moosewood...what i remember from going there once or twice was being assured that at one point the place was actually good. that point was apparently falling further and further into the past. i figured the food was mediocre, but at least i had the chance to wave at that point in the past as it fell away.
the cookbook is part of that strange "new american" wave of the late 70s that resulted in other things like the echanted broccoli forest (irritating layout, irritating font, irritating writing, but some good recipes) and the white dog in philly. actually, philly was a big part of all that. i used to have the frog cookbook but lost it along the way, along with whatever preference i might ever have had for "new american"
i like marcella hazan and sometimes am in the mood to be bossed around by her. she is at her most bossy on making pasta, i think. it's kinda funny, if you're in the right mood.
but she's entirely right about things like san marzano tomatoes. and actual reggiano. and using decent butter rather than that flavorless mass produced stuff. little things that make a huge difference---of them, though: if you're going to make a simple tomato sauce, you really compromise it with most regular canned tomatoes. it's worth the extra buck, if you can swing it. but the style of sauce is not bolongese...prefab "italian" in the supermarkets of america would have you think that there's only one basic spaghetti sauce. it's silly.
marcella also has the best carbonara ever. it's so simple, but it's great. and she's not terribly bossy in that one.
i never could get the pork braised for hours in milk to work, though.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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