Diary of a New York Waiter

My best friend Josh called me this afternoon to tell me that he was a block away from my apartment, and was I home, could he come up, he had something to tell me. Of course, I was home, and of course, he climbed my five-floor walk-up to tell me the following story.

"Ooooh I love a well-dressed man!" I look up from my rehire application form at Cafe Fiorello, a traditional Italian mainstay on Broadway across from Lincoln Center, to find an older black woman with designer sunglasses and graying dreadlocks staring me in the face from across the bar. I decide to move to her end while I wait for a manager to come interview me. Why not? We start talking, and I mention that I've just spent five months in Ghana. She looks at me with one eyebrow raised and says without words that she is wary of white people who go to Africa, period. I quickly qualify my presence over there by saying, "I was just studying, that's all." We go on talking, she not-so-subtly identifies that I am not attracted to women, and then encourages me to pursue an old flame (a fellow waiter). Before I know it we are debating history and fiction, and the possible danger of fiction. I argue wholeheartedly on the side of it, believing that fiction can force us to stare knowingly into periods of our histories that we know nothing about. "Give me an author who's done that," she demands. I laugh nervously and say, "Toni Morrison." "Oh, Toni's not my favorite," she says laughing a hearty laugh. "Really? What don't you like about her?" "I am her!" I turn redder than the pomodoro langosta on the famous antipasto bar. I'm actually staring my literary hero in the face. I actually just debated the power of fiction with her. She sized me up, and I unknowingly told her how incredible I think she is. Just an average encounter at Fiorello's, which is frequented by stars like Meryl Streep, Al Pacino, Jim Carrey, Roseanne Barr and Barbara Walters. Ten years from now I'll say: one afternoon in Manhattan I shot the shit with Morrison.

Josh lives in Manhattan where he studies writing and literature at Columbia University. During the summer he joins the ranks of New York's young, vibrant future stars of the stage and screen at the infamous Cafe Fiorello. Buon Appetito!

Cafe Fiorello
1900 Broadway
New York, NY 10023
212.595.5330
http://www.cafefiorello.com/

Pasta Pomodoro

Apparently, Plato said: "No town can live peacefully whatever its laws when its citizens ... do nothing but feast and drink and tire themselves out in the cares of love."

It seems as though Plato was a few centuries too early to understand what it means to be a real Italian: that peace exists most often in those moments of feasting, drinking, and loving -- and that the chaotic combination of the three is sometimes the most fun of times.

Not that I, an American born half-blood Italian, can claim to understand completely what it means to be part of that warm-blooded, tempestuous, and sensual people (though some would contest that I do), but I can say confidently that I do know Italian cuisine. My heart pumps red sauce, balsamic vinegar, and Barolo wine.

Like any good Italian, I believe that food is about love. I first learned to cook in an effort to romance a boy into liking me. Unfortunately, my Portuguese mother and I didn't take into account that he was a WASP, and food was not an important part of his family upbringing. Needless to say, I didn't win his 12-year-old heart, but I did learn the most invaluable cooking lesson: how to make a perfect, hearty, and irresistible pasta pomodoro.

To welcome home my best friend Josh from his four-month celebration of life in Ghana, and in part to say goodbye to my dear friend Naomi who will soon return home to the UK, I decided to prepare a simple summer pasta pomodoro dinner for them and my roommates, just in time to welcome the beginning of a very, very hot summer in New York.

***

PASTA POMODORO
(serves six)

















4 1-Pint crates of cherry tomatoes, rinsed
1/2 Vidalia onion
1 small head of garlic
1 Tbsp Olive oil
1/4 cup Italian red wine
Salt and pepper, to taste
A few Basil stems
1 packet spaghetti or angel hair pasta
Parmigiano Reggiano cheese

Cut all tomatoes into 8-small pieces by first cutting twice in the north-south direction, and then once east-west (thinking of the cherry tomato as a globe). Set aside. Cut onion in half, east-west, then remove skin of one half of the onion. Make thin, 1/4-inch slices along the semi-circle curve side of the onion. Cut all slices in half to make quarter-circles. Set aside. Remove garlic from skin by smashing cloves with the broad side of a chef's knife.

Heat a large sauce pan over high heat. When hot, add olive oil and toss in onions. Saute until they begin to soften, then add garlic. Continue cooking until onions turn golden brown, but be careful not to overcook or burn the garlic heads.

Add tomatoes and stir to incorporate all of the ingredients. Reduce to medium heat. Let mixture cook, stirring occasionally. When tomatoes become soft and juicy, add wine and stir slowly, folding the wine into the tomatoes. Let cook on medium heat for about ten minutes, or until fragrant, stirring occasionally.

When mixture begins to resemble a chunky sauce, add salt and pepper and a few whole basil leaves. Turn to low heat and let simmer.

Fill a large pot with water, add a few pinches of salt, and boil. When water comes to a fierce boil, add pasta and turn to medium heat so water is just barely bubbling, about 3-5 mins for white pasta, 10-12 minutes for whole wheat pasta. When just al dente, drain. Return pasta to empty pot, add about a teaspoon of olive oil and a pinch of salt -- to avoid pasta from sticking.

Take a few large leaves of basil, roll along the long side like a cigarette, and slice into little curls. This technique, the chiffonade, keeps from bruising the basil.

Using a large fork, twirl a serving size of pasta and add to plate, styling like a bird's nest. Add a heaping spoonful of pomodoro to the center so that it overflows down the sides of the nest. Garnish with grated parmesan cheese, followed by a few basil chiffonades.

Serve with a favorite Italian wine, someone you love, and enjoy.

Welcome to my table...

There is nothing so delightful as biting into a ripe, Turkish fig. Except, perhaps, the search for that perfect fig as you finger through a basket or a tray of delightfully chubby fruits, early on a damp, fall morning at an outdoor market in Paris. Though finding the perfect dozen figs may only take a few minutes, the romance of the fig continues through the rest of the day -- the first is a gift from the marchand, the second is savored more carefully as you walk home along the boulevard. For breakfast, fresh farm yogurt from Normandy, honey dripped from a sweating comb, a sprig of mint, and three figs sliced to reveal their sweet, pink flesh. Prociutto and figs with crisp arugula atop a fluffy baguette for midday lunch. The ripest figs of the lot for dinner, bursting with seeds and red sugary juice in puddles of thick balsamic vinegar. And just before sleep, you savour the last of the Turkish figs, squeezing the flesh through soft, purple skin, to lick every last taste off of your lips.

This is just one of my many memories of tasting while I lived in France. Now back at home in New York, I find myself scouring Whole Foods or Greenmarket for the best and freshest produce. Of course, nothing compares to what I found in the hexagon. But now that summer is here (which means a variety of things for me, as you soon will discover), I have ample time to make more ventures to Union Square to find the best that New York-area farms have to offer us cement-caged-cosmopolitans here in Manhattan. The first course begins...

So, welcome to my table and to my blog -- Goûter. I will taste, travel, and live, and keep you informed along the way. I hope that you, my audience, will do so too and send me your thoughts, your adventures, your recipes. This meal is for sharing -- for what good is cooking if you must eat your meal on your own?

Bon ap ~ Amanda.