The Food Maven Diary
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Free Lecture, You Tube, Pasta and Beans
About now, there are newspaper stories and TV segments being prepared about all the wonderful things you can do in New York City for FREE. We always have free culture galore in NYC, but it is in times like these when everyone is watching their buck that we read and see those big round-ups. I lived through it before. I've written the stories myself. Now, I am myself one of those free events.
This Sunday, I will be giving my illustrated Jewish food lecture at the Upper West Side Jewish Community Center. I am part of a day-long "Yiddish Live!" event at the JCC, 334 Amsterdam Ave. at W. 76th St. My lecture starts at 1 p.m., then I will be available for a few hours to schmooze and sign books. The JCC will have available for purchase "Arthur Schwartz's Jewish Home Cooking: Yiddish Recipes Revisited." The event is co-sponsored by the Workmen's Circle, The National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene, and The Forward. No registration is necessary. Just show up.
Here's the rundown on the day:
IN THE LOBBY
- Vintage Yiddish Collectables for Sale
- Activities and tables by the co-sponsors
- Signs of Our Past exhibition on view
- Live Music and Food
- 2:15-4pm: Book signing and meet and greet with Arthur Schwartz
- 4pm: Gallery Tour
IN THE GOLDMAN-SONNENFELDT FAMILY AUDITORIUM
1-2pm: Arthur Schwartz, aka the Food Maven, an illustrated lecture on Yiddish food
2-3pm: Yiddish sign collector Rabbi Michael Strassfeld talks about the exhibition - Signs of Our Past and the cultural history behind many of these quirky signs
3-4pm: Zalmen Mlotek and friends perform Yiddish, English and Yinglish songs giving a perspective on Yiddish life in America through musical history
4-4:15pm: Author/Blogger Ben Feldman reads an essay about an adventure in Brooklyn inspired by a contemporary Yiddish sign
4:15-5:15pm: Author David Roskies discusses his new book, Yiddish Land
IN THE BEIT MIDRASH
3 pm: Der Kish - Indie short film in Yiddish about an orthodox father torn between his love for his child and his religion. Followed by a screening of the classic film Hester Street
NOW PLAYING
Did you know that I was on You Tube? I keep forgetting to tell you. There are excerpts from two appearances, one a video record of my radio interview with Leonard Lopate of WNYC (our local NPR affiliate) and one interview that aired on Shalom TV. Just go to www.youtube.com and plug my name in the search box.
RECIPE OF THE MOMENT
When I was about to quit my radio program on WOR, I commiserated with my friend, Ann Amendolara Nurse, my "Barese mamma," as she likes to call herself. (Actually, she was born in Brooklyn, but her parents came from Italy.)
"I'm not worried about you," she said. "You make very good pasta e fagioli (pasta and beans)."
What she meant was that I know how to cook and live simply, if necessary.
Now we all have to live simply. It's necessary. And the subject of pasta and beans has come up several times in the last few weeks. On Sunday, my cousin Erica Marcus, food writer for Newsday, on Long Island, asked me if I had a good recipe. I believe she is publishing several next week.
As pasta and beans is a subsistence dish in southern Italy, I have many recipes, many ways to put those two ingredients together.
My easiest and simplest is to open a can of cannellini beans and whip them into a puree in the food processor. In a small skillet or saucepan, I then saute very gently garlic and rosemary leaves (fresh, if possible, but dry works, too, although crumble the dry ones) in a few tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil. For one 15-ounce can of beans, I'd use two large cloves of garlic, finely chopped, and about a scant teaspoon of rosemary. When the garlic is tender, but not yet colored, pour the flavored oil into the beans in the food processor. Process again. Add another tablespoon or so of raw olive oil.
For this amount of bean puree, I use 6 ounces of macaroni - any kind you like, really. That's enough for two people. Reserve a little of the pasta cooking water if you decide to thin the sauce a little. Toss the pasta with the bean puree and, as I said, a little of the pasta water if desired.
I like this with hot pepper, so I'd add crushed red pepper to the garlic and oil, or pour on a little of my homemade hot pepper oil at the table.(Just cover hot pepper with vegetable oil, not olive oil, and let stand for a day). It should stay fresh for at least a month, but not much more, so don't make too much at once.
Now, I just need a salad or cooked vegetable.
By the way, there is a particularly hearty soup version of pasta fazool (as they call it in Italian-American dialect) in 'Soup Suppers," my book on main course soups, and, naturally, there is one in "Naples at Table."
Hope to see many of you on Sunday, at the JCC.
