Ellipsis Weekend Cooking... One-Pot Roman Chicken Cacciatore With Potatoes

 

One-Pot Roman Chicken Cacciatore With Potatoes - NYT - Recipe

"The only real stumbling black is fear of failure.

 In cooking you have to have a what-the-hell attitude"

~Julia Child

While all the stupid, and dangerous, food recalls continue to rage, I am finding myself craving comfort food, and for me that means Italian food! Pastas, olives, and hearty Italian dishes of all kinds, usually make my soul happy! I love fresh salads and seasonal fruits, but I decided I am going to ignore my love of berries, lettuces and assorted fresh vegetables, for now. I did, however, find a salad that sounds fresh and enjoyable and that seems like it will pair nicely with this recipe. 

Melon Salad With Nectarines, Tomatoes And Basil - NYT - Recipe

And lets not forget dessert!

Lemon Ricotta Cake - NYT - Recipe

 or

Intense Chocolate Mousse Cake - NYT - Recipe

And now for a little fun, the Swedish Chef

 demonstrates how to make Chocolate Mousse!

Don't try this at home!

Weekend Cooking... Priazzo

 

"Food memories involve very basic, nonverbal, areas of the brain

 that can bypass your conscious awareness."

~Susan Krauss Whitbourne

Professor Of Psychology

Ahh... nostalgia. As you know, the older I get, the more things I miss from a certain time of my life. The 1980s, the best decade I lived. Well, that's not completely true, the 90's weren't bad either. I was newly married, and just trying to live a good life, with the love of my life. We had a lot of fun, still do, but without all the things we enjoyed. Like reading the newspaper, social influencers, and an array of food we enjoyed. Chow Mein with gravy, from our favorite hole in the wall Chinese restaurant, and the Priazzo from Pizza Hut!

Here's a commercial for it, from back in the day...

Oh my, my mouth is beginning to water. As good as the meat Priazzo was, my favorite was the Priazzo Florentine. All kinds of Italian cheese, ham and spinach came together to make my knees weak. I can't have spinach anymore, it was a casualty of Covid-19 Omicron. You would think that after all this time I would have those foods, like spinach and mushrooms, back to normal, but as I have said in previous posts, I think they are gone for good. Oh my.

🥹

Anyway...

Mental Floss, has a brief history of the rise and fall of that fabulous 1980's culinary yumminess, and another commercial that was done in the mid 1980s. At the time they seemed a little pricey, so I didn't buy them often, but when I did, I wasn't disappointed. 

A Taste Of Home has a recipe hack that looks pretty darn good to me. I plan to add different ingredients. I like veggie pizza, and I am going to make mine in a springform pan, using a regular pie crust, so we will see how it comes out. I will update on Sunday how it came out. 

Tip: 

If you use canned tomatoes in your own variation, 

use San Marzano tomatoes. They have the best flavor!

Until then, enjoy a little Dean Martin and visions of

 Rome, Portofino and the Amalfi coast.

Tip:

If you use canned tomatoes in your own variation,

 use San Marzano tomatoes. They have the best flavor!

Cooking Lessons

 

"I think every woman should own a blowtorch."

~Julia Childs

My Life In France

I love cooking, but I haven't done a lot of it since, Covid The First (Omicron), back in December of 2021. I stare at my cookbooks, and dream of popping them open and making something sinfully delicious, but I just don't do it. I don't know, I guess I'm stuck. So much has happened that hubby took over duties, and now the kitchen is pretty much his. He even makes me gourmet lurches daily. I keep saying I'll get there, but I never do. I just never do. And it's one of the things that makes me feel stuck in this depression, treatable enough, but it just sits in me, zapping my energy, as if the anemia wasn't doing a good enough job of that all on it's own. Oh well, enough of that, I am always looking for new recipes and daydreaming of the day my body and my mind finally get hungry enough to let me get on with it already and make something fabulous! In my recent travels, I came across this marvelous article in the New York Times, 20 Best Food Scenes In Movies. It's a fun read. Do you have a favorite food scene in the movies? I have many, but my very favorite might have to be the, "I'll have what she's having," scene from, When Harry Met Sally. T opening scene from, Saturday Night Fever, with John Travolta eating pizza, and strutting around Brooklyn is great, but what about the dinner scene later in the film, with his family. How wonderfully Italian it was! 

Dinner and Dessert

A Guy Named Joe

"The only thing a cat worries about is what's happening right now.

 As we tell the kittens, you only wash one paw at a time."

~Lloyd Alexander

Time Cat

I love our little guy Joey. How anyone could have dumped this beautiful child on a bridge is beyond me. I am just thankful that he probably doesn't think much about that time, and those awful crows that were making a meal of him when Alan found him, I am just glad that the memory that seems to stick the closest to him, is the one of his great love of pizza, and Italian food in general. He is a beautiful child, and while he wasn't in the plans, we love him so deeply that I can't remember what it was like to not have him around. I didn't know I needed him, but fate did, and apparently fate kinda likes me!

 It's been a happy 13 months!

Mood: Happy

A Year Of Joe 

Created January 10th 2015

A Photo A Day For 6 Months: Day 103~ Tomatoes, Roses And Woody Allen

"The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world."

~Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History Of Four Meals.

A Garden On 20th...

Just a little bit more about my days on 20th and Lexington. Across the street, catty corner from where I stood for most of the two days I was there, was a small fire escape garden. Well, a collection of plants, might be a little more accurate, but whatever you want to call it, it was charming. Big cities like San Francisco fascinate me. The buildings have characteristics that one seldom sees in the burbs. I adore the old fashioned charm of the fire escapes of San Francisco. I have seen them covered bundles of drying laundry. Covered with plants like the one above. I even saw one, a few years back, that had a cardboard cutout of Paris Hilton, with devil horns drawn on her. LOL. There is always something to see in a window, or balcony, or a fire escape in San Francisco. I am going to add fire escapes to my list of must photograph places. There is such beauty in the simplistic!

Back To Gardening In The Suburbs...

Let's Start With The Tomatoes. Both are amazingly rich in full bodied tomato flavor. Is there anything worse than paying a ton of money for Heirloom tomatoes, only to find out after you get them home, that they don't have much of a flavor? That is the best part about growing your own vegetables. You can pick them right off the vine, and their flavor is so fresh and delicious. There is nothing like it. Delicious!

Mr. Stripey



Black Krim & Mama Mia



And Now The Roses...

Julia Child


Angel Face



Hot Cocoa


Pink Promise


The rose garden is so sweet right now. I love to take a book outside and just spend a little time with all that beauty.

And Now For A Woody Allen Update

I have been checking online this pass weekend, but not much new was mentioned about where in San Francisco he might be filming this week.I was beginning to think I wouldn't be seeing him again, at least not this week, but luck shined on me, and I found a website that says that he will be shooting this coming Thursday, in the Richmond district, at a small Italian restaurant called Gaspare's Pizza House And Italian Restaurant. I have never heard of the place, but a quick search came up with the website, and their rating on Yelp. So far I am impressed. I haven't had Italian food since Banchero's closed in June, so I will be looking forward to giving them a try in a couple weeks. Italian food is my favorite, both to cook at home, and to eat out. Gaspare's is right off Golden Gate Park, which is like my home away from home when we go to the city, so I will be looking forward to both photographing Woody a little more, and eating at Gaspare's at some point!

Thursday is a work day for Alan, so there is the possibility that we won't get to go, but it's okay, there is always the possibility of sometime next week. Either way, I am a happy girl right now. It doesn't take a lot to make me smile, especially lately. It's all good!


~Me :)

Today's Link...

JR
http://jrclinephotography.blogspot.com/2012/08/apadf6-102.html

A Photo A Day For 6 Months: Day 30~Spaghetti... A Love Affair

"Spaghetti can be eaten most successfully if you inhale it like a vacuum cleaner."


~Sophia Loren



Sigh. Weep. :(


Forgive me while I mourn. I heard the shocking and sad news today, on the afternoon news, that Banchero's is closing it's doors after years of serving the BEST Italian food in the East Bay since it's opening in 1948. My parents were eaten Banchero's wonderful food since long before I was born. In fact, it was the first restaurant they ate at after moving to the East Bay in 1949. So, I can truthfully say I have eaten there my whole life... and it's NO joke!


OMG... I don't know how it will be to never have their amazing spaghetti or garlic bread again, well actually, I do...It will be really sad. Alan and I have spent many a Friday night passing a container of their, spaghetti with meat sauce, back and forth while watching something spooky on TV. In my youth, my friends and I would pick up some take-out from Banchero's to share on game night. Each of us would choose a different item from the vast menu, so we all got a little bit of everything. It was a special time. I hate what's happened to the economy.


Honestly... so many good shops and restaurants have closed in the last few years, all or most due to the downturn in the economy. It's been frustrating to see really good, quality businesses close their doors because of some stupid decisions made by incompetent politicians. One by one I have watched as places I love simply fade to a distant memory... it's sad...and those people and places that are now gone have left my heart in tatters.


Alan and I had one of Banchero's amazing family style meals just a couple week's ago. Now it seems like it was forever ago. I know it sounds strange that I got this attached to a restaurant, but it's the memories, the special times, and yes the food to, but mostly, it's the memories. Oh my. I guess the older I get, the more loss I will experience so I better toughen up... right? If only I could. Sigh.


As I told a friend once... Once I find a person, or a place, I put down roots. I am a sentimental person. Once you are in my heart, you are there forever, and if you leave, that empty space stays empty, because I don't believe people or places are replaceable. It's just how I am wired. I love deep, and get over things really slow. It sucks sometimes, but I know that eventually the sadness gets easier to take, and I tend to focus on the good times, and not the goodbyes. Although tonight... I am thinking about all those people and places that have moved on without me.


Sigh.


Goodbye Banchero's... thanks for the memories. I will remember you always.


Addio Bancheros grazie per i ricordi io ti ricordo sempre


"Everything you see, I owe to Spaghetti."


~Sophia Loren

Banchero's Italian Dinners Closing it's Doors  (San Jose Mercury News)


~Me :)

Now, go check out what my friend JR is seeing with his camera... he is an awesome photographer, and he's been a loyal participant in my memes! Thank you JR! :)

JR
http://jrclinephotography.blogspot.com/2012/06/apadf6-28.html