Loving Lemon Pledge

The veneer between persuasive and pushy is both thin and permeable. On good hair days, when the back cowlick of my crown does not resemble Alfalfa from The Little Rascals, I fancy myself “persuasive”…but I do harbor a tendency to foist limoncello onto unsuspecting guests.

I introduce limoncello as highbrow, haute, and an acquired taste for an advanced palate. “Some believe limoncello tastes like lemon Pledge” I’ll condescendingly dismiss, “when it’s actually the nectar of the Sorrentine Peninsula, using the most choice Amalfi lemons.” (Some acquired tastes just need a little push toward the summit of appreciation).

Upon first imbibing, limoncello frequently meets with sour expressions. However, the “lemon pledge effect” wears off after 10 minutes or so, and I notice that deniers usually pour themselves a second splash: I’ve won another patron over to the cause.

For those who are unfamiliar, limoncello is an Italian liqueur that hails from coastal Italy, often Sicily, easily recognized from its arresting neon color and cloudy opacity. Served freezer-chilled in cordial glasses, the dense thickness coats the palate with a robust wallop of lemon flavor. And while I usually engineer the liqueur’s image as “delicacy,” the truth is somewhere closer to “bathtub punch” because of its simple list of ingredients and rustic production process. However, store-bought ‘cello tends to be too syrupy and a little waxy, so I thought I’d try my hand at Italian moonshine.

Ingredients:
6 lemons
1 fifth of high-proof vodka or grappa
2 cups sugar
2 cups water
2 bottles (or mason jars)

Step One:

Peel the zest of all six lemons with a peeler or a box grater, ensuring that you skim only the skin and leave behind the bitter pith. Purists will use Sorrento or Eureka lemons—in our liberal arts version, we used lemons. From a plastic-mesh bag.



Step Two:
Go ahead and add the zest to the high-proof vodka—I used 100 proof Smirnoff—which will draw more of the lemon oil from the rind.

I’ll let Charles Perry from the LA Times do the math for you:

“Using 100-proof Smirnoff 57, the usual recipe will give you a limoncello with the same alcoholic content as commercial varieties: 60 proof. If you use the more common 80-proof vodka, on the other hand, you'll have to steep the peels longer to get as much flavor out of them, and the recipe will give you a 50-proof limoncello.”

Close that mason jar or bottle and leave it out, at room temperature, for a week. (I gave it a little hustle routine about once a day to mix it up.)




Step 3:
Drain the lemon peels from the infused vodka, which should have a deep yellow color at this point. (Note: if you are not using a mason jar, have another receptacle ready for the last step—those lemon peels cling to their former home, and do not easily extract themselves from inside the bottle.)

Step 4:
Stir the sugar and water together over low heat to create the simple syrup, and reduce by half. Let the syrup cool to room temperature.

Step 5:
Pour the simple syrup and lemon infused vodka back into the mason jar or bottle, careful not to fill it to the brim, and stick it in the freezer. The liquid should grow cloudy after 8-9 hours in the ice box, but I left it there for another 4 days.

The result: a far more buoyant, crisp flavor than store-bought ‘cello, and a use for my beloved, physically-challenged cordial glasses.



You can also use different citrus fruit to customize your 'cello--I've seen limecello, orangecello, and I'm told tangelo, blood orange, and grapefruit all make zesty incarnations of this theme.

Photo credit: Shamballah

Bizarre Morning Ritual

In another installment of “Mozzadrella’s Midwestern Manners” I have to note and lament a certain behavior I’ve noticed since venturing Eastward. I find it counterintuitive and gratuitous, bordering on the excessively meticulous.

I am talking about the ritual of carrying to-go coffee in a bag.

Both self-contained and effortlessly portable, paper coffee cups elegantly mesh form and function! Why on earth would someone destabilize a vessel of hot liquid by placing it in a permeable paper sack with little material integrity?

Now the American tic of walking with a hot beverage is a practice I do appreciate—when living abroad, I found it irritating to forcefully “savor” my coffee while seated and immobile. But when asked: “Do you want a bag for that?” as I’m served deli coffee, I can’t restrain my unsightly grimace.

My hypochondriacal nature could interpret this habit as a shielding from others, or preserving the leisurely experience of drinking coffee by waiting to enjoy until arriving at your final destination. Neither rationalization satisfies. Do native New Yorkers have a sense of the reasoning behind this distinct custom?

Image credit: katerw

Fire, Ice, Camp

This week has presented a flurry of baffling and particularly distressing challenges. Early Wednesday morning the fire alarms in my apartment building unleashed their sonic terror, and with my guests I proceeded down to the ground floor, surrounded my murmurs of “I hear it’s real” and “No, it’s not a drill.” In my grandpa pajamas, we waited in the rain for hours, learning in dribs and drabs that yes, the fire was the floor below my apartment, and watching the fire truck posse grow in strength. Once we received the green light to return to the apartment, we found ourselves locked out: the management had stripped out our core lockset to make way for the firemen, and replaced it with the wrong one. I finally reached my bed at 8:30am, damp and depleted.

I decided to take the afternoon off, and hit some of the Jersey City food targets I’d been meaning to visit on the weekends. Sam and I stopped at Taqueria on Grove Street, which has solid enchiladas and tortas (hard to find in New York, where bland Tex-Mex seems to satisfy most appetites) and headed to Erie Street for dessert.

Full disclosure: I prefer the savory to the sweet. I’d much rather have camembert than cannoli (heresy, I know!). To a person with this disposition, get thee to Torico’s homemade ice cream parlor. Torico’s (the name stems from a contraction of “all good,” “todo”+“rico”) has opened every spring for the past 38 years, and is known for its unconventional and innovative flavors.


From top left: Poundcake, Ube, Green Tea, Lychee, Jackfruit, Ginger. I know, I need to refine my photo-taking skills, I just butcher it.

Torico’s makes ice cream every day, all day, and gets ideas from both divine inspiration and customer requests. They were very obliging, encouraging us to taste the guava, the coconut cream, the pumpkin. Most intriguing was the Mamey fruit flavor, which had a curious blend of strawberry and nutty essences.


(Mamey fruit: a.k.a. San Domingo apricot or South American apricot)

On its face, the mamey is not an especially alluring fruit—let me assure you it’s a delicious, subtle experience. After much dithering, Sam ordered the avocado, which also possessed a delicate, understated refreshingness—an exceptional translation into the realm of confection.


(Sam being encouraged to stop vacillating between flavors and pick one already.)

As you can see from the photograph, Sam was in dire need of a haircut, so we stopped at Balance, the salon-cum-vintage clothing retailer next to the ice cream shop.

The interior of the shop features a rich, overstimulating décor—vibrant stuff, kooky stuff, in a retired-costume-designer sort of a way.
Hats, scarves and other props line the stylists’ stations, as if they just might burst into “I Feel Pretty” from overexposure to perm fumes.






We couldn’t track down a stylist that afternoon, but I plan on giving the salon a shot after my hair grows another ¼ inch.

Torico’s: 20 Erie St, Jersey City
Balance Salon: 18 Erie St, Jersey City

Mozzadrella on the Move: Bensonhurst

Bensonhurst is fecund terrain for both d-list fame and hardscrabble scandal. Joey Fatone grew up here. So did Marissa Tomei. Solidly Italian for the past century, in the 80’s the area came to notoriety through a link to “the Teflon Don” John Gotti—a car bomb exploded on 86th street with Gotti as the intended mark. In the early 90s, the Reverend Al Sharpton was attacked and stabbed in the chest while he was leading a protest through the neighborhood.

Like Arthur Ave., Bensonhurst prevails as one of the last distinctly Italian regions in the city. Unlike other touristy areas, this neighborhood performs strictly for itself—rich in a sort of earnest pride, undiluted by irony, fully embracing its garishness. Flags on the sidewalks wave brazen and brash, serve as gatekeepers for record stores, pastry shops, and ravioli artisans.

SAS Italian Records makes its presence known blocks away. It sounds like a parade mixed with a tornado drill siren on a loop. SAS acts as part cultural embassy (it imports countless records and tapes, in addition to Italian shave creams and body washes) part kitchen supply resale shop, part bocce uniform outfitter. Looking over the sparkly porcelain masks and cherubic Jesus mini-statues, I instantly understood my Grandmother’s early adoption of Precious Moments figurines. There is literally no accounting for (or, perhaps, genetic resistance to) taste.



One wall of the store is completely covered in little horns—as keychains, as necklaces, as review-mirror ornaments. Yes, little horns, also known as cornicello (or corno, or cornuto) symbolize virility in Italian and Italian-American culture. Originally linked to the horns of pagan moon goddesses, and later the Virgin Mary, the cornicello is the epitome of Italian bling culture. According to lore, these horns protect against the “evil eye” which harms “nursing mothers and their babies, bearing fruit trees, milking animals, and the sperm of men -- the forces of generation.” My father, I am told, proudly donned a cornuto ‘neath, or entwined with, his tufts of chest hair in the open-collared 70s.



On closer appraisal:



Elena identified with the wooden soldiers (we think?) featured in the window.



At Queen Anne’s Ravioli Shop, I finally uncovered the mystery of the home-ripened fetus-looking cheese!


“Scamozza” is a dried mozzarella, with a more robust flavor, and a slightly harder tooth. After drying for about 24 hours, the cheese resembles the low-moisture part-skim mozz we might find in the grocery store, thereafter, the cheese comes closer to percorino or parmesan in texture.

Off for sweets. Villabate Alba Bakery has marzipan down to an art form: the craftsmanship looked more like model planes than sugar and ground almonds.



We acquired a neopolitan crème, cannolli, pignolli and fennel-seed “S” biscuits, and hunkered down with cappuccino at Bensonhurst’s old man social club. There we overhead resigned husbands trade horror stories about their wives, challenge each other to pugnacious rounds of bocce later in the afternoon.



Bensonhurst is roughly bordered by 13th-20th avenues, 63rd-86th streets in South Brooklyn near Coney Island.

Dumbo-style Scary

Yes, those are wrapped in plastic.
14th st NW & Rhode Island Ave., Washington DC

Mozzadrella wanders South...

I went to DC this past weekend to see my pal James get hitched, and thought I’d check out where the fresh mozz gets made below the Mason-Dixon. I departed from out slightly dingy hostel for the only promised land for foodies in the District: Eastern Market.

Eastern Market refers to both the expansive brick building where purveyors hock their wares and the surrounding neighborhood, a sleepy, cozy area near Capitol Hill. Built in 1873 as a city-supported market, it’s protected by the National Registry of Historic Places.

Until April 2007, when fire accosted the structure. Part of the roof caved in.

It’s currently being rebuilt, but in the meantime the city has erected a temporary structure known as the “East Hall” near the original grounds. It retains the lofty space-feel of the place, and serves as host to the same vendors. My favorite is the Bowers Fancy Dairy Products, run by Ray and Tessa Bowers, a Polish family that has been importing cheese to DC since 1964.



This family distributes samples generously and with zest. I sampled a surprisingly tangy goat’s milk gouda (decidedly different from it’s Dutch cow’s milk counterpart) and a gouda/parmesan hybrid with a woodsy flavor. If you stand there for 15 minutes you will be full. And in awe of their massive cheese plains.

In addition to the imported cheeses the Bowers’ also carry domestic, local cheese from nearby Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Cherry Glen raises award-winning goats in Boyds, Maryland, and features both fresh and aged chèvres (fresh is the more crumbly, tart of the two, aged chèvre takes on a creamier, lava-like texture with a stronger nose). They also manage a goat’s milk ricotta (a whey cheese from cows, sheep, or water buffalo) which makes use of apple cider vinegar to achieve the grainy consistency. The Glen Farm only uses microbial rennet, which is to say it’s vegetarian-safe.

My favorite part, the item that floored me, was the 5lb butter lumps in the display case. They measure 3x3x12. Woof.

Mom, what's a "Benny"?

Benny (n.) Bennies, pl.
1.) One who does not pay proper respect to the indigenous peoples of the Jersey shore. A colonizer.
2.) Groups of individuals who visit the Jersey shore in the summer who a.) clog the streets with beach traffic b.) rock socks with sandals c.) wear white tank undershirts displaying outgrowths of chest hair and/or track suits.
3.) A slang term for tourists of Italian-American descent who vacation in the shore towns of Belmar, Spring Lake, Point Pleasant and Manasquan.

The term derives from Bayonne, Elizabeth, Newark, and New York, though I understand the New York part specifically targets Staten Island.

Take a look at some recent controversy surrounding the uprising.

Taylor-Made

I don’t know that I have a lot to learn from New Jersey, but she sure wants to teach me.

I’ve been down the shore, weathered the inanity of the jughandle, been called a “Benny,” parsed out the different accents, been thwarted by the blue laws on Sunday, tasted the coffee at Wawa, and toured countless vinyl-coated diners.

I first came to New Jersey three years ago this week. I’m back. She is awful persistent.

And yet (resignedness) I can admire a place with an “indigenous” food culture, completely contained within New Jersey borders. I’m talking about Taylor Ham: It’s not a secret, but New Jersey keeps it.

Taylor Ham is a sausage-like porcine product, with a texture at the midpoint between Canadian Bacon and Spam. The salient element in the very popular “Taylor ham and cheese” sandwich, it anchors NJ’s pork roll culture. It’s worth noting that this is strange to a Midwesterner—until only recently, the breakfast sandwich, or generally consuming breakfast with your hands, was relatively foreign. Plates. Bowls. There are reasons why this is accurate.

In the summer of 2005, my green ignorance of both Taylor ham and beach culture was met with astonishment, and quickly I was ushered to the deli.

Now, Taylor ham is usually prepared by slicing the sides so that the middle doesn’t bubble up, then placed on the griddle until it’s crispy.


Its sodium-nitrate-infused succulence might be sandwiched, or lay atop an omelet. As I mentioned, Taylor ham rarely leaves New Jersey (I guess the rest of the country can make do?) but it is worth sampling should you find yourself, sandy and terrified, on the boardwalk this summer.

Naturally, in New Jersey, all paths lead back to politics: John Taylor of the Taylor Provisions Company (1837-1909), was a New Jersey State Senator who punted street vendors in NJ and presided over the Inter-State Fair. To this day, Taylor ham is made not far from Taylor Street in Trenton.

Photo sources: No Frills Marilyn, Buba69

Under Brooklyn Bridge, July 2008

I haven't seen the waterfalls yet.

Mozzadrella Moved ‘Crost the Hudson!!!

In the fervid riptide of the last three months, I said goodbye to my cat, packed up the apartment in Brooklyn & swept it broom clean, and moved across BOTH rivers to land in Jersey City, NJ. I miss Brooklyn a great deal, and hope to be back soon, but in the meantime I am luxuriating in my central air, my laundry in the unit, my dishwasher, and my unreal view. Once the shock wore off a little, I’ve gotten back to exploring and eating my way around downtown Jersey City.

By and large, three ethnic flavors comprise and color Old Chicago: Italian, Irish and Polish. And since my mother is joining an extensive Polish fam in January when she marries a Rezack, I thought I’d familiarize myself with the native flavors before I face the meat, meat and more meat buffet at her wedding.

On my first tour of Grove Street, I was instantly attracted to the wooden and slightly fey mannequin in the window of Sava’s Polish Diner. His makeup looks a little color-by-number, and he knows how to accessorize—he features a tuft of fake hair where a pocket square might go. I had to eat there.


A boisterous Polish woman greeted me at the counter, and gave me a brief overview of the fare: Hungarian goulash (meat stew), stuffed fried cutlets of chicken and pork, mixed vegetables, and I ordered stuffed cabbage, pierogies, and kielbasa.


First off: this cuisine is not for texture warriors. Poles apparently like their food quite soft, salty, and a little flat in flavor profile. You must avail yourself of the horseradish mustard available on the side—I appreciate that burning, urgent moment when mustard hits your sinuses and you almost go blind with heat. It hurts so good.



The stuffed cabbage is prepared with onion, rice and “trap meat” (pork, I assume?), and bathed in a tomato gravy—think of a limper stuffed grape leaf. While I wasn’t so hot on that, the kielbasa was deliciously tender, and well-complemented by the tart and slightly bitter sauerkraut.

But the pierogies—ah, the pierogies. Pierogies are a Polish dumpling, made of potato, cheese, or fruit, namely cherries, and served either boiled or fried. If you had the sorry experience of dining hall pierogies at Grinnell, you might dismiss the species as akin to a rubber bath mat. Not so! And while Sava’s do smell like hair sizzling on a curling iron, they taste like a savory pillow of divinity, boiled for three minutes and covered in sour cream. I ate three. I could have stomached ten.



The atmosphere of the restaurant feels like a kitschy convenience store, with overhead lighting and stark tables. Oil paintings that feature buxom & nubile Eastern European women in traditional frocks line the walls, their smiles ready-made for beer bottle labels, their cleavage deep and mysterious like deep sea trenches.

Sava’s also sells traditional Polish condiments and hard-to-find imported goods, including pickled sorrel leaves, creamed horseradish, and powdered cherry pudding mix. It turns out that the mannequin is nameless, and picked up nearly 20 years ago when the restaurant was across from the Hudson County Court House. I kind of want to call him “Jamie.”

I thought Charlie would like the items near the register: