Marty hard at work, doesn’t the spatzle look good?
These have been a few very busy weeks for us. We have been in production so much and have been up to our elbows in spatzle. Tomorrow we have to make a bunch of big deliveries all around NY, so we needed to get all the orders filled and make enough product for Marty at the Troy Farmer’s Market on Saturday and for a bunch of curbside pick-up orders.
We had to make spatzle on Sunday this week, you know my Sunday kind of love day? I never get tired of making the product or even packaging it…it’s the dishes that I dreaded doing this morning.
When we got up today I knew it was going to be another big, long production day with a couple of deliveries afterward. While we were having our coffee I kept saying I don’t want to do the dishes today! Ugh!
Dirty dishes with the hard-to-clean raw batter and all the dishes used to drain the spatzle before going into bins to cool.
When you think of dirty dishes in a normal production kitchen they are nothing compared to ours. Hell, I washed a million dishes when I worked in the kitchens at school, even the worst pans in the world weren’t this bad.
After I figured out how to mix our ingredients in a special way then I had to increase my batch sizes. The thing that I didn’t count on was that I had to figure out how the heck to get the dishes clean from the unconventional ingredients we use.
Without exaggerating, it took me six months of experimenting with different cleaning methods, water temperatures, soaps, rags, and scrubbies, etc until I figured it out.
Marty cleans the steam kettle for me! Here are all of my clean dishes!
It takes me as long to wash all the production dishes as it takes to make a couple of hundred pounds of spatzle. After the production dishes are done I have all the bins to wash that hold the spatzle after it has been drained and cooled. Ugh.
Today I just wasn’t feeling it. I needed something to drag me through this production day. Music is always my answer. We listen to music every day in our production kitchen, but today had to be something to kick my ass into motion.
Broadway Music Radio on Pandora was the ticket. A lot of the music was from newer Broadway Musicals with a few oldies thrown in for good measure. Song after song I was singing behind my dust protection mask making the day go quickly. Some songs like one of my favorites “Cellblock Tango” from Chicago came on and I went into a whole dance number.
Our Alexa video speaker that we play music on, we have a smaller just speaker one in the packing room that are paired to play the same thing in both rooms. Technology!
I took tap, ballet, and toe or point throughout my whole childhood starting at the age of two. I love that I can still jump into a tap number at any given moment. I just need a 5,6,7,8 and I am dancing away.
Although it was a long day, we filled all the orders we need for tomorrow’s deliveries and the weekend. Mission accomplished.
I’ve been cooking real lunches and dinners all week, but I needed to lean on some leftovers for the next couple of dinners.
Tonight I took the leftover mashed potatoes from our Porchetta dinner from Marty’s birthday and turned it into loaded potato soup. It was easy, quick, and filling. I also took a container of leftover short ribs and gravy out of the freezer for tomorrow night. We are going to have short rib poutine which is one of our favorites and will be quick and easy after a day of deliveries and getting back late.
My loaded potato soup, tasted much better than it looked.
At the end of the day, or a long week I should say, music yanked me through not only dish washing, but also holding myself accountable in the gym. I worked out on some days that I just wanted to come inside and sit down, but I didn’t I got in there and gave it my all.
As far as leftovers? They are a lifesaver! They are the greatest thing since sliced bread! Look for a blog post down the road that will be called something like The Joy of Leftovers or Lovely Leftovers.I will talk about how to not only use leftovers, but how to plan them into your weekly menu.
***I am planning on taking all of you on our delivery route with us tomorrow. There is snow in the forecast, so that should make things even more interesting. We are planning on hitting the road early, we have a lot of stops to make.
The real deal…Traditional Porchetta. Photo image from Pinterest
Porchetta is a beautiful thing to see and an even more delicious thing to eat. Porchetta is an Italian Pork Roast. Not just any pork roast, but a pork on pork roast stuffed with lots of garlic, herbs, fennel, citrus zest, sometimes dijon mustard, definitely red pepper flakes and the most important ingredient of all is love.
Porchetta is popular in the whole country of Italy, but porchetta originated in central Italy. Once only considered a celebratory dish is now served as common street food. It can be served in a panino or sandwich or as a filling for pizza Bianca. It is also eaten by families as part of a picnic.
Photo image from Pinterest
Porchetta found its way to America in the early 20th century. Italian immigrants especially from Abruzzo referred to it as Italian roast pork or just roast pork. Luckily for us, they brought this masterpiece of a dish with them.
Porchetta is popular in NY, Philadelphia, and the surrounding area in the form of a sandwich on an Italian roll with broccoli rabe and sharp provolone. Porchetta is also a tradition in Bridgeport, CT. Porchetta sandwiches were served in taverns that date back to the first wave of Italian immigrants. Now porchetta is popular everywhere in our country and is widely popular in Ontario as well.
So what is it anyway you may be thinking? Modern porchetta is a pork roast that has been butterflied open and rubbed with garlic, herbs, red pepper flakes, lemon, fennel, and whatever else the cook wants to put in. I say modern because porchetta’s used to be stuffed with different parts of the pig. Nose to tail eating at its finest.
Photo images from Pinterest
The porchetta is then rolled up in a slab of pork belly. The cook ties both pieces of pork together tightly. It is roasted until the outside of the porchetta has crunchy cracklins and the inside is up to temperature and is tender, juicy, and flavorful.
The porchetta is cooled so it can be sliced thinly for sandwiches, or can be served hot, sliced thicker, and eaten as a main course at a Sunday dinner or celebration.
I’ve been wanting to make porchetta for years and finally made one last Christmas Eve. I took the year off from our traditional seafood Christmas Eve to give it a try. The roast itself cost an arm and a leg, luckily the butcher was a nice and butterflied the roast for me. Free of charge…what a guy!
All of my Porchetta ingredients, the best quality that I could find in Saratoga, NY. I scored the inside of the pork so the filling would get into the meat better. My chef friend Martin taught me to flatten my bacon with a rolling pin and some plastic wrap whenever you are going to wrap something with the bacon. I was pleased with my roast tying skills.
I decided that instead of making traditional porchetta I was going to make one wrapped in high-quality bacon. The thought of rolling it in pork belly would be legit, but over the top, not only in expense but silly for only 4 people. I felt more comfortable trying it with bacon since it was my first go at it and not expensive.
I found the freshest herbs and fennel I could find and wanted to follow a recipe to the letter. I wanted to get the real flavor, the real thing. As I looked at different recipes they were all freakin’ different! Which one should I pick or trust?
Below is a link to the Bacon Wrapped Porchetta recipe I used. I added the zest of one large orange to mine, which isn’t in the recipe but I think a key ingredient.
I read many blogs and articles about porchetta before I made it and decided on one recipe. True to form I added a couple of ingredients that were in most recipes but not others. This is the story of my cooking life. No one writes one complete recipe as I have it in my head, so I make up my own.
I roasted my bacon wrapped Porchetta with gorgeous local pears, fennel and onions.
I must say that it came out like a work of art. It was one of my proudest cooking achievements to date. When we tasted it we were all like, “Oh my God! Oh wow! Holy shit, this is good!” It was that good. Would I make it again? Sure, but for more people next time. We ate it for a couple of days, froze the rest and when we defrosted it we had it as sandwiches, it was still amazing.
Porchetta topped with Italian Salsa Verde, roasted pears and fennel with hasselback potatoes.
For Marty’s birthday dinner the other night I wanted to make something special. Something I don’t make very often. The porchetta wasn’t an option, but I did a plan. After I looked at what I had in the freezer and refrigerator I decided to make a weeknight porchetta.
I was going to make a prosciutto-wrapped pork tenderloin using all the herbs and flavors that I used in my traditional porchetta. It literally took less than 20 minutes to prep it and about 35 minutes in the oven. I crisped up the prosciutto under the broiler for a minute and let it rest. Later I looked if there were any recipes for weeknight porchetta and sure enough there were. Of course, none were exactly how I made it, but close enough to share with you guys so you get the idea and if you want to make your own.
I covered the pork tenderloin with a paste of herbs, garlic, and dijon mustard then wrapped the pork tenderloin with prosciutto. It was ready for a 400-degree oven for 35 minutes.
Here is the link to the Weeknight Porchetta recipe that is close to the one I made. I added lemon zest to mine because I didn’t have an orange, I think the citrus adds another layer of flavor.
While this weeknight porchetta wasn’t as grand as the holiday one, it came pretty damn close with little effort or money. It sliced beautifully and was so juicy and flavorful. I served it with mashed potatoes and maple-glazed carrots. It was a hit! Marty and my son Noah loved it, so I was very happy. It was such a successful birthday dinner. Yay, it’s what I live for!
Weeknight Porchetta with Yukon Gold Mashed Potatoes and Maple Glazed Carrots.
The good news is if you have never had or even heard of porchetta you can make this weeknight version and it will be so close in taste, it will be like having the real thing!
By the way those mashed potatoes I served with the Porchetta, the leftovers are being transformed tonight into Loaded Potato Soup.
Long before the pandemic, before people actually started caring about toilet paper and hoarding whatever they could literally get their hands on, I noticed how ridiculous the math is on each package of paper products.
Each brand has at least 3 or 4 different types of toilet paper and each of those has different size rolls. Single, super, double, mega, super mega are just to name a few.
Consider that each supermarket chain has at least 40 different choices of toilet paper to choose from is beyond crazy.
Paper towels are the same story. Lots of brands with different types of towels and a huge assortment of sizes. Single, double, select a size sheets, mega…the list goes on and on.
This morning we were getting ourselves organized in the production kitchen and I looked at the packages of Bounty we had on hand. Remember, I only bought one package at a time when I saw them I didn’t hoard a bunch. We need good paper towels in our kitchen. 😜
It actually made me laugh that we had so many different mathematical equations we are supposed to solve!
I remember a YouTube video that went viral during the quarantine lockdown. A dad had a full on rant about toilet paper math. He sat down and actually figured out the math!
The dad calculated how many sheets each size roll had, each package had, how many feet per roll and the best one of all he figured out how many shits (his word) if you used 20 sheets of toilet paper per shit.
A lot of other bored quarantined folks also made videos with their calculations, some even weighed the rolls. I am relieved that other people besides myself thought about this crap….pun was intended.
Each person on the videos ranted about the toilet paper brand companies and how misleading and confusing their advertising and marketing were.
I hit the jackpot when I saw this at the store!
The toilet paper calculators also ranted on about how much toilet paper people hoarded and actually needed for a whole year. They concluded that no family could ever take that many deuces or number twos.
Now that the store shelves are finally restocked with toilet paper and paper towels, just take a gander at the ridiculousness of all the mathematical equations that are being marketed to us.
Jon, my writing mentor told me whenever I write a piece I need to keep the readers in mind and think “why should they give a shit” about what I am writing. In this case, the whole story is about that very thing, giving or should I say taking one, and how much toilet paper everyone needs. 😬
Today is Marty’s birthday. We decided ahead of time that since our birthdays are less than two weeks apart, we would just give each other birthday cakes.
Neither of us needs or wants anything thing right now, so why spend money just for the sake of buying something. If I want some new summer clothes especially if I am a size or two smaller, I will get them then. The same thing goes for Marty for something he wants.
Up until a couple of years ago, I hated to bake. I could bake well before we went gluten-free, but I never really enjoyed it. After going gluten-free baking became my nemesis. Baking is an art and a science in itself, but gluten-free baking? Oy Veh!
I think part of why I don’t like baking is that it is too exact and you can’t just throw a Hail Mary and hope for the best. You have to actually follow a recipe. Yup, that’s the problem for me.
Wowzers! I even got out my kitchen scale to weigh out my ingredients like they do in the recipe. Who am I?
I have gotten better at this gluten-free baking thing because I have found some gluten-free flours that produce consistent results. I still have to follow a recipe, but knowing whatever I am making will come out well is worth it. I decided if I wanted to be a well-rounded cook I needed to learn to bake well.
I usually make one of two different kinds of cakes for Marty’s birthday every year. A pineapple upside-down cake which was my father’s favorite cake too, or a black forest cake. Last year I made a mini pineapple upside-down cake.
I think Marty secretly likes these cakes for his birthday is because neither of our boys would eat them…they have fruit in them! So besides a small piece for me, he gets the cake to himself.
Last year I made mini pineapple upside-down cakes. It just doesn’t make sense to make full-size cakes for just the two of us. Yesterday I made two different versions of mini black forest cakes.
I actually sifted the dry ingredients this time! I had to melt chocolate to fold into the batter. The batter looks gorgeous going into the buttered and cocoa powder coated ramekins.
I was using a recipe for a chocolate cake for two. I didn’t have a 4 or 6 inch round cake pan so I improvised. Already I could be setting myself up for disaster.
For the mini cakes, I used soufflé ramekins. Ramekins are made of porcelain which takes longer to heat up and slower to cool down than a regular metal baking pan. I already had a 50% chance of screwing the cakes up.
Before I made the cherry filling, whipped cream, chocolate bark, or toasted any almonds I made the cake to see if it would even come out.
Cut the tops off the cakes, then cut them in 2 layers each. Cherries in the pot before I cooked them. Chocolate bark in the making. I can’t get the German liquor Kirsch here so I have to use this stuff to soak the layers of the cakes. Putting them together and they look wobbly, I had to fix one before I put the crumb coat of whipped cream on.
I followed the recipe, poured the batter into three ramekins, and put them in the oven. I kept peeking in the oven door and was relieved they were rising! I still waited on the other components until I was sure these would work.
I took the cakes out and let them cool. They came out of the ramekins easier than I thought. Yay! Now onto making the other parts of the cake.
I always keep a jar of pitted fresh cherries in my pantry along with a can of pineapple rings. I make my own cherry pie filling and don’t use the canned one even though it’s easier and prettier.
Cherry pie filling is cherries, sugar, corn starch, and almond extract. Everything is thrown into a pot and stirred until it gets thick and glossy, less than ten minutes from start to finish.
Whipped cream is so easy that even a monkey could make it. Heavy cream, sugar, and pure vanilla extract that’s it whipped up with a mixer or a whisk. My grandmother Mema always bought Cool Whip. I ate it when I was a kid, but when I was researching food additives when Noah was little I stumbled upon this little fact…Cool Whip is a non-food item. A non-food item contains no real food. Yuck!
Non-food items are also referred to as twentieth-century American plastic food. Here’s a quick list so you get what I mean.
Cool whip
Velvetta is not cheese, it is a cheese food product
Imitation blueberries in muffins
Miracle whip
Imitation vanilla flavor BTW…it’s made from paper pulp waste
Chocolate flavored chips
Cream filling found in sandwich cookies
Powdered lemonade
Caramel that isn’t caramel
Frozen dairy dessert is not ice cream and does not melt
Butter spray for popcorn
Yoo-hoo isn’t chocolate milk, it’s a chocolate drink
Sunny-D isn’t orange juice
Pancake syrup isn’t maple syrup
I do have to say that I have consumed every one of those things on the list. One thing I am is not a hypocrite…I like a few of them. Especially a Yoo-hoo with a hotdog and the filling in an oreo. Shhhhhh I also like Velveeta.🤭
My gift from Lindsey.
I am not sure if anyone remembers that I wrote about a book I read when Noah was a baby called, “Can you trust a tomato in January?” I wrote that I looked for it online but could t find it.
As I am literally writing this and the mail came. My friend Lindsey found the book I wrote about and sent me a copy! This is such a great gift and it came at exactly the right time! Thank you Lindsey so much, I really appreciate your thoughtfulness! ☺️
Arial view lol
Ok, back to Marty’s birthday cakes. The only thing I still had to do was toast some almonds and make chocolate bark. It’s more impressive than it really is. It helps cover up my poor cake decorating skills and has a mini wow factor.
Version number one is more traditional with the almonds around the side of the cake.
I found a jar of maraschino cherries in our bar fridge for a garnish. Yes, I love maraschino cherries. It surprises people that I like them because they are so artificial, but I am not a food snob. Give me a good cocktail with a cherry in it and I will be your best friend.
Version number two is a chocolate bark wrapped cake, I can’t eat nuts on my low residue diet, so this one I could eat. I really like how it came out!
So I am pleased with the way his cakes came out. We had the cakes after dinner and they came out better than I could have imagined! The cake was moist but firm enough to hold up to the three layers even when Marty cut it. He loved both of them and kept saying how delicious they were. Yay!!!!! 🥳
I know we aren’t out of the woods yet with covid, but there are some positive things that have me taking a deep breath of relief. I don’t think I have taken a breath since the shit hit the fan back in March and everyone panic shopped hoarding everything in sight. I keep a well-stocked pantry and freezer in the winter especially and I usually have enough Charmin toilet paper and Bounty paper towels for our home and business.
Whenever we open the last of something, it goes on a shopping list. This way I rotate my stuff and always have the important stuff on hand. When we did go to the store for the first time I was in utter shock like everyone else.
When I walked up and down the aisles of Hannaford the shelves were empty. I felt afraid, scared to death, worried, what were we going to do? I have ulcerative colitis I need fucking toilet paper dammit! Then every time I went to the store I got angrier and angrier. Why was it taking so long to restock everything even with limits on everything? Did I arrive every single time when everything was sold out again? Seriously WTF?
On one trip to Aldis I almost had a panic attack. There was not one package of meat, chicken, sausage, or fish in the meat section. My shoulders tighten up just thinking about how afraid I was. It was like living in a third world country and there were no food rations left for me.
I am sure we all experienced it. Every time I go into a store, no matter what one, I hold my breath and slowly look down each aisle. Up until a few weeks ago, aisles were still low on inventory. I would start cursing under my breath and get myself into a total tizzy asking why is this taking so long. Me cursing under my breath? 😂
Every time I saw Charmin or Bounty I bought one of each. I left the store feeling like I won a million bucks. I wasn’t hoarding, I was looking out for my own ass, literally.😜
A couple of weeks ago I started noticing things were starting to reappear on the shelves giving me some sense of relief. We went to a big Shop Rite the other day when we were out delivering, the last time we were there the shelves were still almost bare, but this time they were full, full, full! I controlled myself and didn’t buy one package of Charmin or Bounty.
Now that I have enough of the good stuff on hand, I realized that I had to start using up those cheap ass paper towels I was forced to buy. We can’t use them in the production kitchen at all since they are a hazard when they literally fall apart when you are using them. I am happy to report that the last roll of that horrible, thinner than shit, garbage is gone.
Who would have ever thought that in a world where people want vacations, fancy cars, big homes, nice designer clothing we would be satisfied and relieved coming out of a store with some toilet paper, sanitizer, Lysol, and maybe a can of soup or box of pasta?
Marty got to the empty tube of paper towel before I did. We both will either blow into the tube and say, “do do dooooo!” or clunk the other person or the dogs on top of the head with the empty tube like when we kids. That I think maybe the secret to our 32-year marriage.
Since I started this blog journey I’ve mentioned my work and our business The Vermont Spätzle Company, but I never really talked about it. I know that many of you have been on this journey with us since the beginning, but for those who aren’t familiar with our product…here we go.
Marty and I own and operate the Vermont Spatzle Company. We are the whole kit and kaboodle. We make the product, package it, box it up, deliver it, market it and sell it ourselves. It took me over seven years to develop our recipe. We have the world’s only gluten-free, no-boil, ready in less than five minutes pasta. I was trying to develop a gluten-free spätzle because there was not one on the market. There still is not another gluten-free spätzle available commercially besides ours.
When we had to go gluten-free in 2010 due to medical reasons. Marty really started missing spätzle. He’s from Germany and grew up eating it, I used to make it a few times a year. While we could get terrible gluten-free bread, pizza, bagels, and pasta you could not get spätzle. It seems the more you can’t have something, the more you want it.
The actual cast iron pan of spatzle that is in the background of our label.
So what the heck is spätzle anyway? Well, spätzle is a German egg noodle that is like a little dumpling. In Germany, it is served with sauerbraten, different types of wursts and other things with gravy. One of the most popular ways to have it is fried up in a little butter, then topped with caramelized onions and cheese.
On March 11, 2017, I finally nailed down the recipe and we decided we were going to go into business with 150% effort. We had to find the right packaging, design a logo & label, obtain licenses, nutritional labels, and UPC codes for stores. We learned a lot the first year!
Farmer’s Market
We were quite surprised how fast people found out about our spätzle, and how much they loved it. Social media was the driving force behind getting our product in so many stores. People knew who we were whenever we went into a store. They would say, “Oh look, it’s the spätzle people.”
We also started doing farmer’s markets right away, sautéing our spatzle at our tables, giving people samples, and educating them about what spätzle is. Our product is not geared only towards gluten-free customers, 75% of our customers are not gluten-free. Once they try it ,they are hooked. People ask us if we put crack in our spätzle, that’s how addicted to it they are.
Spatzle for breakfast! Sautéed in butter, dusted in cinnamon topped with fresh berries and whipped cream!
Our customers use our spätzle sautéed with butter, pesto, with different types of sauces and stir-fried dishes. Italian dishes, soups, casseroles, and macaroni & cheese. Someone actually replaced a flour tortilla with our spätzle and they called it the spätzle enchilada. It can even be eaten as a sweet dish. It is truly a blank canvas and the possibilities are endless.
Tradition German meal with pork cutlet and a hunters sauce, leftover turkey spatzle soup, chicken parmigiana with spatzle and cold spatzle caprese salad with fresh mozzarella pearls and a balsamic reduction.
Our product is available through the entire state of Vermont, a few locations in New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania. It is also available through a few online farmers’ markets that offer home delivery, or at pick-up locations near their customers.
Our spätzle has been featured in newspaper and magazine articles. We were featured on a television news show in a segment called “Made in Vermont.” After the show aired everyone in Vermont knew who we were. The more people read about it or heard about it they wanted to try it.
Our “Made in Vermont” segment being shot.
When say that our spätzle is made with love, we mean that 100%. At our super busy times, Marty and I can produce around 1500 pounds a week, but we put love in every batch. By the way, 1500 pounds is a lot of spätzle!
I was able to quit my job within two months to be a full-time spatzle maker. Marty worked another full-time job and full-time at The Vermont Spätzle Company for the first year. He was our marketing person who went from store to store, did demos, and was our delivery person. While Marty was working at his “real” job, I made all of the product and packaged it. We both worked farmer’s markets every weekend and sometimes mid-week.
When I say that working for yourself, having so much passion and love for what you do and the product that you make, is the best feeling in the world! Having our customers share with us their spätzle memories telling us of their grandmothers making spätzle or that they included our product in their holiday meals. Wow-what an honor!
When everything shut down with Covid last March, I had a mini conniption and worried about what would happen to our business since our farmer’s markets were nearly extinct. We are a food manufacturer and essential business so we continued working, business as usual.
We have been extremely lucky and blessed the people still have to eat, cook at home, and have supported our business. Our customer wholesale business is thriving, even though our once busy farmer’s markets are not.
From start to finish ending with a delivery to one of our wholesale customers Field Goods an online Farmer’s Market that delivers to parts of NY, NJ, CT and Long Island.
Conventional spätzle is a batter made of wheat flour and eggs. Sometimes it is cut with a knife into little strips on a cutting board or pushed through a press with holes in it into boiling water. It forms little dumplings that are drained. In our country you usually find spätzle in the dry pasta section, you have to cook in boiling water, drain it then sauté with a little butter. While we do make a batter and push our spätzle through a press into boiling water that’s where the similarities end. We have developed a special mixing process when making our batter.
We decided in the very beginning that if we were gonna do this, we were going to do it right. We wanted to use local milk and eggs which are the first and second ingredients. When we were sourcing our special flours it was important for us to find non-GMO products. We finish our spätzle off with a small amount of nutmeg. The nutmeg gives the spätzle a homey familiar flavor that people just can’t put their finger on. It reminds them of their omas or grandmothers in Germany.
Those gorgeous little brown specks…ground nutmeg.
Our product has won numerous awards including Best Artisan Food at the Vermont Cheesemakers Festival, one of the top ten festivals in the country. That was a very big deal for us.
We also did some festivals in which we sold our spätzle as a hot food item we called Spätzle Bowls. It was always a huge hit at different Oktoberfest celebrations and was a crowd favorite. It was so exciting to hear how many people loved our product. We could see it on their faces when they dug into their Spätzle Bowls, instant gratification for us.
Our spätzle is sold in retail stores in 12-ounce packages. We started to offer our 2-pound family packs at our farmer’s markets. Families would come every week and would have to buy several packages. We thought that it was a waste of packaging and came up with the idea of a bigger serving size bag. Most stores still only carry the retail size, however, The online farmer’s markets and a few local stores carry both sizes.
Not many people have seen the inside of our production facility in person. We built the facility ourselves behind our house. We have a 38 step commute to work and I thought that I would share a typical production day with you.
Our 300 square foot production facility. Steam kettle and sink area, refrigeration, packing area, Big Bertha working hard.
While I was working my ass off for other people, I would pray every single night, “Please God, I would like to have a business that no one else has.” When we were starting the business it was like someone slapped me on top of the head saying, “Wake up stupid! This is it!” Right then and there we knew we would be a success, we had the Big Guy helping us out. 😉
Dear God I have got to clean that mirror in our gym!! Yesterday mid workout, no fooling around or smiling.
It’s been 4 months since I had my shit-fit and walked away from belly dance out of complete frustration and anger. At that point, I was at the end of my rope with all of this Covid bullshit affecting my love of dancing and teaching.
I took myself out until I can go back to teaching and dancing without restrictions. I would rather not dance than be dicked around with…you can dance today, then the next day you can’t.
I just passed my four-month mark of, “Operation get back into shape.” It started off as a way to blow off steam and be as angry as I wanted in the gym. I listened to angry music and went back to serious weight lifting. No diet, no pressure, no weighting myself, just get in there and get my strength back. I’m going to come out of this a stronger person.
I am even more determined to keep at it and make this a lifestyle choice like it was for so many years of my life. I do have to admit there are many days I have to talk myself into working out and sticking with it. That’s when I thought of what my Nana would tell me when I was a little girl.
Nana would say that everyone has two little angels on their shoulders. On the right side you had the good angel, and on the left side was the bad angel.
She said that whenever I was about to decide to something or not do something I needed to listen to the angels on my shoulders and make the right choice.
For example, when I was a kid if I wanted to eat a bunch of candy before dinner…The bad angel said, “Go ahead kid you deserve it.” The good angel said, “Your parents will be mad if you don’t finish your dinner.” The bad adds, “Hey shut up, it’s her favorite kind of candy.” The good one said, “Don’t listen you will get a bellyache.” Ok, I won’t eat the candy.
If only I would have listened to Nana’s advice when I was a teenager or as an adult. I forgot all about the good and bad angels. They would have saved me a lot of heartache and trouble over the years.
I spent a lot of time with both of my grandmothers when I was young. I loved both of them and looked forward to visiting them. They were both widowed, but other than that they were so different from one another. I had different relationships with each of them. In one relationship I was the nurturer, in the other one I was nurtured.
Nana was a lot older than my other grandmother that I called Mema. Nana lost her eyesight from cataracts when I was around 7 or 8. I became her helper. I would get dropped off at her apartment on a Saturday mornings after my dance classes.
Best day ever with Nana! I went with her on a senior citizen bus ride to Asbury Park, NJ
I would help Nana with her laundry. I loved wheeling her laundry cart down the long hallway and onto the elevator. I liked loading the laundry into the washer and throwing in some detergent. Nana had a bunch of quarters in her housecoat pocket. She would count out how many I needed to put into the machine.
While the laundry was washing we would sit in the lobby of the senior citizen apartment building. I knew everyone and they would ask me to show them what I learned in dance that morning. I loved performing for them. Nothing has changed in that department.
When the washer was done, we would go and do the same thing with the dryer. Later nana folded her things. She folded some and rolled up some. Since she couldn’t see, that was how she could tell what was what.
Later in the day, I would walk Nana around the corner to a little store. She had one of those old fashion grocery wheely things. I remember that the store always had a bad smell. We would get the same thing almost every week. Milk, eggs, bread, and bananas. Thank goodness I never had to ask anyone for help, because no one spoke English. This was the Spanish section of her neighborhood.
As we would walk back to her apartment, and rounded the corner, there a gospel church. We could hear the choir rehearsing for the next day. Nana and I sat on a bench on the apartment grounds and listened to them sing. Church hymns are church hymns so Nana would sing along. I liked these hymns so much better than the ones we sang in our Catholic Church. They were jazzy, fun, and full of life. I never got to go into that church, but I could imagine what it looked like and who was singing.
On our way back into the building, Nana would hand me her keys and I could get her mail. I could reach her mailbox on my tippy toes. I did my best to read her mail to her. She was very organized since she was blind so she would tell me back in her apartment what basket got the mail and what one got the bills. My absolute favorite thing to do of all was to take her little brown bag of trash to the incinerator. It had a handle like a mailbox at the post office. As I dropped the bag down the shoot I would say to the bag of trash, “Goodbye cruel world.” 😂
Nana managed very well for a long time living alone and being blind. She could cook, do dishes, and clean. I started to notice when I came that her cleaning wasn’t as good anymore, so without her knowing I would clean what she missed.
Images of shoulder angels on Pinterest
The idea of the good and bad angels represents your conscience and temptation. Decisions we have to make every day, even if we don’t realize we are doing it. That was what Nana was preparing me for in her way.
Yesterday I really didn’t want to work out. I mean, I really didn’t want to. “Don’t work out today, you deserve a day to relax,” said the bad angel. “Don’t listen to him, you get out there, you will be glad you did,” the good one whispered. I listened to the good one and felt great after my workout.
Nana passed away in 1993, but I feel her around me from time to time. Yesterday, she joined me on my workout journey, and it was a Saturday, our day we used to spent together.
When we moved to Vermont from hectic, overcrowded NJ over 30 years ago I knew there was going to be some big trade-offs. I kind of knew back then that food was going to be a big one.
On this blog journey, I’ve already written about some of my favorite food memories. But there are more, many, many more!
We still had the chance to go back to my hometown until 2002, when I suggested my mother move up here after my dad passed two years before to be closer to her family. Hindsite is 2020.
We didn’t have to go gluten-free until 2010, so whenever we went back we ate all of our favorites that you just can’t get in Vermont. It’s torture whenever we go back now because everything we loved has gluten in it.
One of my favorite food memories is a pickle. I am not talking about a dill pickle, or a bread and butter. I am also not talking about the garlic ones you can get in a real deli that are in a big barrel. I am talking about Reo Diner pickles.
The Reo Diner was and still is in Woodbridge, NJ, the next town over from where I lived. I went there a lot. I went with friends, my parents, and Marty. There were so many fantastic diners to go to, but this one was a sober, day time diner for real food.
We went to diners closer to where we lived when we went out at night, after drinking and dancing. We went to other stand-bys like White Castle, Stuff Your Face, The Steak Out, and our choice of a million other places. All good drunk food. Good during the day, but better when you were shit faced.
Drunk food at a diner for me was either was french fries with brown gravy or disco fries which is the same thing but with cheese. Or runny over-easy eggs with the all-important home fries to soak up all the booze so you wouldn’t have a hangover in the morning.
Going to the diner during the day meant a pizzaburger deluxe or a happy waitress special. An open-faced roast beef or turkey sandwich with mashed potatoes. During the day at the Reo Diner, I remember the pickles they had out on the table that you could munch on while you were looking at the massive ten-page menu. How they can offer those many choices is mind baffling!
These neon lights were not there when I last went to the Reo. Probably trippy when drunk! LOL!
The pickles…different from the ones I mentioned earlier. They were crunchy cucumbers with salt and garlic. That’s it. Not a hint of vinegar. The memory was rooted so deeply in my mind that I was able to duplicate them.
I’ve been wracking my brain trying to remember how I learned this pickle making technique. At first, I thought it may have been from Annie, but it wasn’t. I thought I saw it in an Amish cookbook my father had, but nope. I searched the internet and I could not find it.
I’ve been making these pickles for 20 years and have no recollection of how I learned, but it really doesn’t matter does it? The point is that I can tell you about them and show you how I make them. When you are knee-deep in cucumbers from your garden, I hope you will remember these pickles. I use smaller pickles or sometimes European pickles because I can’t digest the seeds of regular cucumbers. If all else falls I scrap some out before I put them into the garlic brine.
These are refrigerator, revolving door pickles. I say revolving door because they are fresh without any preservatives, not even vinegar. They are stored in the refrigerator in the briny garlic liquid they were made in. They last about 5 days so you really should only make as many as you think you will eat. In the summertime, oh hell now too whenever I open the refrigerator I get out the jar and have a couple of spears. As soon as one jar is gone, I make another batch, hench the revolving door pickles.
Refreshing and ice-cold describes these pickles in the summer. They don’t need a fantastic sandwich or burger to accompany them, they are just to be eaten. Just like on the table at the Reo Diner.
The three ingredients…
To start these pickles you should choose firm cucumbers that are all about the same size and ones that will fit length-wise in a mason jar or container that you can store them in. You will also need a large bowl, some fresh garlic cloves, kosher salt, and ice.
Cut the pickles into spears, cut cucs longways in half and then cut again to make the spears. Place the spears in a large bowl. My recipes are usually straightforward, pretty much like me, I don’t like to fool around with ridiculous measurements.
For each cucumber used, you will use the same amount of garlic cloves and tablespoons of kosher salt. This is the way that I like my pickles seasoned. If you get it wrong and think it’s too garlicky, too salty, or not enough garlic or salt, the beauty is, you can always correct it.
The salting and melting process.
Next, you finely mince your garlic and sprinkle it on top of the cucumber spears. You cover the spears completely with ice, mounding it up. Finally, you sprinkle the kosher salt on the ice just like you do putting salt down on an icy driveway. Where I learned this from I will never know, I don’t think I dreamed it up.
Leave the bowl out on a counter at room temperature. By the time the salt melts all the ice, the pickles are done. This is when you can taste your garlic brine. If it’s too salty you can drain some of it and add more cold water. No big deal. The same is true with garlic, if it’s too over the top take some out of the brine, drain some of the brine and add some cold water. Not enough salt or garlic, add more a little at a time. You do have to have the salt to preserve the pickles in the jar, just like fresh mozzarella or feta cheese.
That’s it. That is the recipe. I took step by step photos to demonstrate what in the hell I am talking about. You may have to tweak the recipe a few times to get it how you like it and don’t do like me, write it down! It takes the guesswork out the next time you make a batch.
I went online and looked at some of the Reo Diner food photos. I did see a couple of lame-ass jarred pickles on the plates. If anyone from NJ has been there recently, please report back to me about the pickle situation.
Certain foods that I prepare remind me of specific people. Yesterday, I made corn chowder for lunch. It wasn’t my usual corn chowder I learned how to make more than 25 years ago, it was yesterday’s version.
The longer I cook the more I can branch off the solid core recipes I learned. In the beginning, I wasn’t one of those people who could just open their fridge and make a five-course meal with whatever they found. When the Food Networks show Chopped first came on I remember thinking I could never do that.
Most of the contestants are chefs or professional cooks. They are each given a basket full of random ingredients that they have to make a cohesive meal out of. They can use basic pantry items to help, but the show puts some wacky ingredients in the baskets. They are giving away $10,000, so it should be challenging, especially for chefs.
My boys would say, “ You should go on Chopped.” The thought was scary, here we go…back to me not wanting to look stupid or to be embarrassed if I made something less than perfect or even good. I was sure I would have choked on camera and would be the first one eliminated.
When the contestants would open their baskets, I would pause the tv and say out loud in under 20 seconds what I would make. More times than not one of them would make what I said. I got better and better at it.
Not to toot my own horn, but I’ve come along way. I have no desire to be on Chopped now because it just isn’t challenging to me anymore.
Ok, back to my corn chowder. My usual one is a quick and simple Betty Crocker recipe. I really taught myself how to cook using my Betty Crocker cookbook, then graduated to “The Joy of Cooking.”
The Betty Crocker recipe uses pantry ingredients so it can be prepared any time of the year. “Real” corn chowder recipes use corn on the cob, celery, onions, bacon, stock, potatoes, and lots of heavy cream.
The original Betty Crocker Corn Chowder.
Betty’s recipe uses canned creamed corn, bacon, celery, onions, flour or in my case potato starch, potatoes, and milk.
After my last severe ulcerative colitis flare-up 2 years ago I have been following a strict low residue diet. This type of diet eliminates hard to digest things like nuts, seeds, certain types of raw fruits and vegetables, and certain legumes. I miss popcorn the most.
When I make my chowder I put the creamed corn into the blender and blitz the heck out of it. This makes it not only edible for me, but it is also is a great natural thickener. If I was having company I would take some out of the pot for me, then put either fresh or canned corn kernels into the chowder for texture for everyone else. I love corn so much that I just appreciate having the flavor of it.
Yesterday, I only had maple bacon, which I bought by mistake. As I was making the soup I decided to use sweet potatoes instead of yellow potatoes like I usually use.
I thought the sweet potatoes would go nicely with the maple. I added a dash of cayenne pepper and lots of chopped green onions. It was delicious and a nice change from my usual version. I actually think it was better, I will be making it this way again for sure.
Whenever I start a pot of corn chowder I think of my good friend Patti, Noah, my son’s Godmother. I also think about a couple of her visits to Vermont.
The first time Patti came to visit she brought her younger sister Meg with her. I love Meg and knew we all would have a really fun time. We had just moved to Vermont so hanging out with other Jersey girls was going to be awesome! I missed these guys and was homesick.
The next morning after Meg took her shower she came running into the living room so excited. “Oh my God! I love the water up here in Vermont! My hair never came out so good!” We were crying laughing, not at her, but that we knew exactly what she meant. She got the most height and volume of her “big hair.” Good hair days are a big deal! They still are to me.
The next time Patti visited she came with her husband Ken. As soon as we made plans I immediately started thinking of some things I would cook. I needed some go-to recipes that were quick, easy, and delicious. Noah was not quite two years old yet, so the dishes needed to be recipes I could bang out during his nap time.
My famous tomato tart that I taught all my friends how to make and it became their go to recipe as well!
They came on the Friday of Columbus Day weekend. I wanted to make a couple of seasonal things so I made corn chowder and an apple pie. I also made my famous tomato tart that I made whenever somebody visited. The rest of the food I figured we could wing over the weekend. I cleaned like a madwoman all week during Noah’s nap times, I wanted everything to be perfect. Really now? Imagine that! 😂
On a Friday afternoon, after Noah got up from his nap I put on his favorite show Blue’s Clues, and gave him a snack. “Noah, Aunt Patti, and Uncle Ken will be here soon. “Mommy is going to take a shower and get ready.” I knew I had about 22 minutes to get it all done.
Noah around the time of The Mero House incident.
When I was toweling off I thought I heard something downstairs. I quickly threw my clothes on and went to investigate what he was getting into.
When I came down the stairs there was an older couple sitting on our couch and Noah was sitting on the lady’s lap eating his snack.
What the actual fuckity was happening here? I was so confused I could barely put words together to form sentences. I think I forgot how to speak English. I was in such shock. “Um can I help you?” was all I could get out.
The woman smiled and said, “We are here to check-in. What a lovely home you have and it smells wonderful in here.” I had no idea what she was talking about. Her husband said, “I hope you don’t mind, but your son showed us where our room was, I put our bags in there.” Huh?
“What an adorable little boy you have, we weren’t expecting children, but he’s darling.” She told me.
With that, I realized they were staying at The Mero House, a seasonal bed and breakfast during foliage across the street from our house.
I explained to them their mistake and pointed diagonally across the street. They were so embarrassed, but I reassured them it was an easy mistake to make and it was totally fine.
The husband went into our guest room and retrieved their bags. As he walked past the now cool pie on the dining room table he told me how disappointed he was that he wouldn’t be eating all the delicious food he smelled, “Especially that pie!” We all laughed.
After they left to check-in across the street I was completely rattled. How in God’s name could I let that happen? How could I be so stupid to leave our front door open for anyone to come in?
Noah asked where those people went. I explained to him what happened and he immediately said, “I’m not a good boy?” Sadly a chip off the old block like me.
I tried to not make a big deal about it, he had no reason to think he did anything wrong. He was just being a “big helper.” I told him he was a good boy, mommy was wrong leaving the front door unlocked. Just for the record, no one locked their doors in Vermont. We did of course at night, but not during the day. Back then everyone left their keys in the ignition of their cars & trucks too. I don’t think we ever did.
I took a second to talk about letting strangers in, next time come and get mommy. I went back upstairs to finish getting ready, Patti and Ken arrived a few minutes later. We had a big laugh over what happened. When Marty got home from work I was no longer feeling like the worst mother in the world.
We had a fun weekend being tourists, eating all the food I made, and drank lots of wine. The next time I saw Patti for an extended time was when my father passed away unexpectantly when we were visiting for Easter. Noah was almost five and I wasn’t in any shape to worry about him and my mother, plus I was 5 months pregnant with Sam.
Noah-guy with his Pop-pop
Patti came to the rescue and took care of Noah for me. She had her own family and life but dropped everything to help. The whole thing is still a complete blur, I don’t think I really ever told her how much I needed her, she just knew. My dad loved her and I know he was happy she was taking care of his “Noah-guy.”
It was a few very long and exhausting days, a really tough time, and Patti made it possible that Marty and I could take care of making all the arrangements with my mother and not worry about him at all.
I texted Patti yesterday and asked if I could write about her and Ken and if she remembers anything else. She quickly typed back, “ I just remember the corn chowder and that tomato tart.” She also reminded me about Meg and her best hair day ever.
I smiled from ear to ear, I was so happy that my food was a good food memory for Patti! Marty and I laughed remembering how excited Meg was that morning and what a good time we had whenever they came up.
Patti and I do keep in touch, she is the type of friend that even if we don’t talk for a year, we can pick up exactly where our last conversation ended. We really need to get together after this pandemic bullshit is over. Life got busy when our kids were growing up and we haven’t seen each other for years and years. This is the reason why Facebook is a great thing. We still got to watch each other’s kids grow up, including Meg’s daughters as well.
I honestly didn’t expect this piece to suddenly turn sad, but the words came out when I started writing about my friendship with Patti and knew they needed to be included.
Writing this piece also made me wonder if that older couple had a nice weekend and if they thought of us when they reminisced about their stay in Arlington. I also wondered if the husband was able to track down some apple pie. Dammit, now I want apple pie.
Noah with his arm tattoo dedicated to his Pop-pop.
Yesterday morning I saw a recipe for eggplant rollatini which was perfect because I just bought an eggplant on Monday.
I made the cheese filling and marinara sauce right after we finished work in the production kitchen.
We are extremely blessed during this pandemic that we are in production almost every day trying to keep up filling our wholesale customer orders.
After lunch, I started to make the rollatini. I peeled the eggplant and began slicing it longways and boom. The damn thing was all brown and rotten in the middle even though the outside seemed ok. I HATE WASTING MONEY LIKE THAT!
Flashback to Monday in the grocery store with Marty “Those eggplants don’t look good.” He told me. “Look this one that’s wrapped up like a baby is fine,” I said confidently. One box had loose eggplant and a new box had them wrapped individually with paper.
So when I cut into that brown eggplant I was like, “Oh shit he was right.”Grhhhh! I hate being wrong, especially about food.
Yesterday was a planned day off from working out so I decided to make cheese manicotti instead since I already had the filling and sauce made.
Ready to make manicotti…or maybe not!
I got out my pasta maker, made some pasta dough (gluten-free), and rolled out sheets. I parboiled them because gluten-free pasta becomes brittle if it dries. I’ve done this with my fettuccine and it works.
I laid the cooked pasta squares on a sheet pan spraying the layers with pan spray, not olive oil like I do my pasta. You do know what’s going to happen right????? At this point, I didn’t.
After I got done writing my anti-Valentine blog post I started making my manicotti. In NJ we pronounce it mon-a-gut. “You gotta problem wid dat?” Said in my Jersey accent.
I got out the sauce and cheese and set myself up a rolling and filling station. I uncovered the pasta squares and the MF things all stuck together.
“Are you kidding me right now?” WTF! It was almost 6:30 pm. So now I had to do what good cooks do and think on their feet.
I decided to carefully get the squares apart as best I could under warm running water. Plan C was to make lasagna. Why not? It’s been a couple of years since I made just regular cheese lasagna.
I didn’t tell Marty who was sitting in the living room. I didn’t talk out loud to myself and continue to curse the stuck pasta sheets, I put my head down and got to work.
I was pretty happy how I had just enough sauce, cheese, and pasta. I popped it into the oven and was pretty sure it was going to be good.
While the lasagna was baking, I was thinking about how the entire day was a complete train wreck.
First thing in the morning I walked over to my neighbor’s house to feed his cat that I was cat sitting. I took off my boots, which I am tired of putting on and off constantly. Next, I stepped in warm mushy cat puke with my clean socks I just put on. After I fed the cat I threw my socks in his garbage and walked home in my boots without socks. This was all before my morning cup of coffee.
Later on in the day, I knocked over the dog’s water bowl that was just refilled to the tippy top. All the water ran into the center of my kitchen since all the floors are slanted. The character of an 1832 house is not always charming.
The water quickly ran onto my kitchen runner rug in front of my sink and island. When I raced to get paper towels I got both my second pair of socks soaked. 🤦🏻♀️
The saving grace of the entire day was when I took that lasagna out of the oven. You could almost hear a choir of angels singing. It looked and smelled luscious. I let it cool a bit to let the cheese set up while I set the table.
Let me tell you what! It was the best damn lasagna I ever made and I’ve been making lasagna for 40 years! The crazy thing is, the filling was almost like the ravioli from Spiritos I’ve been trying to duplicate for decades!
I said the best lasagna that I ever made, not ate. I will leave that honor up to Marty’s best friend Paulie’s mother Mrs. Moramarco. Her lasagne was another food memory that will go down in history. Marty and I don’t think it will ever be topped. It was pure perfection! 🙌🏼
So the title of this blog post could have been “Third time’s a charm, but after we finished eating, I announced, “That was a delicious mistake!”
My cheese lasagna with some focaccia bread I made earlier in the day.
Ten or fifteen years ago the old me would have gotten so pissed off when the pasta sheets stuck together I would have thrown everything away. I guess I am either getting more patient as I get older, or I just know how to fix a kitchen disaster. I think a little of both.
