For Italians or anyone who loves Italian Food

[hippywife]

I had totally forgotten that I had registered at this website. I got email from them and have been briefly skimming through it and it's a lovely site for all foods and ingredients Italian. :9

http://www.lacucinaitalianamagazine.com/

[Stinky The Clown]

1. Brava!

I get that magazine every month at the grocery store.

[hippywife]

2. That's where I originally saw it.

I hate to subscribe to magazines because they just pile up so I went to the website instead. :hi:

[hippywife]

4. The other funny thing that I found out was

scamorza really is an Italian cheese. When we were kids and my dad was taking pictures, instead of "Say cheese!" He'd always say, "Say scamorz!" I figured it was an Italian cheese but never saw it anywhere but this website today. :rofl:

This recipe sounds incredible. The photo's not so appealing, I like a little char and seasoning on my grilled chicken, but yum!

http://www.lacucinaitalianamagazine.com/recipe/grilled_stuffed_chicken_breast_

[Stinky The Clown]

5. "Scumoats"

That was the quintessential "apizza" (ahbeetz) cheese in the southeastern Connecticut Italian enclaves. Having grown up in ione of them, it was all I knew. I never even heard of mozz - let alone buffala - until I left home.

[elleng]

6. LOVE your words, Stinky,

And there was always 'fajooola,' eh?

[Stinky The Clown]

7. There was an Italian cheese factory in either Bridgeport or Stratford CT named Cutrufella's

I think that's how it was spelled. We went there for ice cream (they called it ice cream ... it was really gealto) and to get the Italian cheese they both made and imported. They made their own scamorzza. I think they may still be in business.

[elleng]

8. Even better!

Thats Gelato, eh?

And my error: Pasta fazoool! to us brooklyn/l.i. jews!

[Stinky The Clown]

10. Yep! That's it! Pasta fazool

In fact, it is pasta i fagioli. Pastafazool (it is more one word than two) is an Italian-American dialect of the Italians from the Naples area who (mostly) settled in the greater NYC area. Also the Sicilians who went to NYC. Here in Baltimore, it is not an authentic dialectical word, but it is heard. The Italians who emigrated to Baltimore and Boston (and Norfolk, for that matter) all came from different regions of Italy.

[elleng]

12. I was very excited when I learned about FAGIOLI!

Oh, Now I get it, I thought!

[hippywife]

15. When my grandmother made it,

it was not a soup. It was elbow pasta with very little red sauce with Parmesan and great northern beans stirred in for protein. I never saw it made as a soup until it was advertised and presented that way in the chain restaurants. But then it could be just a regional thing.

[Stinky The Clown]

17. You remember it the same as I do

It was more a thick bean stew than a soup. We still make it that way.

[hippywife]

18. I make it for Bill occassionally.

When I need to make something quick for supper, it works. Glad you remember it that way, too. I thought I was just the one that thought it was odd as a soup. Definitely good 'ol peasant fare.

[hippywife]

9. I remember a small market

in Columbus when I was a kid called Carfagna's. The smells, oh the smells! Two branches of the family opened their own stores out in the burbs later but only one of them lasted and neither was as wonderfully odorific as the original. I wish I could stick my nose back in there again for just a few minutes.

[Stinky The Clown]

11. I know **exactly** what you're talking about.

Alas, those places are mostly all gone. not from any particular change to the food or the people who still import it, but to health codes and refrigeration and such.

Here in Baltimore there's a place that has been in business, with the same family ownership and in the very same building, since 1906. It has never been remodeled (and very much looks it), but it has had to keep up with the health codes. The smell is still there, but only as a ghost.

The smell was a mix of olive oil and cheese and saluma. That was all stored at room temperature. But no more. Except maybe a few cheeses.

[hippywife]

16. Heh heh.

It was a pretty ratty looking place. I remember the really torn up linoleum floor throughout the place and it always seemed so dark. But if we were well behaved we always got some coombits (sp?) (Jordan almonds) as a treat. My mom says that's what they threw at the weddings in the old neighborhood back in the day, along with pennies, instead of rice. Can you imagine getting beaned with those as you;re running out of the chapel?

[Stinky The Clown]

19. My aunt, now well into her 90s, was married for the first time in her 70s.

That's what they had at their wedding. Lots of weddings since then. No more almonds. I actually still have a little mesh package of them from her wedding. They're in this little ceramic shoe with their names on it.

[hippywife]

21. They wouldn't have lasted that long

in our house. LOL

That is so cool that she still married that late in life. I hope it made her very, very happy. :hug:


I'm off to bed with my book now. Really nice reminiscing with you, tho. I miss that stuff so much and all of my great aunts and uncles. That was when family was family. :hi:

[elleng]

20. They throw money in Poland,

AND, get this, Bride and Groom have a contest, whichever picks up most gets to 'rule the roost' financially! Actually saw this at a wedding in Poland a few years ago.

[elleng]

13. And Marzetti's was a good Italian restaurant in Columbus, eh?

Now 'famous' for salad dressings?

[hippywife]

14. We couldn't afford to eat out when I was a kid

so I never ate there. Back then families with six kids just couldn't do it. The closest we came to eating out was ordering pizza and subs in from one of the numerous mom and pop places. I miss those places now that I live in OK. They were always, always delicious. Not like the chains that are around today. That's why I've worked so hard to perfect my own homemade pizza.

[Lugnut]

22. My m-i-l's grocery store smelled like that.

She had everything in that store and most of it was imported. Olives and dried cici beans were in barrels and salami and cheese was hung up on strings over her meat case. She passed away last year at the ripe old age of 97 but my memories of her and those wonderful smells will last with me until I check out.

[hippywife]

23. Ain't it grand

to have those wonderful smells and memories of that places? If only they didn't have to be just memories. Glad you got to experience it, too. :hi:

[elleng]

3. You called, and I answered!

Grazie!