It's That Time of Year Again! LENT!

Lent! That time of year when you make the ultimate sacrifice. Most people give up some sort of food for Lent. How cruel, that Valentine's Day falls during Lent and women, and even men, everywhere are denying themselves that rich, creamy treat. I have friends who have given up "meats and sweets". When I was younger we had to give up meat. I think it was just on Fridays. (I can't remember, considering that the Catholic Church made us give up meat on Fridays all year long when I was very young.)

Anyway, Fridays were pizza night. Now, my brother and I remember my Mom's pizza quite differently than she says she made it. We remember pizza covered in parmesan....not mozzarella. My mother says she used mozzarella.

Sorry about that. I got off on a rabbit trail there with the pizza. I actually want to post a couple of pasta recipes that I grew up enjoying on Fridays. I especially remember my Grandmi, (Mimi to her great grandchildren in New York), making this dish in her basement and all of us sitting around the long connected tables eating it happily.

My grandmother's basement was one of my favorite places when filled with all of my relatives. It was noisey and cramped, but our focus wasn't the "ambience" it was the people and the food.

The room was surrounded with photos of my grandparents' favorite people. Their siblings, parents, grandparents, children and grandchildren, neices and nephews and JFK. That's right. We were Catholic and his picture made it into the basement with all of the others after his death. My grandfather, Pete, loved the guy.

I loved looking at all of the old photos, still in the old frames with the bubble-like glass. My great grandparents and their children, my grandmother and her siblings, with my aunts and uncles was my favorite. My great grandmother had seven children who grew up and gave birth to a bunch grandchildren and great grandchildren. This favorite old photo of Grandma and Grandpa and all of our aunts and uncles ranging in age from baby on Grandma's knee (Aunt Katie) to my grandmother who was I believe a teenager (or young adult) included an added picture of Rose, the little girl who died at age five. It is a beautiful antiquity that I loved looking at.

There was also a bulletin board covered with a collage of black and white photos of the family. I would stand in front of that bulletin board for hours and look at those pictures, soaking in our family history.

Also, in the basement was a the favored blackboard, that generations of Contentos and Salamidas (and their extended family and friends) wrote on. Adults and children alike, had at one time or another chalk covered fingers. We drew pictures and spelled words and kept score during the hundreds of card games played at those tables when we weren't eating at them.

The two recipes I'm going to talk about today were both eaten on Fridays during the Lent season because they didn't include meat. The one recipe, my brother, Mickey (to me) and Michael (to his wife), loved so much that when he was older he made his own version of macaroni with tuna sauce. When we were kids, it was usually made with spaghetti or "hats". Mickey made it with rigatoni, and I actually prefer it this way.

Most of the recipes I share with you will have been altered some. Time restraints and busy lifestyles have casued many of us to come up with quicker and easier ways to create the wonderful foods our parents and grandparents put hours into preparing. Also, we are now "old" and can't really remember how to make them and written recipes are scarce and sometimes scoffed over.

So I will share with you the easy way to create this dish that I perceived my brother made late at night when he lived with me and my parents. (My grandparents will be rolling in their graves and I may get some hate e-mail or phone calls from relatives).



3 Ingredient Rigatoni and Sauce with Tuna
1 lb cooked rigatoni (al dente)
1-2 cans albacore tuna (drained very well)
1 regular sized jar of prepared spaghetti sauce (God, forgive me)
(My brother used Ragu....I like Prego)
A sprinkling of parmesan or romano cheese

***Things in italics in this recipe are my own additions***

If you wish to make your sauce from scratch, go ahead, I'm sure it will be better than out of a jar. I just remember my brother throwing the three things together and I was amazed that I liked it. I myself begin by sauting garlic and onions and sliced fresh mushrooms together until onions are translucent. Then I add the albacore and sauce. I always add a little sprinkling of balsalmic vinegar to my sauce (whether I make it from scratch or not) to add some sweetness to it. Heat your sauce in a medium saucepan on medium heat, stirring occasionally to keep it from burning or sticking. When sauce is hot and bubbly, pour over hot rigatoni and sprinkle with cheese and/or hot pepper seeds.



This next recipe is something my mother, Angie or Angelina Rose Salamida Ciavarella (nice Irish name), made when my father was working nights. She would wait until my brother and I were in bed and then she would make just enough for herself (how selfish!). Now that I am married and have children, I wait until the whole family is out of the house and make it for myself. I do this about once or twice a year. My mother would also make garlic bread, something I don't ever recall eating until I was older. I like to make this as a side dish to steak, chicken, or baked fish. I do make it for the family when I make it as a side dish, because my husband wants meat with it. But I think it is just as good by itself with a salad on the side.



Spaghetti with Garlic and Oil
1 lb spaghetti, linguine, or angel hair (cooked al dente)
2/3 cup olive oil
2-3 closes garlic chopped or sliced.
a sprinkle of parmesan or romano cheese
a sprinkle of hot pepper seeds or black pepper or both

Pour olive oil (I prefer extra virgin, it has the most flavor) into a small fry pan or pot. Heat over a medium heat. Add garlic before oil gets too hot. Use a wooden spoon to move garlic around oil (or swirl it gently.....gently). When garlic just turns golden, pour oil over hot pasta. My mother always scooped the garlic out of the oil and tossed it. (Not me!) It's up to your tastes. I brush my teeth after I eat to spare everyone around me from the smell. (Not that my mother doesn't). Toss pasta with forks or tongs to make sure it all gets coated. I like my pasta covered in cheese and red pepper seeds, but again, this is up to your tastes.

Why Contento....why not Ciavarella or Salamida Cuisine?

Okay, in case this comes up....Contento seemed to me to be the best name. A few reasons really: I'm pretty sure that Contento is the same as content. I think that I would like to feel "contented" after eating. Thus....Contento Cuisine.
Salamida and Ciavarella had their drawbacks. For instance, when I was in junior high, my girlfriend's father thought the name "Salamida" sounded like "We...sellabreada...notsellameata." This is funny when said with a really bad Italian accident, but looks stupid on the written page. As for Ciavarella...let's face it...I was called Cinderella for much of my childhood.
Who are the Contentos?
Contento was my mother's mother's maiden name. My Grandmi was Elwyn Contento Salamida. Angela (or was Angelina) Contento was my great grandmother. She was a blast! She didn't speak much English and was the typical Italian grandma. Her gray hair was pulled back in a bun, the pointy facial features, her stockings rolled down just above the knee. She sat in the livingroom at her house in Endicott watching TV. It was a large pink and white stucko house (did I spell that right?). Grandma loved to watch Lawrence Welk, football, boxing, and wrestling. She was convinced the wrestling was real and you did not want to tell her otherwise. I heard from my older cousins that the language that came from her little Italian mouth while watching boxing was not only hair-raising, but amusing.
My cousin Luann and I use to sit on the floor on either side of Grandma Contento when we were younger. We would smile, look at each other, and at the same time roll her stockings down to her ankles. I don't remember what she said to us, but it didn't sound like birds tweeting. The two of us ran away....giggling. (nasty brats!)
Like any other Italian grandmother, she laid out a table to die for. Pastas and salads galore.
This next salad was something that we all loved. My mother and father both said that I should include it in my blog. I told them I had no idea how to spell it. Between the three of us, we came up with this spelling: L'aqua Salle.
This is a salad that has truly survived the generations of Contentos and Salamidas. Today, my children will go out into our garden and pick tomatoes and make this juicy, garlicy salad. Just as the roasted pepper and tomato salad, you must have a good hunk of crusty bread to dunk into the bowl while eating it. When I was younger, I believe we ate from and dunked our bread into a common salad bowl as a family. It was fun, but not quite sanitary. These days, being more aware of germs, we pour it into individual bowls and have at it!
Although we call it a salad, L'aqau Salle is almost like a cold soup. I hope you enjoy!

L'aqua Salle
6-8 medium to large very ripe (not rotten) tomatoes
2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup cool water
2-4 cloves of garlic-sliced or minced
basil, parsley, salt, and pepper to taste.
Rinse your tomatoes. Then cut (quartered or cubed, whatever size you like)them into a bowl. Cut out the core, but leave the seeds and juice with the tomatoes. Take your potato masher and smash your tomatoes to get all that juice out. Add the rest of the ingredients and toss. I like to let it sit awhile and soak in all the flavors of the herbs and garlic. Serve at room temperature.

**Tips learned through Carla's Cooking School of Hard Knocks**
(in other words, I screwed up and found out the hard way)
If you are making any salad with olive oil in the dressing, you really don't want to refrigerate it. The olive oil tends to solidify and turns into a sort of gross, slimey gel. If you are making a salad that you anticipate will produce leftovers that need refrigerated and it calls for oil, use canola oil or an oil other than olive oil. I have found that canolia oil refrigerates nicely.

Welcome to My World

Every Saturday my husband and I, if we have the time, sit and watch PBS for about two hours in the morning. We start with the home renovating shows. After these are over we move to the cooking shows. We do not have cable and I have to rely on this time to watch cooking shows.

They always inspire me. I've been thinking alot about the food that I ate growing up. Being a full blooded Italian in America in the latter part of the last century was not really a novelty, but now, many of those Italian Americans have blended their rich inheritance with the richness of others.

I grew up in Ohio. My fondest childhood memories were with my family. My cousins, my aunts and uncles, sitting around the table in the basement surrounded by the Italian foods that fortunately (and sometimes unfortunately....my weight issues) made me who I am today.

My mother was from New York. A town called Endicott. I loved going there every summer around the Fourth of July for our family reunion.

This blog will be dedicated to the food and culture that I grew up in. The Ciavarellas in Ohio and the Salamidas and Contentos in Endicott.

I will post stories about my childhood and also recipes of the foods that we savored over the many years.

So, I hope you enjoy.

THE SALADS
These two salads I will share with you are two that I get the most comments about. One is an antipasto salad that I just made up. The other is a roasted pepper and tomato salad that made Grandma Civ (Ciavarella) famous. At least she was famous to us.
Grandma, Mary to her friends and Aunt Mary to her many neices and nephews and great neices and nephews, lived to be 94. She died in early July, 2004 just about two weeks shy of her 95th birthday. She was about 4'10" and until she was in her 60's was a bit roley-poley In her 60's she lost alot of weight and kept it off the rest of her life (You GO Gram!). She never spoke English very clear and had a wonderful accent. She pronounced the word "vinegar"......"winegar". I'm not sure why.....she wasn't Russian....but it was cute. She had more energy than anyone could imagine and I remember her running up and down her basement stairs dozens of times a day.
I remember at least one Memorial Day when all of us cousins in Ohio gathered with our fathers at Grandma's house to dig (by hand) her garden. It sat behind her garage and was quite large. This group was two grown men, four or five boys and me. I'm not sure if Uncle Frank and Chris and Annette (the youngest son of Grandma's and his children) were there. I just remember Uncle Joe's boys. These boys struck terror into my heart. As the only girl (when Annette wasn't around) in Ohio, I got run over, screamed at, spat on, and generally abused by them. Although I must admit, I was a little princess who grew up to be a drama queen. These days I look forward to being with them. They make me laugh and hug me and kiss me and I love them to death!
Anyway....to the salads.

Antipasto
1/2 head of cauliflour and 1 whole head of brocolli flowerettes.
(These should be steamed until they are just tender crisp)
1 red onion sliced thin
1 can or jar of artichoke hearts
1 can black olives
1 roasted red pepper sliced thin
1 small jar green olives

1 cup cherry or grape tomatoes
2 thin slices provolone cheese

4 thin slices salami or pepperoni
2-4 thin slices ham or cappicola
1 cup pepperocini peppers
Cut all the lunchmeat and cheese into strips. Make sure the cauliflour and brocolli are broken into bite size pieces. Mix above ingredients in a container and toss with your favorite Italian dressings. I use Good Seasons that comes in the envelope and mix with vinegar, water and oil. If you like alot of garlic, you could add minced garlic to it, but it's not necessary. Put an airtight lid on the container and let sit for a few hours or overnight, marinating.
The Salad
Add the above marinated mix to any variety of salad greens. I love it with romaine lettuce, although sometimes I buy the bagged Italian Mix or spinach greens. Sprinkle the combination with shredded parmesan cheese.
I'm a believer in being creative with food. Almost any cheese will work with this salad in the marinated mix. The other night I used muenster and everyone loved it. Be creative and have fun with it!

Roasted Pepper and Tomato Salad
This salad is especially good with a hunk of crusty bread such as Italian, Ciabatta or French! It's juicey and has lots of garlic in it!
Roasting peppers is much simpler than the end result looks. In this recipe I start with six bell peppers. Any color will do, but the red ones are the sweetest. Rinse them under water. I always cut them in half and pull the seeds out. Grandma usually roasted them whole and did the seed cleaning after the roasting. We place the peppers on our grill and blacken them, turning them as they blacken. You want to just blacken the outside of the pepper, not burn it through. When I was growing up, we did this part on a gas stove. After the peppers are blackened, you may want to place them in a brown bag, closing the bag to steam the blackened char off. We never did this and had black flecks on our teeth after eating the salad. It was very attractive, in a back woods Italian sort of way. Take the peppers out of the bag and scrape the black off (obviously). Then slice the peppers into strips.

The rest of the ingredients
4 medium to large ripe tomatoes (quartered)
1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup water
garlic, basil, parsley, salt and pepper to taste (It's up to you, Baby!)
In a nice size bowl put the tomatoes and smash them with a potato masher to get all of the juice out. Add the rest of the ingredients, including the peppers, and mix. Serve at room temperature.
CHOW BABY!
(I know that's not how you spell it!)