Date I made these recipes:
Sunday, February 12, 2017 – Grammy Awards!
What Aria Cooking? –
The San Francisco Opera Cookbook,
edited by Donna M. Casey for The San Francisco Opera Guild Auxiliary
Published by The San Francisco
© 1974
Purchased at Kona Bay Books, Kona ,
Hawaii
Recipe: Egg Noodles Alla Bolognese from opera singer
Ezio Flagello – p. 59
Defensive Eating with
Morrissey – Vegan Recipes from the One You Left Behind – Recipes by Joshua
Ploeg, illustrations by Automne Zingg
Published by Microcosm Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-62106-203-5; © 2016
Purchased at Common
Good Books, St. Paul
Recipe: Asparagus [with tomatoes, sun dried tomatoes,
onion, garlic and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar] – p. 13
Ah, the Grammy Awards! This was the 59th time these
awards for achievement in music have been handed out and as always, the music
and the "What are you wearing" moments achieved new levels. Not necessarily great levels in terms of
fashion (or what I hesitantly call "fashion") but new levels,
nonetheless.
So of course, with the award program looming, I set out to
see if I had an appropriate cookbook to mark the occasion and folks, I found
two – two – music-related cookbooks and I am just so chuffed with myself, I
cannot tell you!
And so let's discuss our two disparate music cookbooks. "In this corner, representing classical
music..." we have What Aria Cooking
by the San Francisco Opera Guild
Auxiliary. This cookbook is filled
with recipes submitted by opera singers who have performed with the San Francisco Opera.
"And in this corner, representing alternative rock..."
we have the British rocker, Morrissey. Morrissey (Steven Patrick Morrissey) was lead
singer for The Smiths before striking
out on his own. My local and favorite
radio station, 89.3 - The Current,
plays a great mix of music that hits just about every genre, and every once in
a while, I hear a Morrissey song. I have to say that my favorite is probably
"We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful," because let's face
it, that is a pretty accurate statement, musical or otherwise! Fair
warning: his cookbook, Defensive Eating with Morrissey,
contains vegan recipes but several are workable for omnivores like me.
Those, then, are our two musical genres and so as Seth
Meyers (formerly of Saturday Night Live,
now host of his own late night talk show) says "For more on this, it's
time for a Closer Look."
What Aria Cooking
(an aria is song for solo voice, usually sung by a female) gives us a snapshot
of artists involved with the San Francisco
Opera in the way back i.e. 1974. I
like opera and have attended several over the years. I must admit to being somewhat of a purist
though, in that I am not necessarily fond of more modern operas as they strike
me as precocious. I mean really: "The
Manchurian Candidate opera?" "The
Shining opera?" (Yes, these are actual operas, adapted from
films. Sigh.) Mozart and company are rolling around in their graves! This is not to say that every
"older" opera is great, but many are and besides, it is so much more
fun to hear someone say "I shall smite thee and take off thy head" in
Italian. As a friend and I used to joke "It
sounds so pretty!"
The recipe I used for tonight's dinner was from
Italian-American bass Ezio Flagello.
Ezio sang primarily with the Metropolitan Opera from 1957-1984 and
favored Italian opera productions such as Tosca,
The Barber of Seville, and Don Giovanni. And then I found this tidbit and it is most
cool: Ezio made a brief appearance as an
opera impresario (opera company manager) in the movie, The Godfather II. Nice! I have no memory of that, but who needs an
excuse to re-watch a Godfather
movie? Not me! Poor Ezio had a shortened career as he passed
away in 2009 at age 78. (These days,
that is on the "young" side of old.)
By the way, men's voices ranges are tenor (high), baritone (middle
range) and bass (Low. Sometimes very
low. "Basement" low.) Ezio was a "basement" bass.
Now I have to share that I
think my dad would have not only enjoyed this meal, but liked the fact that it
came from an opera cookbook. I come from
a long line of opera lovers: my
grandfather, a Sicilian immigrant, used to listen to Met (Metropolitan Opera)
radio broadcasts way before the dawn of the TV age, and my father listened with
him as well. My dad had a great baritone
voice and although he never sang opera (at least to my knowledge), he played Captain
Corcoran in his high school production of Gilbert
and Sullivan's H. M. S. Pinafore, an operetta which is basically
"opera, light." He was also a
member of a mixed chorus while attending Michigan State
University
Still and all, a friend of mine (who has since passed away)
and I attended for many years regional tryouts sponsored by the Met, the winner of which went on to NYC
to compete for a coveted spot on the Met
stage. We joked that sometimes we went more for the fashion critique (or what I
called "What Not to Wear to an Opera Audition") than we did for the
singing, but we mostly wanted to be able to say "We saw him/her 'when'"
and you know what, sometimes we did!
Speaking of "I knew him when," although I didn't
recognize a lot of names on the "Artist Index" (and you probably
won't as well), I hope most people are familiar with the name Luciano Pavarotti, whose dish for
"Maltaliati con Fagioli" (pasta and beans) was high on my list of
"for your consideration" until I switched it at the last minute. Pavarotti is probably best know for singing Nessun Dorma from the opera Turandot, a production I saw a few years
ago at the Minnesota Opera, and it
requires the singer to hit ridiculously high notes which Pavarotti did on a
regular basis until one day, he didn't.
He cracked the upper notes of whatever he was singing and I am not
kidding when I say the opera world was just beside itself. Jeez, the man has one bad day and he's
vilified for life! If you didn't know,
the Italians love their operas and you had better have your A game when you
perform at places like La Scalla (famous opera company) or else!
I also recognized the name Anna Moffo as she appeared on the Firestone and Goodyear (Tires)
Christmas albums my parents bought every year.
These albums were popular during the 60's and 70's and I remember that Anna Moffo sang Ave Maria on one of them. I
must say that these albums were a great way to learn the names and style of
many popular artists (classical, opera, jazz, pop) of the time and I miss
listening to them. Sadly, they do not
seem to be available in CD form, only vinyl and we got rid of our turntable a
long time ago. Drats.
Beverly Sills and Frederica Van Stade (spelled "Van
Staade" in the book) were also included in this cookbook. Beverly
Sills was an extremely well-known operatic soprano who appeared on various
variety show specials in the 70's, and Frederica is a mezzo-soprano who has
appeared in countless opera productions and countless recordings. And on a "who knew" side note,
Frederica and her ex-husband were involved in a law suit over marital property,
the likes of which appeared in one of my law school text books and I'm willing
to bet that I am one of a handful of law school students anywhere who knew who she was. And for
those of you who just have to know the dirt, here's the citation: Elkus v.
Elkus, 572 N.Y.S.2d 901 (N.Y. App.
Div. 1991). (PS—I was also stunned to
see another familiar name in a case found in my Wills and Trust case law
book. Not only was the name familiar,
but I had met her previously – yikes! And I tell you what, in order to get a case
in a law school textbook, you had to have a doozy of a situation going on and
hers so qualified it was ridiculous!)
Now, one of the reasons I selected the dish I did, Ezio's
very tasty pasta Bolognese, is because I needed something to match the recipe I
selected from Morrissey's cookbook
and boy, that was not easy.
As the title says, Morrissey's
cookbook is a vegan cookbook and
vegan cooking can be challenging which is why I took the easy way out and made
a vegetable dish! And it's not that some
of the other vegan dishes didn't appeal, it's just that I did not feel like
going out and buying ingredients I knew damned well I would never use again
such as "nutritional yeast," or "miso," or
"tempeh," a soy meat substitute.
Also, some of the recipes were rather involved, like his recipe for
[vegan] "Lasagna" – p. 56 or "Spaghetti for Two – p. 73-75 and
when it comes to cooking, the shorter the ingredient list and cooking times,
the better.
And let me be clear that I don't care what Morrissey says,
these two words do not go together:
"Vegan" and "Bologna ." Ew.
Ew, ew, ew and furthermore, why?
Why, why, why? (See p. 95).
In the end, I think I came up with the perfect food
combination and that was Egg Noodles Alla
Bolognese from the opera book, with a side of Asparagus from the Morrissey book. I am a genius!
As between the two, Morrissey's
recipe title, Asparagus, is a tad
misleading because here's what it really is:
asparagus yes, but asparagus sprinkled with a mix of chopped onion,
tomato, garlic, and oregano, then tossed with olive oil, roasted, and then
completed with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar.
It was fantastic! Plus, this dish
took only 20 minutes to make and that worked out well. The other thing I loved was that I was able
to score some fresh and hearty asparagus from a local grocery store, something
that used to be near-impossible during the winter months. All in all, I am tucking this recipe away for
future use!
The Bolognese recipe was also very easy although I had to
siphon off the grease from the ground beef several times to avoid having a
greasy mess on my hands. This then left
the sauce a little on the dry side, but no worries, just add more wine or, if
wine is not your thing, some water or broth.
I also "cheated" a bit with the recipe and added a
handful of chopped tomatoes that were left over from the asparagus. Waste not, want not, don't you know. All in all, this dish was very good and was
light to eat despite the pasta and the ground beef. I think the use of white wine made it so.
And so these dishes were winners (I am on a roll as so were
my Super Bowl selections) but alas, just like the Super Bowl, some Grammy
nominees did not walk away with their golden gramophone and that's a darn shame
but there's always next year.
Congratulations then to all 2017 Emmy winners and to those
who didn't win, perhaps a nice plate of pasta and some asparagus will help ease
your pain? (It did mine!)
Egg Noodles Alla
Bolognese – serves 5
1 pound egg noodles
1 large onion
1 small can mushrooms
1 bell pepper, cut in 1" strips
3 slices ham (Ann's
Note: although the recipe didn't
say, I chopped my ham into smaller pieces)
1 tablespoon diced celery
1 ¼ cups water
1 teaspoon tomato paste
Salt and pepper to taste
1 pound chopped meat (Ann's
Note: I'm pretty sure he meant
ground beef as the recipe instructs you to "brown the meat." That said, I bet you could substitute ground
chicken or turkey if you wanted.)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon carrot shirrings (Ann's Note: I have no idea
what this means and neither did Google so I decided it meant "carrot
peels" and that is what I used.)
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
1/8 teaspoon marjoram
1/8 teaspoon basil leaf (dried)
1 cup white wine
Grated cheese
Brown meat, onion, carrot, celery, bell pepper in two
tablespoons of oil. (Ann's Note: I made a half a recipe and thought that even
one tablespoon of oil was too much. When
coupled with the grease from browning the "chopped meat," it made for
quite a bit of grease that I had to remove or risk "ruining" the
sauce.)
Add water, ham, garlic powder, parsley, marjoram, and
basil. Cook slowly, until water
evaporates. (Ann's Note: yes, but trust me, after you let the water
evaporate, you are going to want to add more liquid back in or the sauce will
dry out. You can either add more wine
(the recipe calls for 1 cup), or more water or broth and that should do the
trick. Even then though, I had to keep
taking out some of the grease...sigh).
Add the tomato paste, salt, pepper, mushrooms, and
wine. Cook for one hour. Pour Bolognese sauce over 1 pound cooked egg
noodles and serve. Add grated cheese if
desired.
This recipe is from his forthcoming book "There's a
Basso in the Kitchen." Ann's Note: It doesn't appear that this book was ever
published as I cannot find it anywhere online and that is a damn shame because
I would so add it to my collection!
Asparagus – Serving
size not listed but 2 pounds should feed about 4-6
2 pounds asparagus
1 cup tomatoes, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh oregano, minced
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 to 3 garlic cloves, minced
¼ cup onion, chopped
2 tablespoons sun-dried tomatoes, pureed (Ann's Note: he doesn't say whether or not to use
oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes or not but I'm guessing you should. I have dried, but not oiled, sun-dried
tomatoes at home and they don't puree well—not that this stopped me from
trying!)
Salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes, to taste
Balsamic vinegar to drizzle
Mix all ingredients together except balsamic vinegar, and
then place in a casserole. Roast at 375
degrees for 20 minutes. Drizzle with
balsamic vinegar, and then mix again.
You can cook it for less time, if desired.
But with a bit more time and a few more gentler words and
looking back we will forgive.
Broil for 3 to 5 minutes to finish. Ann's
Note: I didn't broil but I did
drizzle and then bake for another 3 minutes.
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