At Last! It May Soon Be Illegal To Massacre Italian Words!

There's No “American Way.” Wrong Is Wrong.

As regular readers know, I have long been on a quixotic quest to stamp out the egregious mispronunciation of Italian words. Italian is such a beautiful, flowing, melodious, language that it makes my ears bleed to hear some flat-accented English-speaker ask for “broo-SHET-uh” in an Italian restaurant. Brits and some Canadians with their bowls of “PAST-uh” (rhymes with LAST-uh) and Americans who put “mare-uh-NARE-uh” sauce on it make me want to run screaming into the night.

“Oh, well, that's just the American way of saying it.” Yeah. And it's also the WRONG way of saying it. I am fond of quoting French author and critic Anatole France who once said, “If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.” There's no “American way” or “British way” or whatever. There's simply a right way and a wrong way.

And maybe soon the Italian government will back me up. Under new legislation being introduced by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the Italian Culture Ministry would set up a committee to monitor the “correct use of the Italian language and its pronunciation” in schools, media, commerce, and advertising. This means that “mare-uh-NARE-uh” miscreants could be fined somewhere between $5,000 and $100,000 for mutilating the most lyrical language on Earth.

Unfortunately, the penalties would only apply in Italy.

The fantasy that such a law could be enforced in the US is drool-inducing. For one thing, it would enrich the coffers of Italy beyond the dreams of avarice. And it would end the endless aural assault on my nerves. Just think! I could finally enter an Italian eatery without cringing every time somebody ordered a plate of “spug-ETTY mare-uh-NARE-uh” with a side of “broo-SHET-uh.” It would be wonderful! Meraviglioso!

But, alas......it's only a dream.

I get little support among my native Italian friends in America because Italians are inherently too polite to correct anybody. Fortunately, my Italian heritage is tempered by a strong dose of French and everybody knows that the French will slap you silly over the slightest mispronunciation of a syllable.

And fuhgeddabout any sympathy from Italian-Americans. They are among the worst offenders what with their “gabagool” and “moozarell” and “rigott.” Interesting fact: most Italian-Americans don't actually speak a word of standard Italian, relying instead on the garbled dialect words and phrases passed down by their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. I saw this in action myself recently when a New Yorker opened a little Italian-American cafe nearby. He tossed one of those dialect words at me in describing a dish on offer. When I responded by asking, “è fatta in casa?” (is it homemade?), he looked at me like I'd grown a third eye. My “non parli italiano?” was met with, “I don't speak Italian. We just always call it 'gabaladina'.” No wonder I didn't know what the hell he was talking about. Everybody else calls it “caponata.”

See why Italy would make a mint if it was able to enforce proper pronunciation worldwide?

And I really don't understand why the Italian language gets the old “it's the American pronunciation” treatment when other languages are strictly adhered to in the US. For instance, even the most linguistically limited American can go into Taco Bell and perfectly pronounce “quesadilla.” I have yet to hear the guy who says “mare-uh-NARE-uh” down at the Italian joint say “kwes-uh-DILL-uh” over at the Mexican place. (Okay. My wife's grandfather used to say “TACK-oh,” but he was the exception,) Nobody orders “FILL-it MIG-non” anywhere, do they? Most people take the time to learn that when ordering soup in a Vietnamese restaurant, it's pronounced “fuh” and not “foe”. Spanish, French, Vietnamese, Japanese, Chinese, German.......all get their due respect in terms of proper pronunciation. But Italian? Nah. Say it any old way you want and just fall back on “that's the American pronunciation.” I don't get it.

So, back to that proposed legislation in Italy, the bill would also try to combat the use of English and other foreign words in official communications. Apparently “Anglomania” is becoming a problem, with random English words, phrases, acronyms, and names creeping into the official Italian lexicon, something that the bill's sponsors say “demeans and mortifies” the Italian language. Wow! If they want to be mortified, let them come to the States and sit in an Italian restaurant for an hour or so. They'll go back to il bel paese and wash out their ears.

“I'd like a KAL-zone with some ex-PRESS-oh, please. And maybe a bowl of min-uh-STRONE, too. GRAT-zee.” Uffa! It just made my fingers hurt to type that.

Buona fortuna, Italia. You're going to hear a lot of gobbledygook about how languages are “living things” that “evolve” and that pronunciations change through “common usage.” Yeah. Well stick evolution in your ear, Darwin, and stop leaning on “common usage” as an excuse for intellectual laziness. Mispronunciations of “marinara,” “bruschetta,” “calzone,” et.al are not high-flown “evolution through common usage.” They are just plain wrong. Foolish, even. And you know what Anatole France and I have to say about foolish things, right?

Another Restaurant Bans Kids, Another Whiner Whines

We Are the Many, You Are the One

Okay, so an Italian place in New Jersey, a place called Nettie's House of Spaghetti, has joined a growing list of eateries making the decision to limit or outright ban children from the premises. In this case, beginning in March, no kiddies under ten years of age will be allowed. Here's the statement they issued:

“We love kids. We really, truly, do. But lately, it’s been extremely challenging to accommodate children at Nettie’s. Between noise levels, lack of space for high chairs, cleaning up crazy messes, and the liability of kids running around the restaurant, we have decided that it’s time to take control of the situation. This wasn’t a decision that was made lightly, but some recent events have pushed us to implement this new policy. As of March 8, the day we return from our winter break, we will no longer allow children under 10 to dine in the restaurant.

We know that this is going to make some of you very upset, especially those of you with very well-behaved kids, but we believe this is the right decision for our business moving forward.

Thank you for understanding.”

Ah, but not everybody understands and the whiners have begun whining. Some are complaining on the restaurant's social media – “That is really sad to hear .. I was looking forward to trying out your place but with a well behaved 9 year old I’m not welcome .. sad ..” And that's to be expected. It's happening everywhere and I probably would have just let this story pass as a non-story had it not been for a lengthy screed I saw in Bon Appetit in which the writer not only decries the ban but posits that restaurants that ban kids are “missing the point of restaurants.”

In this writer's view, restaurants are apparently supposed to be training grounds in a child's social development. By banishing them to fast food joints and places like Chuck E. Cheese, it seems we are all somehow responsible for stunting their social growth.

The writer exhorts that a restaurant is “a perfect place for parents to teach their kids how to be people around other people, and the perfect place to teach parents how to shepherd their kids through the world. It’s the ideal environment, too, for non-parents to remember that they are part of a community, and that by tolerating kids in their space, and doing so with patience and kindness, they are upholding their own stake in the future of the greater community.”

Wow! And I thought I was just going in for a nice plate of spaghetti that I could consume in relative peace and quiet. I had no idea that “the future of the greater community” hung in the balance.

Look, there are a couple of key issues that are being overlooked here, both by the savior of the “greater community” and by the parent of the well-behaved nine-year-old child, chief of which can be summed up by another commenter on Nettie's Facebook page: “… having worked in the industry since I was 14, I’ve never seen anything like I have in the recent past. Kids are out of control and most parents are oblivious. The disregard for manners and common decency is unreal.”

Bingo! THAT'S why restaurants are banning kids. Because too many undisciplined kids are brats and too many oblivious parents are imbeciles. And it is, as the commenter commented, a fairly recent phenomenon.

I grew up in the late fifties and early sixties. My kids grew up in the eighties and early nineties. When my mom took me to a restaurant and when I took my kids to a restaurant, the expectations were the same as they were at home: come to the table, sit down, shut up and eat. You don't scream, you don't play, you don't run around like a rat on acid. You sit down, you shut up, and you eat. After which you can be excused and you can go to your room or you can go outside and scream and play and run around all you want. But you're not gonna do it at the table, whether that table be in the dining room at home or in the dining room of a restaurant. Them's the rules.

And I never had the least bit of trouble enforcing those rules. Neither did my mom. Something inherent, maybe? I don't know. I just know that there were many occasions on which I was complimented for my kids' behavior in restaurants. I didn't beat them, I didn't threaten them, I didn't scream at them. I didn't have to. Neither did Mom have to do those things to me. My kids and I were, as the Nettie's commenter described, “well-behaved.”

Let's be honest: in most households today, the inmates run the asylum. The kids make the rules and mom and dad just go along with them because it's easier and less threatening than dealing firmly with the misbehavior. You want to talk about sad.....that's the definition of sad. But it's true.

And now you want to bring your misbehaving brat into my restaurant so he can run around and be a general nuisance to all my other customers while you sit obliviously by? And more than a nuisance, a liability? Here's something from Nettie's management: “It’s become a liability to us - kids running around the restaurant in circles when we’re trying to carry trays of food and drinks has made doing our jobs extremely difficult.” Not to mention dangerous.

So your little angel darts out in front of my server carrying a tray of hot soup or coffee or something. And your sweet, darling, inoffensive baby, who was, after all, just being a child, winds up with second and third degree burns. Who are you gonna sue? Certainly not yourself for being a rotten, overindulgent parent. Am I right?

The savior of the future of the greater community further claims that “we have to more critically think about what role restaurants play in our communities, and who gets to be included. If you’re looking to feel like god for the price of an entree, and you feel like the presence of kids disrupts that experience, and that is the reason why you don’t want kids in restaurants, then your relationship to restaurants is broken.”

Excuse my Italian, but vaffanculo! Considering the price of an entree these days, you're DAMN RIGHT I expect to “feel like god.” Or, at the very least, I expect to have my dining experience respected. Which, sadly, segues into this loony's next paragraph: “If we exclude children from that experience, we’re only further entrenching the worst parts of modern society: everybody believing they’re solo entities, obligated only to their own self-interest, with no idea what it means to bend a little to give way to others, to automatically scoot your chair in so someone can pass behind you. A society full of people who are acting only in their own self interest is a society where everyone—even those who don't particularly like eating dinner next to kids—is doomed.”

DOOMED!! OMG, I don't even know where to begin to unpack this baggage.

Believe me, I'm the first person to scoot my chair in so somebody can pass behind me. But not if that somebody is somebody's screaming, out of control, misbehaving brat, who should be sitting down, shutting up and eating like the rest of civilized society. And don't tell me that the restaurant is the place to learn that civilized behavior. NO! You LEARN it at home and then you PRACTICE it in the restaurant. That's the way preceding generations have done it and if you are truly concerned about the “future of the greater community,” that's the way you should be advocating for it to be done now. Or would you decry that I'm obligated to my own self-interest if I objected to your disrespectful, undisciplined offspring running and screaming up and down the aisles of a movie theater or a church?

I'm sorry. I've got sixty people sitting at tables in my restaurant, acting in their own self-interest and paying a good deal of money for the privilege of doing so. In you walk with your kid-who's-just-being-a-kid and your laissez-faire attitude toward manners and discipline and sixty other folks suddenly have to “bend a little” to give way to you so as to preserve the future of the community? I don't think so. Remember what Mr. Spock said about the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few. Or the one? Sorry, cupcake. We are the many, you are the one. How godlike of us!

And Nettie's alluded to “crazy messes.” I've seen what you and the future of the community have left behind. And I've seen beleaguered servers trying to scrape and clean the results of your lack of discipline off the tables, floors, chairs, and walls. But, hey! You don't have to clean it up so why should you care? Talk about acting in one's own self-interest. If you're so almighty enlightened, why don't you stick around and clean up the mess your brats made?

Okay, I'm ranting now, so I'm gonna quit. Bottom line, after March 8^th, go to Nettie's. Or to anyplace like it that caters to “the worst parts of modern society.” Chances are you'll find me there in my god-like glory acting in my own self-interest and risking the future of the community. Make sure you say “hi.”

First Texas Pete And Now Barilla. Doesn't Anybody Read The Damn Labels?

Watch Out, Chattanooga Bakery. You're Next

I was amused a few days ago when I read of a lawsuit filed by some guy in California who was claiming injury because he discovered that “Texas Pete” hot sauce is not made in Texas but is, in fact, a product of North Carolina.

O-o-o-kay. The Garner family has been making its “Texas Pete” sauce in Winston-Salem, North Carolina since 1929. It's never been made in Texas and nobody ever claimed it was. When the Garners started producing an old family recipe for commercial sale back then, a marketing advisor suggested branding it as “Mexican Joe.” But the all-American Garners wanted an all-American name, so they thought a little north of of the border and then, instead of “Joe,” they tacked on “Pete,” the nickname of one of the Garner boys. Since Western movies and movie cowboys like Tom Mix were all the rage in the early 1930s, they slapped a colorful image of a rootin', tootin', lasso-swingin' wrangler on the label. Thus was “Texas Pete” born.

Fast-forward about a hundred lawsuit-free years and now some dimwit claims that he thought Texas Pete was made in Texas because there's a drawing of a cowboy and the word “Texas” on the front label? Really!? Did this MENSA reject ever think of looking at the back label? The one that says with excruciating clarity, “TW Garner Food Co., Winston-Salem, NC 27105.” The only thing that shocks me more than the abject stupidity of this suit is the fact that it actually got accepted by a court.

Side note: As a result of this pea-brained pagliaccio's trifling tort, interest in and sales of “Texas Pete” have skyrocketed.

And now I see that someone of the same apparent mental acuity is going after Barilla. I don't even know where to start to unpack this one.

Let's begin with the basis of the suit: the pair of brain trusts filing this one say that they were enticed to buy several boxes of Barilla product based on the pasta maker's slogan, “Italy's No. 1 Brand of Pasta,” featured prominently on the front of the box between two images of the Italian flag. Well! It should be obvious that this screams the indisputable fact that the stuff in the box comes straight from the Old Country, giusto? I mean, after all, it says “Italy” on the box and then there's that green, white, and red flag and everything. (Face palm) OMG, I hope these idioti never drive past my office on a day when I'm displaying the bandiera d'Italia on the pole outside. They're likely to sue me for not being the Italian embassy or something.

Okay, I'm looking at a box of Barilla pasta. And yep, there it is. Right there on the front of the box. Between two little Italian flags. “Italy's No. 1 Brand of Pasta.” Now I'm going to turn the box over. Oh, wait! What does it say there on the side? “Barilla America, Inc. Northbrook, IL 60062?” And what else does it say, right under that part? “Made in the U.S.A. with U.S.A. and imported ingredients?” Gee, I guess the loony litigants missed that glaring disclaimer.

I've been writing for years about fake Italian food products masquerading as authentic under the guise of green, white, and red packaging and pseudo-Italian words that end in vowels. The thing is, Barilla is not fake. It's a privately-owned Italian pasta producer headquartered in Parma. And it really is the leading pasta producer in Italy. So what's wrong with displaying that fact on the packaging? How many products ballyhoo themselves as "Number One" or "The Country's Best" or "The World's Finest" or something? These nut bags are suing for false advertisement. But the claim of being Italy's number one brand is not false. 

Barilla has American production plants in Iowa and in New York that utilize the same equipment and processes that they employ in Italy. But in no place on that iconic blue box does the company state that the product in the package was made in Italy. Unless, of course, it was. In that case, the limited products  that are made in Italy and sold in America (Barilla Tortellini and Barilla Oven Ready Lasagne) clearly state, “Product of Italy. Distributed by Barilla America, Inc.” All ya gotta do is read the whole box instead of just looking at the colorful pictures. If it doesn't say “Product of Italy” or “Prodotto d'italia” or if it doesn't bear the PDO/DOP seal designating it as a Protected Designation of Origin/Denominazione Origine Protetta product, then it's not from Italy. Pretty simple. The only thing simpler is suit-happy dullards who can't read labels.

And yet, an even simpler federal judge ruled that the couple suffered “economic injury” and that they presented enough evidence to prove that they wouldn’t have bought the Barilla if they had known it wasn’t made in Italy. Like it says on the f***ing box.

Talk about a slippery slope! Buitoni uses green, white, and red packaging and there are Italian words – “dal 1827, Da Casa Buitoni” – on the label. But Nestlé owns that company and its products are manufactured in Danville, VA. Are they the next ones to be fitted for a lawsuit? What about Ronzoni and San Giorgio? Both are American-based companies. Granted, they don't mimic Italian colors or use Italian verbiage on their packaging, but the names certainly invoke Italy, don't they? And I literally can't count the number of little Italian flags that wave at me from cheap store brands that want to capitalize on Italian identification for their sadly inferior American-made dreck. Are they all liable for deceptive advertising litigation now that Barilla has been targeted?

Barilla says “assurdo.” (Well, the company spokesperson actually said “unfounded,” but I think “absurd” fits better.) They basically said, very politely, of course, “Look at the box, morons,” and then went on to state, “We’re very proud of the brand’s Italian heritage, the company’s Italian know-how, and the quality of our pasta in the U.S. and globally.”

The kooky complaint whines because Barilla doesn’t exclusively use Italian wheat in its products and exploits consumers who are willing to pay more for authentic Italian pasta. Have you priced a box of Barilla lately? Trust me, it ain't nowhere near what you're gonna fork over for “authentic Italian pasta.” Common sense should tell you that. But, unfortunately, common sense isn't all that common anymore. The whiners also gripe that Barilla has an unfair advantage over “lawfully acting competitors” at the expense of “unwitting consumers.” "Unwitting"? Let's try “witless consumers”. Like the ones who are asking an American court to stop an Italian company from using Italy’s likeness in its marketing and on its products. Oh, and, of course, they want monetary compensation because they say they overpaid for the pasta. OVERPAID!!?? Barilla sells for about two bucks a box!! Get me an address for these dipsticks and I'll send them ten bucks so they can drop their stupid suit.

Watch out, Chattanooga Bakery, Inc. You're next. (For the uninitiated reader, Chattanooga Bakery makes Moon Pies. Not on the moon, mind you, but in Tennessee. Aha! Another lawsuit in the offing!)

Okay. My blood pressure is now through the roof and my confidence in humanity is somewhere down in the sub-basement, so I'm going to conclude this diatribe. I'm just going to go out and buy me some North Carolina Texas Pete sauce, some Iowa Barilla pasta, and maybe some Tennessee Moon Pies and chill out. So sue me. 

A Few CHEAP And Easy Tips To Help Keep Your Kitchen Organized

One Man's Trash …

I've written a lot about kitchen and/or cooking organization because it's something I'm really passionate about. And if you've ever read anything I've written on any topic, you'll know I'm usually pretty cheap. Oh, I don't mind spending money on quality necessities, but I do object to spending big bucks on generally useless gadgets and geegaws that, more often than not, wind up in a junk drawer or a “donate to Goodwill” pile.

So let me share with you a few of my favorite cheap and easy ideas for keeping your kitchen neat and organized. You can call them “hacks”.....but I won't. I hate that over-used word for things we used to simply call “tips.”

Easy Appliance Cord Management

Appliance cords are a pain. You can try wrapping them up like the electricians do with their long extension cords. Or you can tie them up with rubber bands or something equally ineffective. Works okay until the rubber band stretches or breaks. I saw some cool-looking thingys on Amazon that looked like little cleats you can attach to your appliance and then wrap the cord around the cleat. Fine if you want a cleat permanently affixed to your toaster or mixer. And they're a bit pricey.

But if you nip down to a decent hardware place, you can pick up something called a “Cable Cuff.” I get mine at Home Depot, but I'm sure they have them elsewhere. Amazon's got 'em. It's an adjustable, reusable plastic clip that's intended to be an alternative to cable ties. It's got serrated teeth and a push-button release. You just wrap up your cord, slip on the cuff, clamp it shut, and.....that's it! Push the button to release the clamp when you want to use the appliance. They come in a variety of sizes to accommodate anything from a skinny little cord to a frickin' tow cable. Well.....maybe not a tow cable, but you get the idea. They're durable. I've had some of mine for years. And they're …. here's my favorite word....cheap. The mini size is about a dollar, the small and medium ones are less than two bucks, and you can get large ones for around three dollars. I wrap up extension cords with them and they live on my KitchenAid mixers (both hand and stand), my fryer, my griddle, my bread machines, my induction cooktop burners, my immersion blender, my immersion circulator, my Instant Pot, my air fryer – pretty much anything in my kitchen that has a cord. They are cheap, easy, and indispensable.

Free Appliance Slider Mat

Speaking of my KitchenAid mixer, that rascal is heavy! Depending on the model, super well-built KitchenAids, with their all-metal construction, weigh in anywhere between twenty and thirty pounds. And that's wonderful for performance and stability. But it's also hernia-inducing, especially if you're storing it on a lower shelf in you cabinet. My sister has one of those nifty spring-loaded lifters built in to her cabinet. When she wants to use her mixer, she can just lift the shelf it's stored on and lock it in place. A hundred, a hundred-fifty, two-hundred dollars for the convenience. No thanks. There's also a cheap plastic solution called a countertop slider. It's a two-piece gadget where the top part slides over the bottom part on little plastic rollers. The one I have is really cheap. It's one of those “As Seen on TV” things and I think I paid $9.99 for it. And I got what I paid for. I use it under my SodaStream because anything heavier than a pound or two just crushes it. It doesn't have a prayer of standing up to my KitchenAid. They also make a so-called “slider mat” just for heavy buggers like mixers and such. It's just a rubber mat with a grippy side on top and a slick side on the bottom. They run about ten to fifteen bucks on Amazon and at the big box stores.

OR...…if you're cheap like I am, just get a dish towel out of the drawer and spread it out on the shelf where you mixer lives. Fold it double if you want but just make sure you leave enough of the towel exposed that you can grab on to an end. Now set your half-ton appliance on it and easily slide the machine to the back of the shelf. When you want to use it, grab that end of the towel you left exposed and pull it forward. Slides like a dream. And it won't cost you a nickel. Of course, you'll still have to lift and lug the thing to wherever you're going to use it, but at least you won't have to wrestle with it in the depths of the cabinet, and that's half the battle won.

Cheap Prep Bowls

You know what prep bowls are right? They are the little bowls the pros use to.....hold their prep. You see them on the TV cooking shows all the time. And, wonder of wonders, you can use them at home, too! You can find sets of glass or metal prep bowls on Amazon or in those overpriced kitchen stores for anywhere from ten to twenty dollars a set. Or you can do what I do: recycle trash.

Surely at some point you've bought little single-serving, lunchbox-size plastic cups of applesauce or fruit or pudding or Jell-O or vegetables or something. Don't toss them in the trash when they're empty. Toss them in the sink, wash them up, and then use them for prep bowls. Most of them are a ½ cup capacity and they are perfect for holding your spices or other ingredients. I have stacks of them in my kitchens and they are an integral part of my mise en place. Whenever I'm cooking, there'll be rows of these little plastic cups containing measured amounts of butter or salt or pepper or sugar or oregano or minced garlic or chopped onions or carrots or whatever. And they're free! Can't get cheaper than that. You don't have to worry about breaking them or denting them like you do with the expensive ones. And if you do somehow mess one up, just go eat some more applesauce.

Cheap Pan Protectors … And More!

I have a pretty large collection of cookware. In years past, it hung on pot racks in my home kitchen like it did in my restaurant kitchens. But these days, I have one of those fancy cabinets with roll-out drawers under my main cooktop, so all my pots and pans currently live in there. Now, nothing will screw up the surface of a pan – especially a non-stick pan – like nesting or stacking it with another pan. The only thing worse is just throwing them all in a drawer like throwing cats in bag and seeing which ones come out unscathed.

I'd really rather still have my pots and pans hanging up, but since I have to stack them, I stack them with pot and pan protectors in between. These, too, can be pricey little dudes if you go online or to the kitchen place with the hyphenated name. Between ten and twenty smackers for as few as four of the silly things.

OR....you knew there was an “or,” didn't you?....you can hie yourself down to the dollar store and pick up a roll or two of non-slip padded plastic shelf liner. The rolls are a foot wide and five feet long. Do you know how many little padded pot and pan protectors you can make out of that? Lots. For just a little over a dollar. And you can cut them into whatever size and shape you want and need.

And while we're on the subject of non-slip padded shelf liner, it has some other handy kitchen uses. In culinary school, they teach you to slip a damp towel or cloth under your cutting board to keep it from slipping around. Well......the shelf liner in question is non-slip after all. Cut a section to fit under your cutting board and Bob's your uncle. (Actually, George was my uncle, but that just ruins a perfectly good British-ism.) And you know those little rubber/plastic doodads that you can buy or procure as promotional items from stores and insurance agents to help you get a grip and loosen the lid of a stubborn jar? Non-slip shelf liner works great for that purpose, too. Sometimes appliances like mixers and bread machines like to “walk” around on slick countertops. And if you don't catch them before they take that final step off the edge......well.....it ain't pretty. Been there, done that. But a nice hunk of non-slip shelf liner keeps those wandering appliances right where you put them. And, of course, you can use it to line your drawers and shelves, too. Great stuff. Versatile and cheap!

Free Silpat Storage

Do you have silpats in your kitchen? You know, silicone baking mats? If you don't, you should. They are a baker's dream and they're handy for other general cooking purposes, too. They come in sizes ranging from full-sheet to half-sheet to quarter sheet. They even come in rounds and octagons. And whatever size or shape they are, they are wretched things to store. Storing them flat is not a really good idea. They are very much prone to getting torn, scratched, melted or just generally damaged. And they are kinda expensive to replace. The good ones are, anyway. No, the most efficient way to store them is to roll them up. Here again, rubber bands are about useless. You'll be hunting a new rubber band every other time you use the silpat. String? Wire ties? Not so much. “They” (the manufacturers) make a gee-whiz little silpat storage band to protect your investment and it will only set you back about five bucks. Each. Let's see......I've got eight silpats, so that's......that's way more than I'm gonna spend.

SO......you can just recycle more trash. I'll bet you've been throwing those empty paper towel rolls in the ol' bin, haven't you? Tsk, tsk. Save those cardboard cylinders and stuff 'em with rolled up silpats. They fit perfectly, leaving an inch or so outside the tube for easy access. And if you have smaller mats, you can cut the cardboard rolls to size. And when they get raggedy after a few hundred uses, just wait until you run out of paper towels again and you've got a brand new silpat storage container.

One man's trash … can sure save you a lot of treasure. 

Okay! So I'll Use The Dishwasher

Being Slowly Dragged Into The Modern Age Of Dishwashing

Many years ago, I wrote a lengthy piece here (like anything I write is less than lengthy) on the proper way to wash dishes. I called it “How To Wash Dishes.” Catchy title, huh? Then a few years later I revisited the topic of hand washing dishes in an article called “How To Hand Wash Dishes Revisited.” Both pieces focused on the primary way I always used to get dishes clean: two hands and lots of hot, soapy water. I only mentioned automatic dishwashing machines in passing. And while I stand firmly by the information I imparted in those original articles on hand dish washing, I'm here today to give the automatic dishwasher its due.

My wife doesn't understand my ambivalence toward dishwashers. That's because she always had one. Dishwashers were not a part of my upbringing. I never had a dishwasher in any of the houses in which I was raised. Never even saw one. My first experience with a dishwasher came when I started working in restaurants. I was well into adulthood before I rented an apartment that was equipped with a dishwasher and, following my mother's example, I never touched it.

See, mom was one of those people who believed that dishwashers were wasteful and expensive. In her senior years she lived in an apartment equipped with a dishwasher: she used it to store her Tupperware. For nearly thirty years that dishwasher held dishes but it never washed the first one.

A wealthy socialite named Josephine Garis Cochrane invented the modern dishwasher in 1886. It seems her clumsy servants kept chipping her fine china when they washed it. She tried washing the dishes herself for awhile but hated the chore, so she was motivated to design a motorized rack and water jet system that she constructed with the aid of mechanic George Butters in a shed behind her Chicago home. She debuted her invention at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, for which she won the prize for “best mechanical construction, durability and adaptation to its line of work.” The company she founded, Cochran's Crescent Washing Machine Company, became part of KitchenAid after her death in 1913.

When I was a kid, dishwashers were still pretty much considered toys for rich folks. By the time adulthood and the 1970s rolled around, they had become far more commonplace and today more than seventy-five percent of American homes have a dishwasher. Of course, as I said, my mom had one, but because she didn't really understand it, she never used it.

Mom believed, as many people of the time did and as some still do, that dishwashers were wasteful and expensive to use because they repeatedly filled and refilled with hot water. Not so.

Dishwashers don't actually “fill up.” Only a small basin at the bottom of the unit fills with water. The water in that basin is heated by electric elements to a temperature of around 150 degrees Fahrenheit. A pump pumps the heated water into rotating spray arms which force the water out and on to your dirty dishes. Food particles and other gunk are either deposited in a filter or chopped up and disintegrated much like a garbage disposal. More sophisticated modern machines have “soil sensors” that help them determine just how dirty your dishes are and adjust their operation accordingly. After the dirty water is drained, the basin refills, reheats, and sprays rinse water over your clean dishes. Then, if you've chosen the “dry” setting on your machine, the heating element activates and dries your washed and rinsed dishes.

So, far from being “wasteful,” dishwashers are actually more efficient and thrifty than hand washing. This is especially so because of a current trend toward hand washing dishes under running water rather than the “old-fashioned” method of filling up a sink or sinks. A running tap uses about a gallon and a half of water per minute. An average sink can take between four and five gallons to fill. So you've got two sinks that you fill with eight to ten gallons of water maybe twice a day. Or you're running water out of the tap for five or ten minutes twice a day and using five to ten gallons of water each time. Most people load the dishwasher up and use it once a day, and modern dishwashers generally use less than four gallons per load.

As far as energy consumption goes, yep, a dishwasher uses electricity and hand washing doesn't. Unless you count the energy required to heat the water in your water heater. But if you only use it once a day or once every other day, it's a negligible expenditure.

And dishes get cleaner and more reliably sanitized in a dishwasher simply because of the higher temperatures involved. There's no way, rubber gloves or not, that you can hand wash dishes in 150 degree water.

All that said, there are some limits to using a dishwasher. For instance, I cringed the other day as I watched my son, a man with twenty years of professional food service experience behind him, throw a bunch of non-stick pans in the dishwasher. Not ever a really good idea. Aluminum, cast iron, copper, non-stick, none of it belongs in the harsh environment of a dishwasher. Even stainless steel, which is technically “dishwasher safe” really isn't. The heat, the humidity, and things just banging around in there in general are never good for the finish on pots and pans. And dishwashers are hell on handles, especially wooden ones. I always hand washed pots and pans in my restaurants and I hand wash 'em at home, too.

Same goes for knives. Never put a sharp knife in the dishwasher. For one thing, because of the aforementioned agitation, it won't stay sharp for long. And the same conditions that ruin the handles of pots and pans do no good whatsoever for knife handles. Always wash knives by hand.

Unless specifically marked “dishwasher safe,” plastics and acrylics should not go in the dishwasher, lest they not come out in the same shape or condition they were when they went in.

Have you got a nice, expensive insulated travel mug or cup? Wash it by hand. The high temperature in the dishwasher can damage the vessel's vacuum seal. And if you have pewter, brass, or copper drinkware, keep it out of the dishwasher, too. The dishwasher pits and discolors such metals.

Wood cutting boards, wooden spoons, things with wooden handles, etc. are all dishwasher no-nos. No quicker way to warp and crack woodware than the hot, hot water in a dishwasher.

And, with apologies to Mrs. Cochrane, don't put your fancy dishes in the dishwasher. Most modern porcelain and china is dishwasher safe, but antique dishware, especially hand-painted or gilt edged stuff, is likely to be damaged.

A lot of the potential for damage depends upon how you load the dishwasher. Too many people just throw stuff in there, shut the door and push the button. And then they fuss when something comes out broken or damaged. Or when it doesn't come out clean.

Remember, your spray arms are squirting water at a minimum of 20 psi. That's gonna make things wiggle and jiggle in those racks. And those arms spray in a set pattern. If you load carelessly, you could wind up with damaged and/or dirty dishes.

The spray arms spray out in a circular motion, so load your dishes in a manner that will face them inward toward the center of the machine. Unless, of course, you want the bottoms cleaner than the tops.

The heating element is in the bottom of the machine, so put plastics and delicate items on the top rack. Glasses go on the top rack, too, to avoid both the heat and the excessive agitation.

And place your flatware in such a way as to not allow it to “nest.” If two spoons nest together in the basket, one of them is going to come out less clean than the other one. That's why there are multiple compartments in the basket. Spread things out, preferably heads up. If you've got a lot of flatware, try alternating pieces heads up and heads down to keep them from nesting together. Better still, though, is to not overload the dishwasher.

And finally, you don't have to wash your dishes before you put them in the dishwasher. Thanks to my OCD mother, this is one I'm often guilty of. Now, you need to scrape off the big chunks of food, okay? This is a dishwasher not a disposal. But modern machines and detergents actually work better when the dishes are dirtier, especially the models with “soil sensors.”

Caveat: if you don't run your dishwasher every day – say you load it up over time and run it after two or three days – the dishes you put in there will need to be a little cleaner going in because if everything dries on the surface of the dishes for several days, it'll be harder for the machine to take it off.

So, after decades of being elbow-deep in dishwater, I'm finally being slowly dragged into the twentieth century world of using the dishwasher. (I know it's the twenty-first century. Don't rush me!) My dishwasher-loving wife is thrilled that I will now load dinner dishes into the dishwasher rather than insisting they be done by hand. I still wash cookware and bakeware by hand as well as all the stuff I mentioned that shouldn't go in the dishwasher. And I'm still just as likely to wash up the breakfast dishes by hand as opposed to loading them in the machine and letting them sit all day. But, hey, baby steps, you know? At least I'm not using my dishwasher to store Tupperware.

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! 

Without Ham, Does Arby's Really “Have The Meats!”?

Last Time I Looked, Ham Was Still A Meat

I drove past my neighborhood Arby's the other day. I've been doing that a lot since last fall when the chain wrongheadedly removed any and all traces of ham from their menu.

Arby's ham was simply to die for. More than fifty years ago, the very first commercially prepared ham and cheese sandwich I ever put in my mouth came from Arby's. From that day until just a few months ago, Arby's was my “go-to” fast food choice. I had lunch or dinner at Arby's at least twice a week for more than fifty years. And now I just drive by, sadly longing for the good old days.

See, it was kind of funny, what with Ray Kroc's roaring success with the first McDonald's franchise not far from where I grew up, but I didn't do hamburgers as a kid. For some reason I no longer remember, my mother didn't eat burgers. I think it was a dietary issue of some sort. She had a lot of those. Anyway, she never made them at home and never had them when we went out somewhere. But give her a roast beef sandwich and she was a happy woman.

So when I was growing up, we bypassed the golden arches and headed straight for the big cowboy hat. And it was there that I discovered the juicy, pit-smoked, melt-in-your-mouth joy of perfectly oven-roasted, thinly sliced ham piled high on a sesame seed bun and topped with a slice of melty Swiss cheese.

Now, in those days, Arby's didn't do French fries; their side offering was the potato cake, of which I was not a particular fan. Potato cakes were okay and I came to appreciate them a lot more as I got older. But back in the day it was not at all uncommon for me to get a ham and cheese sandwich at Arby's and then nip over to McDonald's for what were then the world's best French fries. That was, of course, before they started pandering to the veggie crowd and ceased frying their slender shoestring strips of potato in a blend of beef tallow. But that's another issue for another time.

I was at once outraged and devastated the day I pulled in to my local Arby's drive-thru and found that the Ham and Swiss slider – the replacement for my venerable Ham and Swiss melt – had been eighty-sixed from the menu. “Okay,” I said, “Can't you just throw some ham on a bun for me or something?” “I'm sorry, sir,” came the reply. “We no longer have ham.”

WHAT!!! The place that trumpets “We Have The MEATS!” doesn't have ham anymore? Last time I looked, ham was still a meat, right? So, I'm sorry, Arby's, but if you don't have ham, then you don't really have “the meats,” now do you?

I don't know what happened. Some bird-brained bean counter at parent company Inspire Brands corporate headquarters in Atlanta probably crunched some numbers and decided they could save a nickel by ditching one of “the meats.” Of course, by removing ham from the menu, Arby's not only sacrificed the slider but also deep-sixed the Loaded Italian sandwich, one of its more popular offerings. Gone, too, is another heritage staple item, the aforementioned potato cakes. Apparently they hired some marketing research outfit to research their market and the resultant survey indicated that customer demand had shifted. Of course, you'd never know that by looking at Twitter and Reddit and other social media platforms where the disappointment is pretty palpable.

And then, adding insult to injury, Arby's has just announced itself to be a hamburger joint, a direct slap in the face to founders Forrest and Leroy Raffel. The Raffel brothers – the R Bs in “Arby's” – wanted to operate a fast food franchise based on something other than hamburgers. But they're long gone and nobody cares, right? So let's hype a new fifty-two-percent Waygu beef burger that we can peddle for more than six bucks a pop. And never mind that the food critic for the Washington Post calls it a “big, beautiful, beefy blunder.”

But corporate is standing by its choices and proclaiming that customer satisfaction is its main priority. Ummm.....look over here, guys. This lifelong customer ain't satisfied. And I've got a lot of company.

And you can tell me all day long that your disastrous decision to discontinue popular traditional menu items “simply means that there are even more delicious options to look forward to for the future.” I won't be there to try them. There's a Hardee's right down the street from my nearby Arby's and they still have a pretty decent ham and cheese sandwich there. Not as good as Arby's by a long shot, but better than the nothing option I'm getting from my former favorite fast food choice.

So come on, Ving Rhames, let me hear you say it: “Arby's. We have the meats....all except ham!”

UPDATE: This worthy petition is barely showing up on the radar. Let's give it a boost!  https://www.change.org/p/arby-s-bring-back-ham-and-cheese-sliders-at-arby-s