Is It Marinara Or Is It Tomato Sauce?

Either Way, It's NOT Gravy

It's been another bountiful summer for my small garden plot of Roma tomatoes. Too bountiful if you ask me...or my neighbors and friends. Or my barber. Or my mail carrier. Or total strangers driving by my house who run the risk of having me throw tomatoes through their open car windows. Anyway, it's time to make sauce again! But will it be marinara or tomato sauce? “Wait,” you ask, “there's a difference?” Oh, yeah.

Marinara is what most Americans think of as “spaghetti sauce.” But, for heaven's sake, please learn how to pronounce “marinara.” I don't know when, why, or how Americans started saying “mare-uh-NARE-uh.” I don't remember most people pronouncing it that way when I was a kid, but they do now and it drives me nuts. Sometime over the past fifty or sixty years this offensive mispronunciation has taken hold and it simply makes my skin crawl. It has the same effect on me as nails on a blackboard, especially when I'm assailed by it in so-called “Italian” restaurants. “So you want the mare-uh-NARE-uh with that?” Uffa! Che schifo! PLEASE eschew the flat, nasal and completely incorrect American pronunciation and use instead the rich, round authentic Italian “mah-ree-NAHR-ah.” Grazie mille.

I tend toward marinara because it's a simpler preparation and generally more useful for my purposes. Marinara is a quick-cooked sauce. Because of the shorter cooking time, it retains its bright flavor and vibrant red color. It's also a thinner sauce and it's a little more on the sweet side with just a hint of tartness. It lacks the depth of a longer cooking tomato sauce, but it's my go-to sauce for pizza and for simple dishes like spaghetti al pomodoro.

I said it's “quick-cooked,” and it's just that. I have a recipe here from Italian-Canadian chef David Rocco for a so-called “five minute” marinara sauce, something of a misnomer since the sauce actually takes about fifteen minutes to prepare and cook.

1 medium onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, chopped

4 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

1 (28 oz) can San Marzano tomatoes, pureed

pinch dried red chili flakes

4 or 5 fresh basil leaves, torn

Salt

In a large saucepan, heat olive oil and add onions, garlic, and chili flakes. Sautè for 2 or 3 minutes. Add pureed tomatoes and simmer over low to medium heat for 10 minutes. Salt to season. Add basil in the last minute or two.

On the other end of the “quick” spectrum, here's a recipe from Rocco DiSpirito for his mama's marinara. This one takes about an hour, so it kind of straddles the line between quick-cooked and long-cooking:

1/2 yellow onion, finely chopped

3 cloves garlic, crushed or minced

3 tbsp olive oil

2 (28 oz) cans San Marzano tomatoes, crushed

1 tbsp tomato paste

1 cup chicken stock

1 cup water

1 tsp sugar

pinch of red pepper flakes

Kosher salt and freshly-ground black pepper, to taste

a few leaves of fresh basil, torn into small pieces

In a sauce pot or Dutch oven, heat the olive oil over medium-low heat and add onion. Cook for about five minutes before adding garlic. Cook an additional five minutes, or until onions are translucent and garlic is lightly golden. NEVER allow garlic to brown!

Add in the tomato products. Add the chicken stock, water, and sugar. Taste and season with salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes. Cover and bring to a simmer.

Simmer the sauce for about an hour, adding in the fresh basil during the last ten minutes or so of cooking time. The sauce will be fairly thin. For a thicker sauce, simmer uncovered until the sauce reduces to desired consistency.

Now, on to tomato sauce.

In classic French cooking, Sauce Tomat is one of the five foundational “mother sauces.” The French preparation varies from its Italian cousin in that it is generally thickened with a roux, a mixture of flour and fat (usually butter) and it also includes some kind of roasted or cured meat, like ham or bacon, which is rendered in for additional flavor. The French technique often employs chicken or beef stock to add to the depth, along with the aromatics, which, in French tradition, are called mirepoix rather than soffritto. And, of course, the French use less of those base Italian seasonings like garlic and basil and oregano. Lah-te-dah.

Anyway, this is a simple recipe for good old Italian tomato sauce.

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 small onion, finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 stalk celery, finely chopped

1 carrot, finely chopped

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 (14-ounce) can diced tomatoes

1 6 oz can tomato paste

1/2 tsp Italian seasoning

1/2 tsp parsley

2 basil leaves, finely chopped

2 dried bay leaves, whole

1/2 tsp brown sugar

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, optional

In a large stock pot, heat oil over medium high heat. Add onion and sauté until soft and translucent, about 2 minutes. Add garlic and cook for an additional minute. Add celery and carrots and season with salt and pepper. Sauté until all the vegetables are soft, about 5 minutes.

Add juice from canned tomatoes by pouring through a strainer, then crush tomatoes and add pulp. Add tomato paste and seasonings and simmer covered on low heat for at least 1 hour or until thick.

Remove bay leaves and check for seasoning. If sauce still tastes acidic, add unsalted butter, 1 tablespoon at a time to round out the flavors.

If not using all the sauce, allow it to cool completely and pour 1 to 2 cup portions into plastic freezer bags or other freezer-safe containers. This sauce will freeze well for up to 6 months.

As you can see, a little more goes in to creating a tomato sauce. For one thing, you always use a soffritto of onion, celery, and carrot. This adds a depth of flavor and a natural sweetness.

The real secret to this layered, complex flavor, though, is the longer cooking time. A long simmer, usually for at least an hour if not two, will really allow for a deep flavor and a rich texture to develop in a way quick cooked sauces can't match.

While a light marinara is perfect for pizza or quick, simple pasta dishes, the heavier, heartier tomato sauce is great for something like lasagne or cacciatore or bolognese that require longer cooking and a sturdier sauce.

Now....(opening a can of worms) about “gravy.”

I like to attend local Italian street festivals. They're great fun, even though they're not always strictly Italian in nature. For example, the Festa Italiana I went to most recently featured a karate demonstration. Hey, nothing shouts “Italian!” like a good dojo. But, by and large, they really do showcase the heart of Italian-American culture.

You know how I could tell it was Italian-American rather than Italiano vero? I could tell because I saw a nice middle-aged couple walking around wearing matching t-shirts they had just purchased from one of the vendors. The shirts said “It's Not Sauce, It's Gravy.” I smiled, turned to my wife and said, “Solo in America è vero.” (Only in America is this true.) I don't think the couple understood me and they just went smilingly on their way, but it's a fact: only Italian-Americans – and a specific geographically limited group of Italian-Americans at that – ever refer to either marinara or tomato sauce as “gravy.” I don't care what your nonna called it, it is most decidedly not gravy.

By strict definition, a “gravy” – a word that has its origins not in Latin or Italian, but in Middle English – is a preparation made from meat drippings or juices. There's not even an equivalent Italian word for it. In Italy, a condiment that is poured over or mixed in to enhance the flavor of a dish is broadly referred to as a “salsa,” which directly translates to “sauce.” A preparation made by combining tomatoes and meat is sometimes called a “sugo” or a “ragu”. In central and southern Italy, a sugo describes a basic tomato-forward preparation while “ragu” is used in northern areas to describe a slow-cooked meat-based sauce. Northern or southern, nobody calls it “gravy” because the word doesn't exist.

So why do regional pockets of Italian-Americans call it gravy? Here's the most popular theory.

When millions upon millions of Italians began arriving on American shores around the turn of the twentieth century, many, if not most, were met with the traditional American greeting: prejudice. Hostility and bigotry were rampant. Descendants of enslaved Africans had already had their turn as objects of hatred as had the Irish and the Chinese. Americans needed somebody new to dislike and, since the Puerto Ricans and other Hispanics had not yet arrived, Italians bore the brunt. Especially those from southern regions whose darker complexions made them easier targets.

These folks quickly found that it was in their best interest to distance themselves from their “Old Country” roots. So, to “fit in” in their new surroundings, they started changing their names, often just dropping the final vowel or making the “e” “silent.” They learned at least some English and forbade the speaking of Italian dialects in their new American homes. And those rich sauces they used in their foods? Far too foreign for “real” Americans, who called the stuff they poured over their meat and potatoes “gravy.” And since we want to be real Americans, it's arrivederci sugo, e ragu, e salsa! Let's call those tomato and meat sauces we love so much “gravy” so our American neighbors will accept us.

And so “Sunday gravy” it became and “Sunday gravy” it remains. Even though it really isn't. Gravy, that is. However, along with the regional massacre of Italian words like “gabbagool” for capocollo, “mootzarell” or “mootzadell” for mozzarella, “rigot” for ricotta, and “prozhoot” for prosciutto, this is a fight on which I have long since given up. Knowledge and reason are ineffective weapons against, “That's the way my nonna said it and that's the way I'm gonna say it, so fugeddaboutit.” Pour on that “gravy,” baby, firm in the knowledge that absolutely nobody in the land that gave birth to your revered ancestors would have the slightest idea what the hell you were talking about.

Okay, so there you have the essential lowdown on Italian sauces, both the light and simple marinara and the more hearty, complex tomato sauce. Now, drive on by my house and roll down your windows.

I LOVE Vincenzo and Everything On His Plate!

He Tells It Like It Is!

I've been writing these little bits and pieces of advice and opinion for over twenty years. I don't how it is that, up until very recently, I missed a guy named Vincenzo Prosperi.

Born in Abruzzo in 1983 and now living in Australia with his Australian-born wife, Vincenzo is the creative genius behind the YouTube sensation “Vincenzo's Plate,” which he launched in 2014. Vincenzo has amassed an enormous following across many platforms. Because I don't spend any significant time on social media, I stumbled upon “Vincenzo's Plate” quite by accident. I watched one video and immediately became a follower. I've since watched close to a hundred and have yet to find one I didn't like.

The guy could be a much younger version of me. Our philosophies on food are nearly identical. He eschews the title “chef” and instead prefers to be called a cook. He readily acknowledges the influence his nonna's cooking has had on his own recipes and techniques, and he is way beyond a stickler when it comes to preserving Italian culinary traditions. In short, he tells it like it is and doesn't care who he takes on or whose ego he punctures in the process.

His “reaction” videos are priceless. Watching him take on various TikTok and YouTube idiots who blatantly massacre Italian traditions in the name of “creativity” or “convenience” or whatever is absolutely inspiring.

You'll hear him say, “What is this 'Italian seasoning' they talk about? It's herbs like oregano and basil. It's used in all kinds of cooking. What's “Italian” about it?” Some TikTok cretin was getting ready to pour a pile of about six different spices into an “Italian” pasta dish. “Where am I,” he said, “in India? There's nothing Italian about this.” When somebody broke the spaghetti in half for a baked spaghetti, Vincenzo cried out, “Did you see that?! She just killed the spaghetti!” Preach it, brother!

And he is not afraid to go after the big guns, either. He has very little use for Gordon Ramsay, for example, and even though Guy Fieri and Buddy Valastro have Italian names, they didn't do well under Vincenzo's scrutiny. And I had to laugh at Vincenzo's reaction to Paula Deen. Her putting a dry burger patty between two Krispy Kreme doughnuts absolutely stunned and horrified him. He called her a “nightmare,” a sentiment with which I can identify.

Even when he is generally approving of somebody he's watching, like Stanley Tucci making aglio e olio, he still offers insightful criticism when he sees something wrong. Shame on you, Stanley, for wasting extra virgin olive oil by adding it to the cooking water. And thinly slicing the garlic is good, but mincing or crushing it is better because then you don't have to eat chunks of garlic.

In most of his videos, Vincenzo pointedly wears (and sells) t-shirts proclaiming the immutable facts that there is no cream in carbonara and no pineapple on pizza.

Besides his hilarious and spot-on take downs of the flaws and foibles in other peoples recipes and techniques, his own offerings on how to properly prepare various Italian dishes are master classes in the art. After watching him make spaghetti pomodori the other day, I had to go make some for dinner myself, pleased with the realization that we both make it exactly the same way. My wife was wondering why I was yelling, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” at my computer. It was because I was watching Vincenzo lambasting some moronic attempt at making aglio e olio and then demonstrating the proper method.

Like me – and any Italian cook worth the title – Vincenzo is a huge proponent of finishing pasta in the sauce. He correctly says that cooking the pasta first and then dumping the sauce on top is a crime against good food. “The pasta dries out,” he says, “and it dies. It sits on the plate and it's dead.”

Neapolitan pizza dough, tomato sauce, cacio e pepe, Italian meatballs, gnocchi, lasagna, ravioli, arancini, bruschetta, tiramisu, cannoli.....and so much more. All done in the classic Italian style with no tolerance for “variations.” You wanna put cream and peas in your carbonara? Fine. But don't call it “carbonara” because it's not. Some YouTube boob will proclaim that Italians use garlic in everything. Vincenzo will call “stronzate” on that and show you how to use garlic with restraint, the way real Italians do.

The subtitles accompanying his videos are unintentionally funny in and of themselves. His accent is quite thick and whoever captions him often does it so badly that the English captions sometimes require English translation. For instance, in one video he said “spaghetti aglio e olio” but the caption read “spaghettio.”

Even though he lives in Australia, Vincenzo is proudly and passionately Italian and considers himself to be an ambassador for Italian culture. He finds inspiration in all things Italian. He once was inspired to create a baked pasta dish after listening to Andrea Bocelli and Ariana Grande sing “e più ti penso,” the inspiration coming from Andrea's classical Italian authenticity combined with Ariana's more contemporary approach.

So, I could go on talking about Vincenzo and “Vincenzo's Plate” for several more pages but why don't you just go and discover him for yourself? He's on YouTube and Facebook and all the popular platforms, but just Google “Vincenzo's Plate” and you'll find him. When you do, I promise you'll become a follower.

Serving Pasta The Authentic Italian Way

There Are A Few Old Traditions Worth Hanging On To

Okay, before we start, let me make this disclaimer: for all of you who are about to go the the “comments” section and scream about having the “right to do whatever the f**k I want with my food” or to castigate me for being a fussy, rule-bound old prig, let me say this: you do, and I am. There. With that out of the way, let's talk about the authentic Italian way to serve pasta.

There are two keys to serving authentic Italian pasta, and I'll get to them in a minute. But first, there are some basic pasta cooking rules that you've probably seen repeated over and over. However, because I am, indeed, a fussy, rule-bound old prig, I'm going to repeat them yet again.

Prima regola, don't break the pasta. Go ahead, I'm braced for it. “What difference does it make? It all tastes the same anyway. It fits better in my pot when I break it. It's easier to eat when it's broken up.” Does that about cover it? Good. Now, the explanation. Long pasta is long just because it's supposed to be long. It's part of the aesthetic of the dish and part of the cultural experience and tradition of making it and eating it. Some say that breaking long pasta is an insult to the skill and the craft of the pasta maker. Since most of what you buy in the store these days is machine made, I don't know how insulted the machines might be, but why take the chance? Bottom line? It's an Italian thing. Some rules are immutable and “don't break the pasta” is one of them. Or break it if you want. After all, you're gonna tell me it's your “right,” and it is. But it's not authentic and authenticity is what we're talking about here.

Secondo, salt the water. The only time you really get to enhance the flavor of pasta is in the cooking process. The pasta literally opens up during cooking to release starches and to take on flavor. After it's done, you can pour all the salt in the world on it and it's just gonna taste like salty noodles. Generous amounts of salt added to the water – about a tablespoon per quart – while the pasta is cooking is the only means of imparting proper seasoning to the finished dish. And save a little of the cooking water to help develop your sauce. The starchy, salty water acts as a flavoring and thickening agent that aids in the ability of the sauce to cling to the pasta as it enhances the overall taste of the finished dish. And you obviously don't want to rinse your pasta. You need some of that starch.

And while we're sort of on the topic, I'd like to find the old wife behind the old wives' tale about putting oil in the water to keep the pasta from sticking. Chemistry 101 says oil and water don't mix. All you're going to get is oily water.

Ultima regola, don't cook the pasta to mush. Al dente is the key. It should be a little firm “to the tooth” when you bite into it. If you want to overcook your pasta until it looks and tastes like something out of a Chef Boyardee can, go for it! It's your right. But it's not authentic.

And now that brings us to the first of those two keys to the authentic Italian way of serving pasta.

I'm old but I'm not old enough to remember how Americans ever came up with the notion of piling a heap of cooked spaghetti on a plate and then dumping a quart of sauce on top of it. But there it is; the typical American way of serving “spaghetti.” I guess it goes back to the early days of the Italian diaspora when everything Italian was still considered mysterious and exotic. Nobody outside the Italian enclaves knew how to cook the stuff, so they just punted. And that's what they came up with.

Now, I can give a little leeway to home cooks because, as I've acknowledged, you can do whatever you want with your food at home. It's the so-called “Italian” restaurants that really gripe me. If you run a place called “Vincenzo's” or “Giuseppe's” or “Lorenzo's” or “Giovanni's” and you serve pasta this despicable way, you should be stripped of your Italian heritage and the final vowel in your last name and you should just call your place “Vincent's” or “Joe's” or “Larry's” or “John's Place.” Because what you're doing ain't Italian and your mamma didn't teach you that way.

And I hear it all the time from Italian restaurant owners: “But that's what my American customers expect!” And I know. I can feel your pain. I once took over running a little American diner for a friend. And he offered a “spaghetti special” on Fridays, which I immediately remade in the authentic Italian way. For the most part, it was a great success, with patrons gushing with praise for the improved quality. Many said it was better than the Italian place down the street. BUT.....and there's always a “butt”.....I had one disgruntled dude who complained that what I put on his plate looked like “leftovers” because everything was “all mixed together.” He demanded his pile of plain spaghetti topped with a quart of sauce. I tried to patiently explain why I fixed it the way I did, but he wasn't satisfied and I never saw him again. He probably went to the “Italian” place down the street.

Anyway, in real, authentic Italian cooking, you always finish the pasta in the sauce. You never, EVER pile plain pasta on a plate and cover it with sauce. And if you're eating at an “Italian” place that does that, I'm telling you that they are just pandering to the lowest common denominator. Don't let 'em do it! Send it back and tell 'em, “Non insultarmi, stupido! Cucinalo come farebbe tua mamma!” Well, don't say it like that or you'll probably get thrown out. But you get the idea. Don't accept mediocrity.

There's a good reason we cook it the way we do. When you take the pasta out of the water a minute or two before it reaches that perfect al dente stage and let it finish cooking for those last couple of minutes in that delicious, flavorful sauce, the flavors – i sapori – of the pasta and the sauce will marry and mingle in a way that is simply not possible to achieve by dumping them on a plate separately. The pasta has already released its starches and opened up to absorb the salt you've added to the water and now it's going to further accept all the nuances of that full, rich sauce. É semplicemente il migliore! It is the considered opinion of anybody with even a drop of Italian blood in their veins that there is nothing worse than a pile of bland, flavorless spaghetti sitting and cooling helplessly on a plate while somebody drowns it in some thin, unremarkable sauce. And yet, that is the typical American standard “spaghetti dinner” preparation and Italians will weep for you.

Yeah, so I'm a little dramatic.

The other key to serving pasta the authentic Italian way is to leave it the hell alone!

In the scheme of Italian dining, pasta is a course in and of itself! You don't put anything “in” or “with” pasta. I can't tell you how many times I've been asked, “Would you like some chicken in that pasta, sir?” No, I don't want any frickin' chicken in my pasta! Chicken belongs to the next course, the secondo. This is the primo course and it's fine just the way it is. If you get nothing else out of this rant, get this, please: There is NOTHING wrong with eating a plain, unadorned, unadulterated dish of pasta and sauce.

In the traditional Italian meal structure, pasta dishes are paired with sauces that complement and enhance the overall flavor of the dish. Each ingredient plays its part in achieving a balanced outcome. Throwing chunks of chicken in there – or any meat or fish, really – throws that perfect balance out of whack. Those meats are considered secondary complements to the pasta, hence the term secondo. You serve them by themselves, or maybe in conjunction with the contorno, or vegetable, course, after, but never mixed in with, the pasta course. That's why you'll never find something like chicken Alfredo on an authentic Italian menu. Well.....you'll never find anything Alfredo on an authentic Italian menu, but that's another story. No “chicken tortellini,” no “chicken carbonara.” And Olive Garden's “Tour of Italy” is a visit to a place that simply doesn't exist. “A trio of Chicken Parmigiana, Lasagna Classico, and Fettuccine Alfredo on one plate!” There's so much wrong with that picture that I scarcely know where to start.

Putting aside the actual non-existence of chicken parm, you'll never find a “side” of pasta on a plate next to anything. Pasta is pasta and chicken is chicken. They don't belong together on the same plate. Neither does steak or pork chops or salmon. You don't mix meat with pasta and you don't serve pasta “next to” meat. That doesn't mean that meat can't be an ingredient in a pasta dish, like the pancetta or guanciale in a carbonara, but you wouldn't just slap a hunk of ham on a plate of pasta. Same goes for beef, pork, or veal in a Bolognese or in a ragu served mixed with pasta. But you don't, for instance, put hunks of meat – lookin' at you, meatballs – on top of a plate of spaghetti. And, while you might find some broccoli florets perched on a plate next to your 8-ounce sirloin, you'll never see a “side” of spaghetti there. At least you won't in madre Italia.

Okay, pluck the chickens and warm up the tar. I'm ready for the onslaught of commentary about how Italians are nothing but stuffy, pedantic, ultra-purist, hyper-critical pettifoggers and how food is food and you can fix it any way you damn well please. É vero! And you can wear white after Labor Day, wear socks with your sandals, and drive twenty miles an hour over the speed limit, too. Ain't freedom grand? All I'm sayin' is that authenticity usually comes with rules and that Italian culinary customs have developed over many generations. And that maybe, in this ever-changing world in which we live, there are a few old traditions worth hanging on to.

An Egg Cracker? Really?!

Sorry, But I've Got To “Counter” This Recommendation

It's been a slow afternoon, and as I was scrolling through some useless stuff on the Net I came across a piece on the best way to scramble eggs. Since I've only been doing it for over a half-century, I thought I'd take a look and see what modern innovations may have revolutionized the process. And, lo and behold, the first “need” the young author presented in her list of essentials (all available for purchase on Amazon and various other outlets, by the way) was an egg cracker.

No. Really, An egg cracker.

For only nine bucks, it's something I never knew I needed. Imagine, I've been struggling to cook scrambled eggs, both at home and in the professional kitchen, for decades and now I realize that I've only been making things harder on myself by not possessing an egg cracker. I feel so utterly inadequate now. I hereby apologize to all the people to whom I have presented obviously sub-par scrambles owing to my egregious lack of proper equipment.

Seriously, this little gadget looks like a spoon rest with a raised ridge in the middle of it. In fact, the author notes that you can use it as a spoon rest when you're not using it for egg prep. So it's a multi-tasker! Yay! “It can help you cleanly break shells into a straight line," she enthuses. "All you do is crack your egg against the center ridge, then pour the whites and yolk into a bowl.”

I already have a similar device in my kitchen: it's called a countertop.

Now, I don't have one of these things in my hand, but looking at the picture it seems to me that the little ridge in the center would have the same effect as the edge of a bowl in that it would not necessarily “cleanly break” the shell. The preferred better and safer method of egg cracking is to give the egg a firm tap on a flat surface – like a countertop. The egg-sperts – see what I did there? – say this method is far less likely to drive little shards of shell and any possibly contaminating bacteria into the interior of the egg.

Every culinary school graduate I know uses a flat surface for breaking eggs rather than striking them against a sharp corner or the edge of a bowl. Even though you see the occasional TV chef employing that practice, I promise you it's not what they were taught in school. I've even run across a few people – very few – who break their eggs by smacking them together. Okay, fine. But what if you're only cracking one egg?

My mother and my grandmother and probably their grandmothers, too, cracked eggs on the edge of a bowl. It's intuitive and it's how most home cooks roll. I don't know when the “better,” “safer” method was discovered/developed/decided upon among professional cooks, but it's the one they teach now and it's the only one I use/teach as well.

Once you crack the shell, techniques for the messy part - breaking the egg open the rest of the way – vary according to the preference and skill level of the cook.

I can open an egg one-handed. It's not really hard. It just takes a little practice. You hold the egg in your hand with your thumb placed along one long side of the egg and your fore and middle fingers on the other. Bring your pinky and ring finger to the bottom side and press the bottom of the egg into your palm. Crack the egg against a flat surface, then, in a slight twisting motion, use your thumb and forefinger to lift the top half while using your ring finger and pinky to pull down on the bottom half. If you've cracked the egg cleanly, it should separate cleanly and everything will come out without any shell fragments. 

I seldom do it this way, unless I'm trying to be showy or something. Most of the time, I do it the way everybody else does: after cracking the shell on a flat surface, you lightly press the tips of your thumbs into the crack until the egg's keratinous outer and inner membranes break. Then you just gently pull the shell apart and the white and yolk parts will slide out into your waiting bowl, hopefully intact. And, by the way, while not absolutely necessary, it's always a good idea to crack eggs into a separate bowl before mixing them together for your scramble or omelet or cake batter or whatever. Reason being, if you get a bad egg – which can sometimes happen – you can isolate it before it mixes in with other eggs and ruins the whole works. And it's easier to fish a stray bit of shell out of one egg than it is to fish it out of two or three or more.

So, there you have Egg Cracking 101. And it didn't cost you a penny.

The advocate of the nine-dollar egg cracker, who identifies herself as a “Senior Editor, Home & Garden” goes on to recommend a wide variety of bowls, whisks, spatulas, pans, holders, cookers, containers, add-in ingredients, and more, all of which are only a click away throughout her article. Fine. Everybody has got to make a buck. But if you've got a bowl, a balloon whisk, a silicone spatula or a wooden spoon, and a non-stick pan, you've pretty much got everything you need. The most essential thing you'll require to make outstanding scrambled eggs is practice and you can't buy that online.

You can buy an egg cracker, though. But, really, don't. 

Praise For Plain Pasta

 

Don't Overlook the Simple Pleasures

Mmmm, pasta. You ought to see my pantry. You'd swear I had stock in DeCecco and Barilla. I love pasta. And that love affair goes way back.

The very first pasta I remember eating was “wagon wheel” pasta made by La Rosa. I was four or five years old and my mother cooked it up and sauced it with nothing but butter and I was the happiest kid in the world. Fast forward several – ahem – decades, and if you still want to make me the happiest kid in the world, put a plate of plain buttered pasta in front of me. Works every time.

That's because plain pasta with butter and maybe a little Parmesan cheese is the most basic Italian comfort food. In Italy, it's called pasta al burro or sometimes pasta bianca. One of the most popular forms of the dish, pastina, has been in the news a lot lately because Ronzoni, one of the biggest manufacturers of pastina pasta in the US, stopped making the classic little star-shaped noodles back in February, causing widespread panic buying and hoarding. Sure, other companies produce it; Barilla markets it as both Pastina and Stelline. But Ronzoni had by far the biggest grocery store shelf presence for its pastina product and long-time customers were understandably miffed by its sudden absence. I mean, pastina is like the next step up from mother's milk for most Italian children. A little plain pasta, some butter, some cheese, and usually an egg. Okay, so my mom was weird starting me off on buttered rotelle. Must come from the French part of the family, I don't know.

I do know that when my own youngest son reached that pasta devouring age, it had to be plain pasta with butter. Never mind that most kiddie menus served up some form of spaghetti in tomato sauce. No, no! None of that for il mio bambino. If the pasta had even a trace of anything but plain butter on it, all bets were off. I recall a certain Old Spaghetti Factory in Atlanta that once dared to put brown butter on my kid's pasta. Wow! The way the acoustics in that place echoed, it was not a pleasant experience for anybody. Later on, six years of living in Italy expanded his palate quite a bit. But, like me, he still appreciates a good dish of plain pasta with butter and cheese.

Did you know that pasta al burro is the basis for fettuccine Alfredo? When you go to Italy, unless you're going to one of the tourist traps in Rome, don't bother ordering fettuccine Alfredo. They'll look at you like you've got a third eye. Instead, ask for pasta al burro or pasta bianca. They may still give you funny looks because that's a dish commonly served to children and folks with tummy troubles, but at least they'll know what you're talking about.

See, about a hundred years ago, a Roman restaurateur named Alfredo di Lelio had a very pregnant, very sick wife who could keep very little on her stomach. About all she could tolerate was Alfredo's pasta al burro, which he made with egregious amounts of butter and cheese for extra flavor. A couple of Hollywood luminaries, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr and Mary Pickford, were honeymooning in Rome and wandered into Alfredo's eatery. They inquired about the dish his wife was enjoying. Alfredo probably thought, “Boh. Americani pazzi.” But he dutifully served them some plain pasta with butter and cheese. And they LOVED it! They loved it so much that they went back to Hollywood and told everybody they knew – and they knew a lot of people – about the wonderful Italian dish they had in Rome. Fettuccine Alfredo, they called it, and thus was a culinary legend born.

Of course, American chefs didn't have access to the same quality ingredients Alfredo used in his restaurant, so they wound up bastardizing his simple creation, adulterating it with milk and cream and all kinds of extraneous additives to achieve what they thought was a close approximation. Sorry. No. Not even close. Nothing beats the silky, buttery unctuousness of the sauce that naturally forms when you briskly stir together plain hot pasta, high-fat butter, real Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, and just a tiny bit of the water in which the pasta was cooked. Buonissimo! And far superior to anything you'll find in a jar.

There are another couple of variations on plain pasta. Pasta cacio e pepe is one. Plain pasta, some butter, some Parmigiano and pecorino cheeses, and a good dose of some freshly-ground black pepper. That's all you need in life, you know?

Unless you want to use olive oil instead of butter and throw in some garlic. Then you've got pasta aglio e olio. Another mouth watering dish that's just super simple.

If you want a different flavor profile, you might try pasta al limone. Same basic ingredients – pasta and butter with some lemon juice and lemon zest.

I suppose carbonara could be a “plain” pasta dish. I mean, it's pasta, butter and cheese with bacon and eggs mixed in, but with all the egg tempering and such, it's just too fussy when you're craving something quick and simple.

When I'm just too tired or too uninspired to prepare something complicated, I boil some water, SALT IT, add some pasta, cook until al dente, then ladle it into a pasta bowl, mix in some good quality butter – something like Kerrygold – and season it to taste. Then I kick back and enjoy it while watching TV or reading a book.

As to what kind of pasta? It doesn't really matter. Smaller shapes work best. Something rigate with a little texture to it is even better. Plain old spaghetti or linguine are fine, too. Tube-shaped pastas don't hold light sauces real well. Except ditalini. That one's small and it works okay in this application. Broad noodles like tagliatelle or pappardelle aren't really agreeable with buttery sauces, either. Doesn't mean you can't use them. Just keep extra napkins on hand if you do. I like farfalle or farfalline (aka “bowtie” pasta.) And, of course. I never turn down a bowlful of good ol' buttered wheels.

Rich, exotic, fragrant sauces are beautiful. I swoon over a good marinara or a flavorful amatriciana. A spicy arrabiata is a wonderful thing. And, of course, Bolognese is the gold standard of pasta sauces. But in the rush toward those long-cooking, preparation-heavy concoctions, don't overlook the simple pleasures to be found in a little plain pasta, some butter and some cheese.

Is It Marinara Or Is It Tomato Sauce?

It's More Than “Toe-MAY- toe” or “Toe-MAH-toe”

Tomato season is in full swing and I've got buckets of the delicious little ovoids waiting around to be turned into sauce. But what kind of sauce am I going to make? Will it be marinara or tomato sauce? And what's the difference, anyway?

It's really pretty simple: With a bright, fresh taste, marinara is quicker and easier to make, while tomato sauce possesses a deeper, richer flavor and there is a good deal more involved in its preparation.

Let's start with the variety of tomato that makes the best sauce. You can make tomato sauces out of just about any kind of tomato, but the best “saucing” tomatoes are Romas. A variety of plum tomato, Romas have thicker fruit walls, fewer seeds, and a denser, drier, firmer texture. You can slice them up and eat them raw in a salad or on a sandwich, but they are at their very best when cooked down into a sauce.

The fad in recent years has been to call any Roma tomato a “San Marzano” tomato. You see them labeled that way in cans at the store and I even bought some “San Marzano” seedling plants at the local nursery once. And it's mostly just marketing junk. There is only one true San Marzano tomato and it is grown in the rich volcanic soil near Naples in the Campania region of Italy. Anything else is a San Marzano-style or San Marzano type. The kind you can grow in your backyard that bear the “San Marzano” name are just offshoots of the common Roma tomato that have a thinner skin and a pointier shape than the real thing. And the ones in the can used to be called “Italian-style tomatoes” until San Marzano became the marketing buzzword of choice. Oh, you can buy authentic San Marzanos in cans. Look for the “D.O.P.” seal that certifies the product has been produced in its protected designated area of origin. Anything else is a San Marzano style or type. They grow them in California and I can grow them in my garden. Are they going to taste the same as the real ones? Nope.

So, if I wanted to transform my bumper crop of Romas into tomato sauce, there a a couple of ways I could go. I could embrace my French-ness and do a sauce tomate, one of Escoffier's “mother sauces.” This one is a beast that starts with a roux and incorporates vegetables, herbs, beef or veal stock, and pork fat along with the tomatoes. And it's going to take two or three hours to make. And the result is thick, rich, and flavorful. And it's okay on spaghetti but it's lousy on pizza. Too overpoweringly “tomato-y.”

Same for tomato sauce. Traditional tomato sauce is almost like a stew in that it uses a ton of ingredients and it takes a long time to cook. And it's labor-intensive. Why do you think Italian nonne work on it for entire Sunday afternoons? You start out with a soffrito of carrots, celery, and onions – all of which you have to mince up first. You cook that up in some olive oil and then you start adding in the garlic and the oregano and the basil and the salt and pepper, and, of course, the tomatoes, which you leave whole and then crush them up by hand as you add them to the sauce. Simmer it for three hours or more until you can almost stand a spoon up in it and you've got a sauce that is thick, deeply sweet, and very rich. You can throw some pepperoncino in there to make it into an arrabiata sauce or you can add in some vodka for a – you guessed it – vodka sauce. There are lots of things you can do with a good basic tomato sauce – if you have the time and energy to make it.

My Roma bounty is going to become marinara. Four ingredients, twenty minutes or so, and it's ready to lend its bright, fresh flavor to everything from pasta dishes to pizza to a dipping sauce for mozzarella sticks. It's a flavor profile that enhances a dish with a light hint of tomato rather than overwhelming it with heavy richness.

Lots of colorful theories abound regarding the origin of marinara. All of them have something to do with the sea – mare, in Italian. Some say it was cooks aboard Neapolitan ships who came up with the sauce. Others offer that it was the wives of returning Neapolitan sailors who originally cooked it up. In any case, it's been around since shortly after Spanish explorers introduced American tomatoes to European palates in the sixteenth century. In fact, Italians were among the first to grow and consume the strange new fruit that many Europeans considered poisonous until well into the nineteenth century.

And, while we're at it, STOP MISPRONOUNCING IT!! It makes my ears bleed every time I go into a so-called “Italian” restaurant and hear people ordering “mare-uh-NARE-uh.”AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHH! That horrible flat “a” sound is like nails on a blackboard to me. And to any Italian speaker. Italian is a lyrical language of fluid beauty. “Mare-uh-NARE-uh” is about as fluid as a clogged toilet. The thing is, Italians are impeccably polite when it comes to people massacring their native language. Most of them won't correct you for even the most egregious mispronunciations. Fortunately, my Italian heritage is tempered by a good dose of French, and those folks will rip you a new one in a heartbeat for linguistic crimes and misdemeanors. So listen up, morphological miscreants, the word is pronounced “mah-ree-NAH-rah.” And if you can roll the “r”s a little, so much the better. English is in the global minority when it comes to having long vowel sounds. The rest of the world – Italy included – does quite well without them, thank you, relying instead on the broad "a," pronounced like the "a" in "father" or "water." So it's “mah-ree-NAH-rah” not “mare-uh-NARE-uh.” Please!

Okay. Off the soapbox and back to the recipe book.

All you've got to do for a great marinara is to heat up a little olive oil and cook some minced garlic in it for about a minute – burned garlic is a very bad thing – before adding in crushed tomatoes and some fresh basil. Stir it up and season to taste with salt and maybe a tiny bit of crushed red pepper flake, then simmer it for fifteen or twenty minutes, stirring occasionally, and ecco! You've got a bright, sweet, fresh, delicious sauce all ready for your pizza or pasta dish. It's going to be a little thinner than traditional tomato sauce, but it's supposed to be. Who needs Ragu or Prego or whatever else comes in a jar, right?

Two ingredients to mention: sugar and butter. Some people have had their tastebuds ruined by excessive amounts of sugar. If you crave that sugary-sweet taste you get in some store-bought products, then add a pinch of sugar to your sauce, especially if you're making marinara. Tomato sauce has carrots in the base soffrito and they add a lot of natural sweetness. But tomatoes are already pretty sweet, so don't overdo it. And adding a small knob or pat of butter can smooth out the flavor and texture of a sauce and give it a nice glossy finish. Nice but not necessary.

Oh, and did I mention that uniquely Italian-American creation called “gravy?” You're right. I didn't. Because “gravy” doesn't exist in Italian culture. It's wholly a creation of Italian immigrants who wanted to better “fit in” to their new American homes. They saw that Americans poured meat-based gravy over their food, so these newly-minted Italian-Americans called their hearty tomato and tomato-based sauces “gravy” so they'd look and sound more American. Simple as that. Don't believe me? Go to Italy and ask for gravy on your pasta. They'll seat you in the crazy corner with the folks who ask for spaghetti and meatballs and fettuccine Alfredo.

Okay, as mentioned, I've got a gardenful of nice, fresh Roma tomatoes. And I'll be making sauce for the rest of the summer. But what will I do in, say, January? Same thing the other pros do; I'll go buy some canned tomatoes. Only a rabid purist or a complete idiot will tell you that canned tomatoes are inferior to fresh ones for making sauce. As a cook and occasional restaurateur, I can promise you that the tomatoes in the sauce you're eating at your favorite red-sauce place came out of a Number 10 can from a rack of Number 10 cans in the pantry and not from some farmers market or fairy tale garden out in back of the restaurant. Nope. Nothing whatsoever wrong with using canned tomatoes for marinara or tomato sauce. Just watch the quality. If you can score authentic D.O.P. San Marzanos, go for it. Otherwise, good tomatoes from brands like Cento are just fine. As with everything, you get what you pay for.

Now, go out there and grab some tomatoes – canned or fresh – and get saucy! 

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!

Want To Make The Kitchen Less Stressful? Follow Anthony Bourdain's “Religion”

A Place For Everything.......

I hear it all the time: “Why don't you open a restaurant?” My answer is usually along the lines of  “been there, done that” and besides, I like to cook. Nothing will spoil a love of cooking faster than running a restaurant. I'll bet I didn't want to go near a stove for six months after the last place I got out of. No, I'm perfectly happy with the occasional work I get as a personal chef and doing some small time catering here and there. But even at that I hear, “I just don't know how you do it. I could never deal with all that pressure.” Or, “Cooking is so stressful!” And for those who feel that way, I suppose it is. But the reason they feel cooking is such a stressful, pressure-ridden chore is because they are such a hopelessly disorganized mess. I've seen some of these people in action in the kitchen and it stresses me out just to watch them. But it doesn't have to be that way. The secret to calm, confident, efficient, and fun cooking is organization. The pros call it “mise en place.”

Mise en place (me-zahn-plahs) is one of those fancy French terms you learn in culinary school. The term literally translates to “setting in place” or “putting in place,” and the concept itself is ridiculously simple: everything has a place and you just need to get organized before you start. Mise en place is a method or a state of mind that, when properly and consistently applied in any kitchen, results in a smooth-flowing, time saving cooking process, thus enabling even a beginning home cook to efficiently produce delicious, quality meals. No pressure, no stress. The late chef Anthony Bourdain often referred to mise en place as his "religion."

Let's prepare some spaghetti sauce, okay? And we're gonna do it right; we're not gonna open a jar, were gonna make the sauce from scratch. “Oh, no!,” I hear you wail. “That's such a mess!” Nah-h-h. Not if you do it right.

First and most importantly, you need to read your recipe. All of it. All the way through. Ingredients and procedure. If you don't, you're setting yourself up for potential problems and stress.

Here's a sauce recipe of Rocco DiSpirito's that I particularly like:

3 cloves garlic, crushed

1/2 yellow onion, peeled and chopped fine

3 tbsp olive oil

2 (28-ounce) cans tomato puree

1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes

1 tbsp tomato paste

1 tsp sugar

1 cup chicken stock

Red pepper flakes to taste

Salt to taste

In a large saucepan, cook the garlic and onion in the olive oil over medium-low heat for about 10 minutes or until the garlic is tender and the onions are translucent, not brown. Add the red pepper flakes to taste.

Add all the tomato products. Pour the chicken stock into one of the 28-oz cans. Fill it the rest of the way with water and add that and the sugar to the pot. Stir and bring to a simmer. Taste and season with salt and cover. Simmer the sauce for about 1 hour. The sauce should be fairly thin, but not watery and very smooth. Uncover and simmer for 3 minutes if it is too thin for your taste; add a little water if it seems thick.

Okay, did you read all that? If you did, you found out you're going to need ten ingredients, five of which are canned, jarred, or bottled and two of which will require cutting and/or chopping. So you'll need a can opener, a knife, and a cutting surface, right? A couple of things need to be measured, so that means measuring cups and spoons. You need a saucepan with a cover and a couple of spoons, one to stir with and one to use for tasting. And you need to allow about an hour for cooking. And don't forget to include some additional time up front for all the prep work.

Now, I know a lot of folks who would look at that recipe and proceed like this: they would start by going to the shelf or cupboard for a saucepan. Then they walk over to the stove and place it on a burner. Then they go over to the pantry and find some olive oil and carry it back to the stove. Next, they hunt for some measuring spoons and then head back to the stove to measure in the oil. Now it's back to the pantry again to get some garlic and then a search for a knife or a garlic press. The knife is easy: that's in the drawer with the silverware. But where in the world is that garlic press? Oh, yeah. It's under the cabinet with the aluminum foil and the cereal. Once the garlic is crushed, it's back to the pantry for an onion. Then they locate a cutting board somewhere and go back to the counter where they left the knife. After they chop the onion, they go back to the stove and turn on the burner. Now they add in the garlic and onion and then they look for a wooden spoon with which to stir it. Then it's back to the pantry for the tomato products, moving quickly so the garlic and onions don't burn. Find the can opener in the same cabinet where the garlic press was and open all the cans of tomato product. Ooops! Forgot the red pepper flakes! Back to the pantry. Guess what? No red pepper flakes. Too late now. We'll just have to leave them out. So, now the tomato products are in. Back to the pantry for the chicken stock. Locate the can opener again and open the can. Find a measuring cup – it's in the drawer with the dish towels – and measure out the stock. Over to the sink to get some water then back to the pantry for the sugar. Find the measuring spoons again and measure out the sugar, then go back over to the sink and get the can with the stock and the water. Then over to the stove to dump it all in the pan and stir it up. Go get the salt shaker off the dining room table and then go back to the stove to add the salt to the sauce. Go over to the silverware drawer and get a spoon, then step back over to the stove to taste the sauce. Now, just figure out which lid fits the pan, cover it and the hard part is done! Whew!

That was way harder than it needed to be. And if that's anywhere near your method, no wonder you hate to cook.

Have you ever watched a cooking show on TV and noticed that the chef had all the pots, pans and tools right at hand and all the ingredients neatly laid out in little bowls so they could just dump the prepared contents of the bowls into the waiting pans and create perfect dishes? That's the way the big time TV chefs do it, baby. You don't see them running back to the fridge for a carrot, now do you? Nope. A whole bunch of people in the prep kitchen make sure that everything is laid out and ready before the host chef ever smiles at the camera. That's why it looks so easy on TV. Emeril might be the one to “bam!” his way through the recipe, but there's a lot of folks working off camera to make sure that his mise en place is set up the way he needs it. Well, in your kitchen, you're the prep cook.

Here's the way it should go: after you've read the recipe, clear the decks. Prepare your work area. Get rid of junk and clutter that will only get in your way as you try to work. Clean off counters and work spaces and clean up any dirty dishes you've got lying around. If you start work in a dirty, cluttered, disorganized kitchen, you're just ratcheting up the stress level.

Now set about gathering your ingredients and your equipment. Most kitchen disasters happen when you get halfway through preparing a dish only to discover that you don't have a necessary ingredient. It's those "Darn! I thought I had some of that" surprises that can ruin a cooking experience. To say nothing of a dish.

After you've got your ingredient ducks in a row, work on your equipment. Any necessary pots or pans as well as measuring cups, spoons, mixing bowls, blenders, choppers, spatulas, etc. Get them all together in one place so you're not running all over the kitchen after them.

Open all the cans, measure out all the liquid and dry ingredients and place them in handy prep bowls or containers. You know what works well for me? I love the little plastic cups from individual serving fruits or applesauce. You know, the kind you pack in lunches. I've got stacks of 'em and they make great prep cups. Chop up the vegetables and put them in prep bowls or containers. This is called making things "cooking ready." If you have ingredients that are going to be cooked at the same time, such as in a mirepoix or soffrito, it's okay to combine them at this stage. Now, you just assemble all the prepared ingredients into the prepared cookware and you're done with the hard part, except it wasn't nearly as hard because you were organized from the start.

Running all over the kitchen looking for the salt or a baking pan or a wooden spoon after you've started your recipe wastes time and energy. Preparing ahead of time allows you to cook without having to stop and assemble items, important in recipes with time constraints. Mise en place also allows you to cook in an orderly fashion. Let's face it, trying to chop the carrots while the onions are sauteing is a good way to foul up both. Poor preparation usually leads to poor outcomes. And mise en place is particularly beneficial if you are preparing more than one recipe or one with multiple steps. For instance, if my wife is baking an Italian cream cake, I'll set up her “mise” for her so that all the ingredients for the cake are laid out in one area, the stuff for the chocolate ganache is set up in another area, and the ingredients for the frosting are prepped and waiting in another spot. Having everything laid out in advance enables her to move efficiently from one preparation step to the next, just like those TV chefs!

Another huge and often overlooked aspect of mise en place involves clean up. Since mise en place starts and ends with everything in its place, an essential part of the process is cleaning up as you go. Don't let dishes stack up and accumulate as you're cooking. Clean them up and put them away as you use them. Mess equals stress. Clean as you go. That way, when you're finished cooking, instead of a daunting pile of dirty dishes and cookware, you have a complete meal, a clean kitchen and a low stress level. Win, win! And your kitchen is ready for the next round.

Honestly, I cannot fathom how some people function in kitchens that are disorganized to begin with with and wind up looking like war zones by the time they finish cooking a meal. I am acquainted with several people who just throw things into drawers and cabinets without regard to what goes with what. Mixing bowls live with canned goods, plastic wrap resides with frying pans, silverware inhabits two or three separate drawers. Yeesh! People, the department stores are full of nifty organizers to help you put your kitchen together more efficiently. If I had to go on safari every time I needed a measuring spoon, I'd probably get sick of cooking, too.

And then there are the people who employ every dish in the kitchen in the preparation of a meal and just stack all the used cookware in tremendous piles. I kid you not, I once knew a woman who stacked her dirty dishes on the floor when she ran out of sink and counter space. I don't have to tell you how nasty that is, do I? And then these people survey the nightmare they've created in the simple preparation of a pot of spaghetti and wail about what a chore cooking is! Please!

My drawers, cabinets, and countertops are neat and organized and I know where everything is. I don't have baked on messes on my cooktop because if something spills or boils over while I'm cooking, I clean it up on the spot. I keep a sink full of hot, soapy water on hand as I'm preparing dishes and as I use a pan or a bowl or a utensil, I wash it and put it away. The stand mixer and the food processor get cleaned and put back in their corners as soon as I'm through with them. When I finish preparing a four-course meal, my sink, countertops, and stovetop don't look much different than when I started. A place for everything and everything in its place.

Admittedly, on the surface mise en place sounds like a lot of extra time, extra work, and extra dishes. But it's really not and it's also the best route to less stressful cooking. Proper preparation will make any cooking experience a more efficient, productive, and enjoyable one. And the confidence you gain from being more efficient and productive may lead you to try more ambitious and more flavorful recipes, making you an all around better cook. And one who's considerably less stressed.

Mise en place – “set in place.” If, like Anthony Bourdain, you make it your “religion” in the kitchen, cooking will never again seem like such a stressful chore.

Buon appetito!

All About Macaroni & Cheese

Stuck A Feather In His Cap And Called It Macaroni

Easily one of America's favorite comfort foods, macaroni and cheese is certainly one of mine. I learned how to make it at the age of seven or eight and I've been turning it out on a regular basis ever since. Of course, in those callow days of youth I did what almost everybody else did in the 1960s: I opened up the blue box from Kraft, poured the pasta into boiling water, cooked it for the prescribed amount of time, drained it and then mixed in a little butter, a little milk and that packet of unnatural orange “cheese” powder.

My infatuation with the dish ramped up when I discovered Stouffer's frozen macaroni and cheese sometime in the late '60s. Wow! Goodbye blue box, hello red one! Talk about macaroni and cheese at the next level! Believe me, I've since learned much better ways of making macaroni and cheese. But even so, there still lurk in my pantry and freezer microwavable cups of Easy Mac and a box or two of Stouffer's. So sue me. Three-and-a-half to six minutes and I'm transported back more than a half-century to Mom's kitchen and the familiar tastes I grew up with. Or, at least, reasonable facsimiles thereof.

But how did we all come to be so enamored of macaroni and cheese in the first place? Hold on as I guide you through a culinary journey with more twists than cavatappi.

Macaroni and cheese has its roots in Italy. In fact, there's an Italian idiom for things that go together naturally: “come il cacio su'maccheroni” (like cheese on macaroni). But the creamy, cheddary version we serve in the United States is practically unknown in Italy. When Italian cooks put “cheese on macaroni,” it's generally Parmigiano-Reggiano or asiago or pecorino or some other Italian cheese. Cheddar and American cheeses are not particularly popular.

The earliest known reference to the dish in Italy dates back to a late thirteenth century cookbook, anonymously authored in Latin, Liber de coquina. In it we find a recipe for de lasanis, which many consider to be the first “macaroni and cheese” recipe. The recipe employed lasagne sheets made from fermented dough, cut into two-inch squares, cooked in water and tossed with grated cheese, probably the aforementioned Parmigiano-Reggiano. The recipe's author suggested using powdered spices and layering the sheets with the cheese if desired, just as we would today when making lasagne.

According to the famous fourteenth century English cookbook, the Forme of Cury, a cheese and pasta casserole known as makerouns was made with hand-cut pasta layers sandwiched between a mixture of melted butter and cheese.

The first recipe that we would recognize as macaroni and cheese was included in Elizabeth Raffald's 1770 book, The Experienced English Housekeeper. That recipe calls for a Béchamel sauce with cheddar cheese – technically a Mornay sauce if you want to be all French about it – which is mixed with the macaroni, sprinkled with Parmesan, and baked until bubbly and golden.

They even had macaroni and cheese in France in the late eighteenth century. And why not? The Italian chefs of Caterina de Medici did teach the French to cook, after all. (I know, I know! That's a myth. But it's a fun myth because it annoys the French.) Anyway, the most popular story of how macaroni and cheese crossed the ocean to American shores involves Paris, Naples, and the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson.

The story goes that Jefferson visited France and Italy in 1787. Basing in Paris, he traveled extensively through the south of France and Italy, writing to his friend and ambassador to Paris William Short, “architecture, painting, sculpture, antiquities, agriculture, the condition of the labouring poor fill all my moments.” Well, maybe not all of them. He also closely observed the local culture, including, of course, food and wine. Jefferson became enamored of the pasta dishes he encountered in his journeys. In 1789, he commissioned Short to purchase a pasta making machine for him. Short acquired one in Naples and had it shipped to Paris. Jefferson likely returned home before the machine reached him, but it was inventoried among his possessions at Monticello in 1793. There the soon-to-be president drew sketches of his favorite pastas and the device that made them and wrote detailed notes on the extrusion process as he observed it in his travels. Evidently, the machine he ordered did not meet his requirements as he later was known to import both macaroni and Parmesan cheese from Italy for his use at Monticello. In 1802, now-President Jefferson served “a pie called macaroni” at a state dinner. At least one of the guests, Rev. Mannaseh Cutler, was not impressed. “Dined at the President's... Dinner not as elegant as when we dined before. [Among other dishes] a pie called macaroni, which appeared to be a rich crust filled with the strillions of onions, or shallots, which I took it to be, tasted very strong, and not agreeable. Mr. [Merriwether] Lewis told me there were none in it; it was an Italian dish, and what appeared like onions was made of flour and butter, with a particularly strong liquor mixed with them.”

Some like to say that Jefferson “introduced” macaroni and cheese to America, and that's not quite accurate. As noted, there were recipes for variations circulating as early as 1770. But his affection for the dish certainly helped popularize it among his countrymen. He even wrote out a favorite macaroni recipe in his own hand:

6 eggs. yolks & whites.
2 wine glasses of milk
2 lb of flour
a little salt
work them together without water, and very well.
roll it then with a roller to a paper thickness
cut it into small peices which roll again with the hand into long slips, & then cut them to a proper length.
put them into warm water a quarter of an hour.
drain them.
dress them as maccaroni.
but if they are intended for soups they are to be put in the soup & not into warm water

Note the instruction “dress them as maccaroni.” Before we move on, let's take a second to look at “macaroni.”

When we think of “macaroni” today we usually think of the familiar “elbows,” right? But up until fairly recent times, the word “macaroni,” the plural form of the Italian “maccherone,” used to apply to pretty much any form of pasta, especially the short tubular varieties. While each individual shape may have had its own individual name, collectively it was all “macaroni.” And the word didn't always apply only to pasta. In eighteenth century Britain, anybody seen to be dandified or overdressed in foppish Italian fashions and wigs was derisively referred to as a “macaroni.” You didn't really think the old “Yankee Doodle” line “stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni” was talking about pasta, did you? (If you did you wouldn't be alone.)

Although American macaroni and cheese started out as a novelty dish for the well-to-do seated at the Presidential table, it didn't take long for its popularity to spread to the masses. A recipe for a preparation actually called “macaroni and cheese” showed up in Mary Randolph's highly influential 1824 cookbook, The Virginia Housewife. Randolph's recipe called for three ingredients: macaroni, cheese, and butter, layered together and baked in a hot oven. Other recipes began to appear in popular publications such as Godey's Lady's Book. By the turn of the century, macaroni and cheese casseroles were being turned out in kitchens across America, aided by readily available and affordable ingredients made possible by factory production. And as macaroni and cheese became “common,” it lost its cachet among the elite.

Even though macaroni and cheese was now accessible, it still wasn't necessarily popular. It had not yet achieved the “comfort food” status it currently holds. That came along thanks to Kraft.

In the midst of the Great Depression, when Americans were seeking food options that were filling but affordable, Kraft Foods stepped up to the plate – no pun intended. James Lewis “J.L.” Kraft had pioneered the method for “processing” and powdering cheese around 1916. According to Sasha Chapman, writing in The Walrus in 2012, “The idea for boxed macaroni and cheese came during the Depression, from a salesman in St. Louis who wrapped rubber bands around packets of grated Kraft cheese and boxes of pasta and persuaded retailers to sell them as a unit.” Kraft started producing boxes of macaroni and cheese under the name “Kraft Dinner” in 1937. The contents of the box – a measured amount of pasta and a paper packet of powdered cheese – could feed a family of four for about nineteen cents. Kraft sold eight million boxes right out of the box. Again, no pun intended. This convenience and economy became increasingly popular a few years later when WWII rationing began to pinch family budgets and food options. Fifty million yellow boxes of Kraft's product were sold during the war years. The now ubiquitous blue boxes came into being in 1954, by which time “Kraft” and “macaroni and cheese” were practically synonymous.

Frozen foods began to make inroads into the dominance of canned and packaged goods about that same time, and macaroni and cheese proved to be an instant hit in the freezer case. My favorite, the previously mentioned Stouffer's, began appearing in select grocery outlets in the early 1960s and expanded to a more general market as the decade progressed. Originally developed by an Ohio-based restaurant, Stouffer's was initially considered a “high end” product, but by the end of the decade it was showing up in stores and on dinner tables across the board. Swanson's also marketed frozen macaroni and cheese as did numerous other manufacturers, including Boston Market and Amy's, but Stouffer's was always somehow a cut above. Sadly, Stouffer's has been bought and sold a couple of times over the years and the quality of the product has suffered significantly. It just doesn't taste the same anymore. It lacks that fresh, sharp cheddar flavor it had before the company started cheaping up on ingredients. But take heart! Believe it or not, the macaroni and cheese served at IKEA tastes almost like Stouffer's used to.

Today, macaroni and cheese – often abhorrently abbreviated to “mac & cheese” – is everywhere in many forms. The old blue box is still on store shelves along with its microwavable counterpart. Chef Boyardee puts macaroni and cheese in cans. Frozen product, from individual serving cups up through ginormous “family size” packages, competes for freezer space everywhere from the supermarket to the big box discount place to the corner convenience store. And more and more cooks are eschewing the frozen, canned, and packaged options in favor of returning to the dish's traditional roots: cook the pasta, make the cheese sauce, serve the dish hot and fresh to grateful eaters.

There are even food trucks and restaurants serving nothing but variations on macaroni and cheese. Take for example S'Mac (short for Sarita's Macaroni & Cheese) in Manhattan's East Village. It bills itself as “an exciting eatery specializing in macaroni & cheese.” I ate at another such place, Mr. Mac's in Portsmouth, NH. Mr. Mac's – with several locations in New Hampshire and Massachusetts – lays claim to “the best comfort food on the planet, with fresh ingredients all made hot and delicious to order. Perfect family dining, or to-go!” Indeed, we picked up one of their “take and bake” family-size portions for our holiday dinner table and it was quite good. On the other coast, Elbow's Mac N' Cheese serves “the best mac n' cheese” along with another of my favorites, grilled cheese sandwiches. But, darn, they use that unfortunate abbreviation.

Along with the eateries dedicated only to macaroni and cheese, there are tons of places that are famous for featuring the dish as part of their menu. Some are even infamous, a word used to describe the macaroni and cheese at Humpback Sally's in Bismarck, ND. Boston's Yankee Lobster Company serves a rich, creamy macaroni and cheese, studded with lobster plucked from ocean-fed aquariums on site. And Beecher's Handmade Cheese in Seattle proclaims it has the “World's Best Mac and Cheese.” Maybe, but there's that abbreviation again and besides, IKEA might give them a run for the title.

And if none of those float your boat, go out and get the following ingredients at your local supermarket: macaroni, cheese, milk, and butter. Macaroni and cheese is one of the most stupid simple, entry-level cooking dishes in the culinary world. As with everything else, if you want it to taste like one of those fancy high-end dishes, use the best quality ingredients. If you don't care that it tastes like something out of a box or a can, use cheap ingredients. It's up to you. There's no reason you can't make your own and then customize it to make it your own. My wife likes Velveeta as the primary cheese; I use sharp cheddar in mine. She uses milk, I use milk and cream or half-and-half. We both agree – as do experienced cooks everywhere – that butter is the only way to go. The only use margarine should have in your kitchen is perhaps to grease the hinges on your cabinet doors. And, of course, use the best pasta you can find. De Cecco or Barilla are the best supermarket choices if you don't happen to live next door to an Italian market. As for the method of preparation, that's up to you, too. My wife's not big on baked macaroni and cheese. She prefers to make it on the stovetop. Okay by me. As long as there's macaroni and cheese in it, I like it either way.

Oh, and remember, macaroni is pasta and the only way to properly cook pasta is in lots of water with lots of salt. Doesn't matter if you use imported European butter and organic milk and artisan cheese that costs twenty dollars a pound in the sauce, if your pasta lacks flavor – flavor it can only get from being cooked in aggressively salted water – you might as well be eating the stuff out of the can or the box.

You'll have to excuse me now: I'm really hungry all of a sudden.