Tutti a tavola
When my mother was a child she would accompany her mother from their apartment building to Biancardi's butcher shop. Mom used to tell me her memories of sawdust on the floor. My grandmother always referred to the shop as "Anna's" because the owner's wife was Anna. Many years later when I was a small child and we were living in New Hampshire, my mother would occasionally pack up the car with a cooler and drive 6 hours down to the Bronx in order to load up on Anna's meats. I have a hazy recollection of driving back to New Hampshire with my mother and grandmother in the front of the car and my brother and me stuffed in the back seat amidst coolers and bags of bread, pastries and other delicacies to make the cold winter in rural New Hampshire seem more like home.
More recently my mother and her best friend would travel down together, sometimes staying with her friend's son in Brooklyn, and so I was no longer stuffed into the car like so many pounds of sausage. With her friend now living out of the country however, and a little mother-daughter bonding in order, Mom and I made the trek back to the old neighborhood to visit Biancardi's and pick up "a few things from Anna's." Instead of being transported back to my youth (I was only 3 when we moved out of the Bronx and into New England) I was transported across the ocean to Italy. The rows and rows of luscious meats glistening in the icy cold case contrasted by rows and rows of house made dried sausage hanging suspended over the heads of the butchers - each one with a friendly, yet weary face, dark hair and white coats stitched with their name in red. I instantly knew I wanted to have a spaghettata.
A spaghettata is what my Italian friends in Bologna would call a potluck. It isn't "real" Italian; I'm not even sure it qualifies as slang. But every so often they would invite a passel of friends over for mountains of pasta. Everyone would bring something (usually wine) and we would linger long over the table. Saturday night Thom and I brought the spaghettata to life in our small North End apartment.
I started making the ragu several days prior. I used a combination of resources to make my Bolognese sauce which consisted of ground veal, beef and pork, diced prosciutto, diced onion, celery and carrots, white wine, milk, tomatoes and a bouquet garni. I let it cook for several hours, rested it for two days, and then simmered it for 3 hours the day of the party.
The menu was fantastic. Between ourselves and the generosity of our friends we feasted on a gorgeous antipasti of olives, artichoke hearts, marinated mushrooms, peppers and zucchini as well as prosciutto, salami and mortadella. We had a fabulous pecorino tartufato (pecorino cheese with truffles), mushroom tapenade, balsamic onion tapenade, bread & crackers and breadsticks stuffed with asparagus, prosciutto and fig jam.
Dinner was spaghetti Bolognese, three kinds of sausage: thick fennel sausage, sweet Italian sausage and chervelata, a sausage stuffed with cheese and parsley. We also had a vegetarian lasagna which was thick with carrots, mushrooms and zucchini. With continuously flowing chianti we were able to linger long at the table.
After we had all rested for a while we were ready to start on dessert. We shared pears and clementines accompanied with ricotta salata and more of the fig jam. We also enjoyed cannoli and biscotti as well as some lusciously sweet and bubbly prosecco and espresso.
It's always sad when a party ends and everyone goes home; but when you are able to wake up on Sunday and make a delicious pizza from the leftover mushrooms, zucchini and sausage it helps the savory memory to linger long.
More recently my mother and her best friend would travel down together, sometimes staying with her friend's son in Brooklyn, and so I was no longer stuffed into the car like so many pounds of sausage. With her friend now living out of the country however, and a little mother-daughter bonding in order, Mom and I made the trek back to the old neighborhood to visit Biancardi's and pick up "a few things from Anna's." Instead of being transported back to my youth (I was only 3 when we moved out of the Bronx and into New England) I was transported across the ocean to Italy. The rows and rows of luscious meats glistening in the icy cold case contrasted by rows and rows of house made dried sausage hanging suspended over the heads of the butchers - each one with a friendly, yet weary face, dark hair and white coats stitched with their name in red. I instantly knew I wanted to have a spaghettata.
A spaghettata is what my Italian friends in Bologna would call a potluck. It isn't "real" Italian; I'm not even sure it qualifies as slang. But every so often they would invite a passel of friends over for mountains of pasta. Everyone would bring something (usually wine) and we would linger long over the table. Saturday night Thom and I brought the spaghettata to life in our small North End apartment.
I started making the ragu several days prior. I used a combination of resources to make my Bolognese sauce which consisted of ground veal, beef and pork, diced prosciutto, diced onion, celery and carrots, white wine, milk, tomatoes and a bouquet garni. I let it cook for several hours, rested it for two days, and then simmered it for 3 hours the day of the party.
The menu was fantastic. Between ourselves and the generosity of our friends we feasted on a gorgeous antipasti of olives, artichoke hearts, marinated mushrooms, peppers and zucchini as well as prosciutto, salami and mortadella. We had a fabulous pecorino tartufato (pecorino cheese with truffles), mushroom tapenade, balsamic onion tapenade, bread & crackers and breadsticks stuffed with asparagus, prosciutto and fig jam.
Dinner was spaghetti Bolognese, three kinds of sausage: thick fennel sausage, sweet Italian sausage and chervelata, a sausage stuffed with cheese and parsley. We also had a vegetarian lasagna which was thick with carrots, mushrooms and zucchini. With continuously flowing chianti we were able to linger long at the table.
After we had all rested for a while we were ready to start on dessert. We shared pears and clementines accompanied with ricotta salata and more of the fig jam. We also enjoyed cannoli and biscotti as well as some lusciously sweet and bubbly prosecco and espresso.
It's always sad when a party ends and everyone goes home; but when you are able to wake up on Sunday and make a delicious pizza from the leftover mushrooms, zucchini and sausage it helps the savory memory to linger long.