A little sadness here in the family. One of mama’s favorite cookbook writers and people, Marcella Hazan, died this week. Mama says that papa and she went to a book-signing at the public library in Los Angeles some years ago and that she and her adorable husband were such lovely people and they talked and talked about food and mama took her some bread from their bakery and, of course, that was their last meeting.
Marcella moved to New York many years before real, authentic Italian cooking was present in restaurants. Spaghetti and meatballs, red-checker tablecloths and Chianti bottles dripping wax was about all there was in the USA at that time, according to Signora Hazan’s obituary in the IHT.
Mama loved her and was tickled by so many of her rather opinionated ideas about cooking—garlic must be used wisely and simplicity is foremost in Italian dishes. Mama is a bit opinionated, too; a green bell pepper never crosses our threshold and using sprouted garlic is tantamount (I love that word! Sounds like climbing up on a tanta, whatever that is, and riding it!) to giving papa brussel sprouts for dinner. Not his first choice on the menu, even though mama adores them, sautéed in olive oil until almost crisp and then sprinkled with lemon juice.
(As for me, I never touch those little green brussel balls unless they fall on the floor and I can knock one around.)
Marcella, mama says, was a magical cook and set many American/Italian cooks straight on how to make risotto, for example, or a simple, al dente pasta that was not drowned in sauce.
Some tips from Marcella from Wikipedia (thank you, Wiki!):
- Choose vegetables that are in season and plan the entire meal around them.
- Soak vegetables in cold water for half an hour before cooking to remove all trace of grit. Cook them until they are tender, but not mushy, so that they have a rich flavour.
- When sauteéing onions, put them in a cold pan with oil and heat them gently; this will make them release their flavour gradually and give them a mellower taste than starting them in a hot pan.
- Although some types of pasta, like tagliatelle, are best made fresh at home, others, like spaghetti, should be bought dried. Pasta should be matched carefully to sauce.
- Olive oil isn’t always the best choice for frying; in delicately flavoured dishes, a combination of butter and vegetable oil should be used.
- Garlic presses should be avoided at all costs.
I’ll miss her, too, because anyone mama misses, I’m sure to have liked a lot.
She probably would have given me little golden tidbits of parmigiano in the kitchen as she cooked…
Addio, Marcella and grazie di tutto!
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