Shortcuts: perhaps I'm mellowing out, but please don't think for a second I'm dropping my standards. Preparing good wholesome food need not take time, and sometimes you do really need to take shortcuts. As long as you can do as well or better with something frozen or out of a can, then go girl.
After years of loving and collecting wines, I realized there exists one special creature to be avoided at all costs: the wine snob. Wine, being a food, should be fun, and taste good. You don't need to have an encyclopedia thrown at you every time you lift a glass. Takes all the fun out. There are also food snobs; yes really they do exist! He will turn up his nose at anything prepared in favor of doing the hard and old fashioned way. Take it from me: the final result -- and that you enjoy doing it -- is what matters.
Tomatoes—only the best of the canned ones that you break up and toss into pasta, salads, make oven dried ones with garlic, salt and pepper, olive oil oregano? Drain a can of good plum tomatoes such as San Marzano, and set the tomatoes on a parchment paper covered baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, olive oil, oregano, and finely minced garlic. Place on a 200-degree oven for a few hours, Let cool, serve at room temp. You can also use fresh tomatoes in the summertime when they are plentiful by slicing them in half through the equator, gently squeezing out the innards, and seasoning them as above. This is a great way to use up tomatoes when your summer garden explodes with them; they go down like candy; better.
A way with PASTA: The one I do with garlic, anchovies, red pepper flakes to taste, capers, parsley, olive oil, white wine, and the just cooked pasta goes into the pan and cooks to absorb the rest of the sauce. You can always add a few olives, and some torn up canned tomatoes right out of the can at the very end for accent. The heat of the spicy pasta contrasts with the fresh taste of the tomato for a palate refresher. It's a favorite at Happy House. Rich red wine? Damn yeah. That's what friends are for. I found a truly surprising Cabernet from Argentina which rivals many Californians and French. My point is, look elsewhere for better values in wines, such as Australia, South Africa, Chile, and Argentina.
I have two favorite POTATO SALADS: In each one you boil up some waxy and small potatoes, cut them while still warm, and dress them while they are still warm so they ABSORB the seasonings. Just dumping a dressing on cold cooked potatoes, like the mayonnaise soaked ones we all too often see in New York is a caloric and crashing bore.
One is sometimes called German, but I found it in several way out west barbeques as well. It's easy to do, keeps for days, and is better the following day. Take a few pounds of unpeeled red bliss potatoes, the small ones; boil them gently in salted water. Remove them when the tip of a paring knife can just penetrate the potato with only slight resistance. You don?t want your salad to be mushy. Drain, and let cool down until you can handle them, but they ought to be hot. Slice them into chunks, and pour the dressing over them, and dress with plenty of fresh flat parsley.
Dressing: Fry several strips of bacon to render the fat out, but not too crisp. Remove the bacon and set it aside. Sprinkle three large tablespoons of flour on the fat, and fry a minute, then add 2 tsp salt, 1 tsp black pepper, 3/4 cup sugar, 3/4 cup cider or white vinegar, and a cup of chopped white onions. Whisk the mixture until smooth, and add water if needed to make a sauce. Add a heaping teaspoon of dried mustard, one teaspoon of celery seed, and if you like, a few big pinches of red pepper flakes. Add back the cut up bacon. Pour the hot dressing over the still hot potatoes. Toss gently so the spuds are all coated with the dressing, and toss in a generous handful of chopped flat parsley. Do not serve cold. Cold in a potato salad is a taste killer.
Another potato salad, one I love even more, is from my grandmother's kitchen. She escaped from the Turks in Syria in 1906. Cook the potatoes exactly as for the German one, here's the dressing, which you add just before serving:
This salad absolutely must have the spices ground fresh to get the best possible flavor. I have an inexpensive coffee grinder I got at Zabars for a little over ten bucks which works perfectly. I just never use it for coffee; that would mess up the flavors of the spices. When I was a little boy I would go with her to a store run by an old man, Tofik, who had a huge red machine he would use to grind spices, and another one for coffee. I was little, and Tofik’s grinders looked enormous to me. I still can remember the intoxicating way that venerable man's store smelled. There were the aromas of coffee, spices like cinnamon, allspice, pepper, coriander, and the lamb sausages hanging, the barrels of olives, grains, cheeses, all innocently working their olfactory magic. She always bought her spices freshly ground to bring home in tiny brown paper bags, and never allowed them to sit very long on her shelf, lest they get stale.
Now to the dressing: Juice of a lemon, zest of same, big handful chopped fresh (flat) parsley, ground cumin seed (1 tsp.), allspice, ground, 1 tsp., coriander seed, ground 1 tsp, black pepper, ground 1¼2 tsp, cinnamon, ground 1¼2 tsp., fennel seed, ground, optional, generous olive oil - at least 1¼2 cup, salt to taste but be generous. You might wonder why the measurements aren't exact, just ask Grandma. Keep tasting.
Note: My sister Sharon says she likes to dress the potatoes just before serving, so the dressing stays on the potatoes. Then there's less absorption. Serve slightly warm just like the one above.
Next time I'll remind you to keep a sharp eye for rhubarb, and later on Long Island STRAWBERRIES. Farm stands will have them, so forget about looking for them in a supermarket, they are way too fragile for a market to handle them, they last only a very few days after being picked, but man.. Oh well that's for next time. Ciao, and love, Michael.