It's all about the sausage

Tonight I'm making gumbo, which reminds me that my friend Josh wrote to me three or four months ago asking for my red beans recipe, and bitch that I am, I have yet to write back.

So finally, while the gumbo berls, I'm going to write down the slapdash way I make red beans. Janice, K, V and Libby, I'm sure you all make better red beans than me. It'd be great to see your recipes too, so I can try your signature riffs.

I. Get you some kidney beans or red beans, whatever your local store is calling them.
II. Soak them over night. Do not salt them.
III. Next day, rinse them off and kick out the floaters.
IV. Cover with water, put them on the stove. Bring to a berl, then turn it down to simmer. Chop an onion in to fourths and toss it in. Break a celery stick into thirds and toss it in. If you have a green pepper, quarter it and toss it in. Fine chop two or three Roma tomatoes and toss em in. Toss in a three or four shakes of red pepper flakes. Shake some black pepper in. Don't salt!
V. Faggedabout it.
VI. An hour or so later Mark will say "you want me to stir this or what?" Tell him sure. Then he'll say "water's getting kind of low, want me to put some in? Say sure.
VII. The beans start smelling good. Go in and fish all your veggies out of the pot except the tomatoes, and stick them in the cuisinart with two tablespoons of beans and some of the water. Grind it to a thick liquid. Toss it back in the pot. Taste a bean. Still kind of crunchy? Cover it. Faggedabout it. (The water should always cover the beans, so if it's low, fill it up to just past the bean line, but don't overfill or else your beans will be watery. Eww.) Toss in six or eight hot Louisiana sausages. Safeway carries this brand. Get a spicy sausage, or it won't be right. You can toss these in frozen right out of the freezer.
VIII. Every so often, repeat step VI. Stir regularly to make sure the beans aren't sticking to the bottom, and to check the water line.
X. Repeat the crunchy bean test until the bean is no longer crunchy at all. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve over steaming white rice, with french bread and a sliver of frozen butter. MMM!

i biscotti

That's "the cookies" to you and me.

When I was a kid, my Grandma Matassa used to make these amazing Sicilian treats around the holidays and sometimes send us some from New York. They were sort of S-shaped cookies -- baked dough with a little sprinkle of powdered sugar on the outside, with a dark, fig and nut filling that wasn't quite sweet but was totally delectable. Well, I thought so anyway, and my dad, and I think my sister Lisa. I'm not sure anyone else really liked them.

Around our house these cookies were called something that sounded like "goojidahda." You never quite knew on the Italian pronunciation, as nothing was every written down, everything just spoken in what at best was a broken, second-generation Sicilian dialect that probably wouldn't have passed muster on Long Island, let alone Italy.

Anyway, I hadn't had the cookies for years, decades probably, until last Christmas when I was still recovering from surgery and Mom sprung a surprise package on us. Delicious. We tore through the entire box and it was one of the highlights of the season. I even looked up the spelling -- il cuccidato, for one cookie, or i cuccidati for the plural. So Dad's pronunciation was pretty close: cooch-ee-daht-ee.

Last week, I received a box in the mail from Eugene, marked "fragile" on the brown postal paper. I mentioned it to Mom and she said I was supposed to open it right away, not wait until Christmas. Even so, I let it sit for a week, thinking I'd wait until we got a Christmas tree.

Then last night I was flipping through a catalog and saw a picture of some fig cookies and a light bulb went off. I opened the box and sure enough: cuccidati!

Man, these are some yum holiday treats, especially with a glass of red wine or a good, strong cup of coffee. They'll never last until Christmas.

Thanks Mom! You should tell M&M-ville how to make them.

Cucinare

Many years ago, back when I met Mark, he told me that he liked to cook. For years, I kept hearing this "like to cook" story, but never saw much evidence of it. Once, he made a little dish of grilled sausage, pepper and onions, and man, it was good. But that was it for years. Then he pulled out the famous family sausage and meatball spaghetti recipe. Again, delicious. But cooker Mark went back into hibernation for years.

Now, all of a sudden, Mark's a total cooker. Tonite, he made a genius rotini with eggplant and riccotta. Last week, he made the delish sausage and meetball. He's made a few other things lately. I've gotten to the point where I call hopefully when it's time to come home and ask "what's for dinner?"

If this is part of the personality change that comes with having a scoop of your brain removed, I say bring it on.

What's for dinner tomorrow?