Red Sauce

Ain't Nothing Like a Jersey Girl

I finally got it. I have love for the Jersey girl. It’s not the big hair or the big makeup and heels that make the Jersey girl the one to love. It’s the Jersey 'tude that gets me.
You may be the punchline for many jokes and the source of many “ewwws,” from those that may not get you. But I got you this weekend, Jersey girl.
It was the three of you, rolling down the boardwalk on the Jersey shore, with your short little dresses and skirts and your nearly unmanageable high heels. Your nails were totally on and your tans were perfect and brown and real. And I bet your friend said, you looked like you were “black.” But you walk in those heels and those dresses unaplogetically. And when you see a completely non-Jersey girl pass you by, you don't stare and gawk and make fun like others do of you. No, you just take your Jersey ass further down the boardwalk and chat away with your girlfriends because you have no time for the hate. There are no girls like Jersey girls, it’s very true. Even the most non-Jersey girl from Jersey has this Jersey girl 'tude. I am perhaps a wee bit jealous… Or maybe it was the wicked heat this weekend. It may have shrunken my brain to make me believe a bit in New Jersey?

Food of note this weekend:

Funghi Misti Pizza at Fornino's: I have mentioned this pizza before. It's a mix of mushrooms, truffle oil, caciovallo cheese and mozzarella. It's life affirming and changing and a solid foundation for a relationship. (Sort of).
We got some free wine from the chef/owner, too. And we got some news. They will be opening a pizza joint on the Lower East Side but with a different name in September or thereabouts.

Steamers: I have never had these before. Not much clam eating for this former vegetarian from the Midwest. They seem to sometimes taste sweet and succulent and at other times a bit bitter. Ah, the complicated mollusk. To eat them, you pull out the covering on their neck which is black and covered in a wrinkled, bitter black membrane. You “shuck” this puppy off and dip the clam in a little bowl of clam juice and then butter. And eat. They are both tasty and gross at the same time. But I realized as I dug into a great deal of these, slipping off the slippery black membrane and dipping and eating, that introducing me to a new food is like putting your imprint on me. It pulled me a little into an even bigger feeling world. Yes, new food is that momentous. As I pulled off the slim, slimy membrane and dipped the slightly chewy mollusk in the two plastic cups (clam broth and butter) and placed it on my tongue, I realized I was in the midst of a new world.
Apparently, steamers are the beginning to an authentic New England Clambake. Next would be buttered corn. And there is little I love more than buttered corn. After that is lobster…

Lobster. The fish shack we ate at in cheesy, lovely Point Pleasant New Jersey was out of corn. But they did have lobster. I opted for it steamed. It was a Maine lobster. It was slightly sweet and it was perfectly steamed. The meat slipped out of its shell like it wanted to.

Coffee Chocolate Chunk Gelato made by a lovely doctor. My friend, the doctor, got a new toy as one of his wedding gifts - an ice cream maker. And he made gelato and it was one of the best cold things I have put in my mouth in months.

An Ode to the Grilled Cheese

April is National Grilled Cheese month. In honor of the month, I plan on going to this place that Salli Vates says is the best grilled cheese in all of New York. But honestly, I have some doubts it's a proper grilled cheese if it comes from a brick oven pizza joint. I mean, I am sure it's great. But is it grilled cheese or melted bread and cheese?
And there is almost nothing better than hot, oozing cheese on bread. It could be a crusty French baguette with warm brie or the plain old cheddar placed between two slices of whatever kind of bread you prefer (though not challah, that’s too much), buttered and grilled.
I don’t like to taint my grilled cheeses with fancy accoutrements. No tomato on my grilled cheese and no onions or anything foolish. I like the pure smell of the melted dairy product on toasted, buttered bread. The textural mix of smooth, tart cheese against the sharp, buttery bread still gives me shivers of excitement.
I wasn’t a kid who grew up on grilled cheese. And I don’t get all wide-eyed when someone recites the combo, grilled cheese and tomato soup. I am a grown up grilled cheese convert.
And, so, I am a purist. While the panini craze has its place. Those sandwiches are not grilled cheese. Even the aforementioned baguette and brie—not a grilled cheese, but still, good.
A grilled cheese is about texture. So, the ones that start to mess with sweet and sour or put add ins like salsa and/or tapenades are now about tastes and contrasts and no longer grilled cheese. Grilled cheese is about simplicity of ingredients.

St. Patrick's Day - A Naked Boy Begging

I hate St. Patrick’s Day.

I hate corned beef, cabbage (especially since the cabbage factory moved next door to my apartment building making everything, even my lovely couch’s fabric smell like foogees), Guinness and drooling, drunken frat-boys and men smiling and putting on fake Irish accents. (Speaking of cabbage, remember the Cabbage Soup diet? As much as you want, all day. As a lovely, young, wise sage said to me  today, “Why not just eat a fart?” )

If the day were my former neighbor Craig Rose, I would make an easy bake oven cake for him and fill it with ketchup, peanut butter, flour and coke. I would cook it and put pink frosting on it and deliver it to him with an Irish accent.

Craig used to come over when he was a wee youngster naked. He wanted to play -- Barbies and stuff.  But not only did I hate Barbie, I also hated Craig and his curly little blond mop coming over with his little weenie waggling at the backyard door like a long lost puppy smitten with the girl next door who had the Barbies. We were probably only 5 or 6, but still, ewwwwww.

So before my brother taught me how to punch (making sure my thumb rested outside the fist) I made Craig pukey cakes. Then one day, I punched him as he stood at the back door naked.  Then he fell down at the back door naked, got up, ran home holding his bloody nose.

Mrs. Rose, his mother, used to come over for coffee in the morning to talk to my mom about her sexcapades with her scruffy husband. Mrs. Rose wore nightgowns when she was over and would talk to my mom about giving her husband a blow job the night before. Needless to say, my mother was horrified and transfixed all at the same time. She poured cup after cup of coffee and whispered with the Mrs. Rose for sometimes two hours, sometimes three. As I got older I heard about Mrs. Rose and the blowjobs.  And I watched moppy-haired Craig turn into a musical theater fan.