not find an Italian anywhere in Italy or elsewhere on the planet who cooks pasta that way. Unless they own one of the aforesaid Italian-American joints, in which case they do so under protest because that's what their palate-less customers expect and demand.

I took over running the kitchen in one of those diners once. The place offered “spaghetti specials” on the weekends and the very first thing I did was to change the method of preparing the spaghetti.

My cook had already prepared a big pot of pasta when I got in one day. I tasted it. Horrible. Bland. Devoid of any semblance of flavor. I asked him how he had cooked it. He looked at me as though I had grown a third eye and and told me that he had boiled the water, added some salt, and cooked the spaghetti. I asked, “how much salt and for how long?” “I don't know. A couple of teaspoons, I guess, and for about fifteen minutes.” Dio mio! He had produced the equivalent of canned spaghetti alla Chef Boyardee.

“Throw it out,” I said, “We're starting over.” We boiled some more water and his eyes bugged out as he watched me pour in the salt. We're talking a restaurant stock pot here, okay? Forty quarts. Ten gallons. Probably eight gallons of water. Allowing two or three tablespoons of salt per gallon, that's about a cup and a half of salt. I thought he was gonna choke. “Taste the water,” I told him. “What does it taste like?” “Kinda salty,” he replied. “Like seawater,” I asked? “Yeah,” he said. I exclaimed, “Perfect!”

I added the pasta and cooked it at a rolling boil for a generous eight or nine minutes. I pulled out a strand and told my cook to try it. “Oh, wow! That's good! I'm gonna make that way at home from now on.” Flavor! What a concept!

Okay, so now the par-cooked pasta goes in the fridge. We kept a big pot of sauce simmering on a back burner of the stove. When an order came in for the special, instead of throwing a portion of the pasta back in some hot water to heat it up (called “double-cooking”) and then plopping it on a plate and pouring a big glug of sauce over it, I insisted that the cooks ladle some sauce into a smaller pot and add the pasta to that pot of sauce to finish cooking for maybe two minutes. Then you plate it up on a warm serving plate and present it to your happy customer. Not only were the patrons amazed at the difference – especially the regulars – but the cooks were, too, and so I achieved what I set out to achieve.

You can do the same thing at home. Cook your pasta in plenty of generously salted water until it's just shy of done, then finish it in your sauce before serving. It's that simple, it's that easy. It's the way generations of Italians have done it. No “hacks” required. And no dead Italians or spinning grandmothers, either. Win-win, right?

Good work is seldom fast and fast work is seldom good. Remember that rule next time you see a “hack” that promises to make things quick and easy. (Remember, too, that one of the definitions of “hack” is “someone who produces banal and mediocre work in the hope of gaining commercial success.”) 'Nuff said.

Buon appetito!