Not a Real Jersey Girl???

OKAY...so what the...

Fact 1. I was born in West Orange, New Jersey.
Fact 2. New Jersey has been my only legal state of residence.
Fact 3. Up until this past week I had never actually watched an episode of The Sopranos.

Yeah...isn't that almost like saying I don't like Taylor Ham or Pepperoni Pizza???  Maybe not.

Of course I know the storyline of this show, how could I not?  I even know a few of the places where it was a filmed throughout my state, but I just never watched it.  Probably, because I'm not into hype.

Now, Amazon Prime has all the seasons (thanks brother) and I'm hooked. Aside from being filmed in NJ it has been lauded as the best television show EVER by multiple people.  Google pulls up multiple recent articles--people are STILL talking about this show, hey I'm talking about it right now.

I laughed when two mobsters go into a Starbucks type establishment and one says,

"An espresso" and the other says,

"I just want some regular coffee."

"What we have today is New Zealand Peaberry." Says the cashier.

So they order an espresso and one-a-doze and it cost $4.25.  Seems expensive even for 1999.

Ah the goldchains, wife beaters, track suit jackets, homophobia, loaves of bread and Virgin Marys on the front yards...the sassy nj kid attitude. Hey who wouldn't love having an Uncle Pussy who fixes car?  

I'm only a few episodes into Season One and what catches me is how dated this show is now.  It was so fresh back in the early 00's along with that other (in)famous HBO rag--SATC.  The Soprano home today would be in need of a makeover, no more brass fixtures, light pink-beige cupboards and puffy valances.  It's stylized like Mad Men.  Millenium style. Except it was actually the time period it features.


And it got me thinking about the days pre September 11, 2001.  How those days now live in my memory as such a hopeful time, a brief moment of a new century, then dashed to what???
 A Post-post-modern tale of fear, anxiety, war, recession and who knows or even cares...
How The Sopranos caught that pre-moment then the disillusionment following...and maybe that is exactly what made it such a good show...or the writing/acting.  Maybe it is New Jersey a diverse and insane state, full of multiple paradoxes, Tony Soprano could be a representative of the state itself.



So bring over the antipast and be a real Jersey girl wid me, I'll do my best to whip up some gabagool!(I don't even know what that is, had to GABAgoogle it!) HA.

RIP Mr. Gandolfini

A Course in Mom Cookery

My Mom, Kate was not a good cook.

Not that Kate was a bad cook, but her scope of meal preparation was limited.

And I can say this now, because she’s dead.

There were certain dishes she could whip up with mighty skill, all Italian in nature, which meant my siblings and I ate mucho pasta.

An occasional steak or burger was thrown on the grill for good measure.  Some Sundays she’d make what she called her, Yankee Pot Roast, a roast thrown into a crockpot with some beef boullion, potatoes and carrots. 

 It was Yankee-fied because Kate was a born Maine-iac. But, Kate had learned how to make tomato sauce from a real Italian woman who’s daughter was a friend of mine.

However, Kate's sauce never contained any red wine, and rarely chopped meat. Kate didn’t like alcohol.  Occasionally, she would grab a Pina Colada flavor wine cooler and sip it on a warm night. 

Those big pots of tomato sauce transferred into: baked ziti, lasagna, eggplant parmigiana, chicken parmagiana, stuffed shells or manicotti (Mrs. Leone also taught her how to make her own manicotti shells.) Even her meatloaf, contained a helping of that sauce. My first flavor profiles included vast amounts of oregano, garlic, parsley and basil.  And she did make some killer manicotti.

One rule existed in Kate’s kitchen.

NO onions.

Once she had taste tested a recipe and received a good response, she would make that dish every week, for a month.   I can no longer eat Honey Mustard Chicken for this reason.  Two words for my brother Erik. Moroccan Chicken.

Sometimes, Kate and Betty Crocker would bake some brownies.  She was not a baker and she knew it.  Every Thanksgiving though she would cook down a pie pumpkin, make the filling and throw it into a ready-made Pillsbury piecrust, she would do the same for her Apple Pie(Steve’s favorite) except she’d cut up apples, season them and throw them into a ready-made Pillsbury piecrust and cover it with another ready-made Pillsbury piecrust.

Christmas she’d make her favorite peanut butter cookies, but she said that she just didn’t like to make cookies.  Instead she would whip up some Julekake, (Norwegian Christmas bread).  OR one of my favorites, she'd make some real whipped cream and throw in a can of Fruit Cocktail...yummy.

My father, Steve used to rave about my Kate’s skills, but this from a man who displayed his culinary acumen for me only one time…he fried up some Steak-ums and threw them on a roll with Kraft American cheese.  Yeah, the one in the plastic.  He liked to make cheese sandwiches.  A few slices of cheese between some white bread.

Steve traveled a bunch on business while I was growing up, and oh boy when he was gone then the really fun food would get made. 

Her culinary style was what I call Mom food, quick filling and probably cheap.

Fish Fingers,(with their friend Tater Tot) Kraft Mac N Cheese, Turkey Tetrazzini and one of our favorites  something  she called, “Tuna Noona Casserole”  most people know it as Tuna Noodle Casserole.  She would only make that when Steve was away.  He hated the smell of canned tuna, and he even convinced me for many years that it was cat food and I refused to eat it.

What made Kate’s Tuna Casserole, different than all others were two things:

First, she used Cream of Chicken soup, not Cream of Mushroom.

Second, she never added the peas.(I kinda like the peas though.)

I’m just surprised she didn’t throw in some tomato sauce, although it probably crossed her mind.

Today as I was going through Mastering the Art of French Cooking, trying to figure out if I will ever be able to properly make a nice Hollandaise,  I was smitten with hankering for Kate's Tuna Noona Casserole. Well, I know that these are the types of dishes that Europeans mock us for, but I don't care.

  It was just as deliciously disgusting as ever.  I don't even want to know what the nutritional content of this is, but at least it's got tuna and peas.  It reminded me of nights at the kitchen table in West Orange, windows open to the sounds of the neighborhood, waiting to watch Little House on the Prairie with Kate, wearing one of my Papa's clean white t-shirts as a nightgown, sleeping in my Mom's bed while my Papa was away the sheets cool under my toes and my cat Teddy curled up at my feet.   

Nostalgia.  Campbell's induced nostalgia.

Kate’s Tuna Noona Casserole

1 can Campbells Cream of Chicken Soup

`1 bag Manischevitz Egg Noodles

2 cans of white tuna in water

½ cup of milk

pepper

Saltines

Preheat oven to 375 F

Cook the noodles.

Drain tuna and add to large casserole dish.

Add can of soup and milk.

Stir.

Add the noodles and stir into mixture.

Season with pepper.

Crunch up the saltines and sprinkle on top.

Bake for about 20 minutes or until it looks ready.

I add ½ a can of peas to my recipe and use breadcrumbs.

VOILA!!!  You have now Mastered the Art of Mom Cooking.  Bon Appetite!!