Tomatoes

Tomatoes are so delicious now, that whether you are eating them out of the garden, or out of the gardener’s box – enjoy these beautiful fruits by altering them as little as possible.

Compliment them with basil and olive oil over bread, (Crostini al Pomodoro), combine them with spelt, corn and peas, or in a panzanella, or cook them for spaghetti alla rustica.

Buon appeito!

Coco Pazzo has closed.

Pino Luongo announces today the closing the Upper East Side’s beloved Coco Pazzo. Located at 23 East 74th Street, Coco Pazzo opened in 1990 to the delight of New York food lovers and critics. Garnishing three stars from The New York Times, Pino Luongo and Mark Strausman served New York’s discerning high society for 19 years.

Please join us at Centolire, 1167 Madison Avenue, between 85th & 86th Streets, 212.734.7711.

Basil

This has been an excellent growing season for basil.   There is an abundance of basil and the basil is particularly flavorful.

If you are growing basil in the garden you want to use it. Once the plants produce seeds the flavor of the leaves becomes rank.  Also the stems of the basil are sour, so use the young fresh leaves of the basil, being sure to remove the stems and the flowers or seed heads.  The basil will keep growing – young fresh leaves will come to replace the ones you pick – so use lots of basil.

You can add basil to tomatoes, with or without mozzarella, and drizzle this with olive oil, salt and pepper. You can make a pesto.  Pesto is an excellent dressing for pasta and  pizza, as a condiment on a sandwich, and it is an excellent vinaigrette for grilled fish.

Once you’ve made your pesto, add diced tomatoes and red wine vinegar, grill the fish, enjoy!

Garlic

Most of the year, garlic is an accent to the main ingredients in a dish, but when garlic is just picked from the ground – I like to use it as the central focus.

Try these simple recipes that compliment summer, Spaghetti with garlic, olive and hot pepper and Toasted garlic bread.  You can make these dishes with a modicum of ingredients and a minimal amount of time.

When preparing the garlic, smash each clove with the flat side of a wide knife to release its flavor.

Strawberries

Strawberries are a plenty. My favorite way to eat them is with a little vinegar and a little sprinkle of sugar.

I wash my strawberries in white wine. This is important. They need to be cleaned but running them under water will damage them. Instead, give them a bath in white wine.

Dry them on a towel.

If you are lucky enough to get wild strawberries, leave on the hull. If you are eating cultivated strawberries, remove the hull by circling around it with a paring knife. Mix them in a bowl with a little red wine vinegar and sugar and enjoy.

If you want to get fancy, put them on top of a panna cotta. This is my recipe for panna cotta.

Zucchini

There are so many wonderful zucchini recipes and all of them benefit from young tender freshly picked zucchini. The fascination with  enormous size zucchini is an American gardeners’ phenomenon. Avoid it. Large, old zucchini are not worth cooking.

Just like the beauty of youth, the prime of the zucchini’s life is while it is still young.  Home gardeners have the luxury of picking both young zucchini and zucchini flowers that are perhaps the most delicious part of the zucchini plant.

Pick only the male zucchini, the ones that are attached to the vine. The female flowers are attached to the ends of the little zucchini themselves and are mushy.  Pick the male flowers, and dip them in a batter of flower and water, slightly more water than flower, that you have whipped constantly with your fork to make a light paste.

Dip the flower in the batter, let the excess drip off, and fry to golden brown in extremely hot vegetable oil.  Turn the flowers once, and remove to paper towels to drain the excess oil.

Season with salt and pepper and enjoy while warm.

Sunday = Soccer

As a boy I played soccer, and all my life I’ve loved watching the game. I
love it because it combines speed, agility, precision, and ingenuity. But my
greatest joy with soccer has been coaching my son’s team. To see eleven boys
come together and work as a unit, to put their egos aside, shrug away their
fatigue, to answer to something beyond what is comfortable, and achieve
success on the field…this is an amazing and inspiring experience. My goals
take more than 90 minutes, but the Sunday games remind me that we can do
more together than we can alone.

Lunch

In Italy we have lunch every day. Not at our desks, not alone, not standing up, not in our cars. We sit down and we have a beautiful lunch with colleagues, friends or family.

We do have only a pit stop for coffee. We don’t meet people for a long cup of coffee. We order an espresso at a bar and take perhaps 5 minutes to review the soccer scores, in my case, or the financial markets, in the case of the fellow next to me.

I love lunch. I love the rest. I love the revitalization of the calm. And I love the chance it gives me to speak with someone about an issue or issues we would dismiss too quickly in a phone call. And lunch happens to be the perfect length of time to catch up on a soccer game, when one finds themselves in the delightful company of ones’ self and the TV.

So whether you have the luxury of lunch on a regular basis, or for the coming summer weekend, I hope you’ll enjoy something seasonal and delicious that reminds you of the bounty of nature, and the joys in life. Add a glass of wine and really live it up.

Sante.

Soup reinvented.

Anya,

Leftover soup can be re-invented as a main course that might be more flavorful than its initial incarnation. The flavors in a soup can benefit from time in the fridge where the ingredients do more than rest, they meld. Ribollita is a classical Italian soup that tastes better after a rest in the fridge. The same is true for Minnestrone.

For your borscht, I recommend a dish like the Spicy Tomato soup that I serve with toasted bread, and an egg, poached in the soup.

Try it.

Pino

What is in your fridge?

Food costs are rising and people are concerned, for good reason. But what is worse to me than the rising food costs is the wastefulness in most people’s kitchens. Most recipes call for certain amounts, typically making more food than can be eaten at dinner. And what happens with what is left? Do you throw it out? Do you pack it in the fridge and throw it out three days later?

Take this opportunity to use food properly. Your grocery bill is probably 25% higher this week than it was later year at this time. I’m sure it is. Mine is. You can take the 25% more you are paying for food and make 25% more meals for your family. Or take a quarter of what is in your cart out and pay no more for groceries than you did last year.

How? By using all the ingredients in your fridge. When you go to make supper, look at last night’s leftovers first, as the primary or secondary ingredient in the dish you are going to prepare for your family. There are methods to using leftovers, and I am going to give you specific examples to answer your questions. Tell me what you have leftover in the fridge, and I am going to tell you how to make a new meal tonight, for little to no extra ingredients or cost. Using your food wisely will get you more than a free lunch, it will get you a free supper!

I always thank my parents for the gift of poverty. I was born to a family where creativity and resourcefulness were the primary ingredient in my mother’s recipes. Let me share that with you.