The Slim Version Of His Grandmother's Recipe...

My grandmother was an amazing woman. Actually, both grandmothers were amazing, but let's concentrate on one at a time.

Angela Bambace was an Italian immigrant. She was 8 years old when her family came to New York City around 1906, and when she was a teen, she started working in the sweatshops in the garment district. Disgusted with the treatment of the workers, she (and a small handful of others) decided to organize the fledgling International Ladies Garment Workers Union.

She slowly worked her way from organizer to Vice President, and it was a very difficult journey. She was beaten, thrown down a set of stairs, thrown in jail . . .not to mention all the threats.

She was offered a chance to manage and organize the Delaware-Maryland-Virginia area (known as the Upper South Department of the ILGWU) and she accepted the challenge and went on to organize the whole region, taking the union from nothing to its peak of about 15,000 members (back in the ‘60’s.)

She started by going to small towns on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, an Italian immigrant in the middle of the not-so-deep south, and she would try and get workers to join the union. And you know what? She didn't drive. She had a driver, an African American guy named Jesse, who had one bad eye. I don't know if you've ever been to the Eastern Shore of Maryland, or to the rural areas of Virginia, but you can imagine the problems that an Italian immigrant and a black man travelling together would cause. Not to mention the problems that arose when they would try to organize. My grandmother used to buy carry-out meals, and they would eat together in the car, or in a park. Most white restaurants wouldn't admit black people, so my grandmother chose to stay with Jesse.

When I was a teenager, she used to tell me these incredible stories as we sat around the kitchen table after dinner, sipping chianti from straw-covered bottles.

I was crazy about my grandmother. She was a pretty wild woman, in retrospect. She kept her maiden name (Bambace) when she married (an arranged marriage, from which she later divorced). She smoked (Larks). She drank (bourbon Manhattans or chianti.)

She even cussed, on occasion. I remember being in a restaurant with her when she told the Baltimore City Comptroller, Hyman Pressman, that he was "full of shit" after he recited an impromptu poem about my sister. Everyone laughed-including Hyman, who knew my grandmother well. Everyone except us kids, who were pretty shocked. But she played by her own rules. She lived with an anarchist named Luigi Quintiliano, who I thought was my real grandfather until I reached my teens.

What kind of woman was she? She used to tip the garbage men ten bucks. She'd make sandwiches for homeless guys, who would then do some lawn work. All the politicians loved her (she had about 15,000 votes in the palm of her hand.) Mayors and Governors used to come calling at holidays (and election time.) When she went into the hospital, Vice President Hubert Humphrey called (she hung up on him-she thought her son was playing a joke.) Her members adored her (they were mostly women.)

Angela was brave, beautiful, independent and deeply compassionate. She improved the lives of thousands of people, and she did it without expecting anything in return.

"When you give, you give with no strings attached," she told me more than once.

Everybody loved her, even the manufacturers she fought with. And me? I used to follow her around the kitchen when I was a kid, clutching her skirt.

But Angela didn't seem to love to cook, and who could blame her? She worked late, and was frequently out of town. We ate out a lot. She loved Chinese food, and we used to go to a place called Jimmy Wu's on Charles Street. She ate lunch almost every workday at a place called Oyster Bay in downtown Baltimore. Pete was her waiter. She loved steak tartare. And French onion soup.

When she cooked, she'd use a rotation of 3 dishes for our big Italian Sunday dinners. One was the classic Italian meat sauce-my grandmother would put all kinds of meat in a tomato sauce and let it cook all day. Meatballs, sausage, pork chops, road kill -- it all went in the sauce, cooked until crumbling. She used to make breaded, fried cutlets (chicken/fish/veal) with just about every dinner. She also used to make an Italian chicken stew. Actually, I don't think the chickens were Italian, but the stew was.

And she used to make pasta piselli- pasta with peas. I've had arguments with my Dad (the Slim Daddy, the second of Angela's two boys) about the cauliflower and the tomatoes, but I remember it this way, and so does my Mom.

So here is the Slim Version of Nanny's Pasta Piselli. I called my grandmother Nanny, which is a screwed up version of Nonni, which is what most Italian kids call their grandfolk. And Nanny used to make this dish for The Family on Sundays when I was growing up. The grown-ups would sit in the dining room, and we kids would sit at the kitchen table. And my grandmother would always say the same thing whenever she served us pasta...

"You eat that spaghetti or I'll shove it down your throat!"

Pasta Piselli

3 cups of peas
one head of cauliflower (about 4 cups)
12 roma tomatoes (about 2 cups)
6 cloves of garlic
one medium onion
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup good white wine
1 can vegetable broth (about 2 cups)
1 pound of penne rigate pasta
3 anchovies (optional)
1/2 cup slivered almonds
freshly grated cheese (not Velveeta! Locatelli Romano, or Parmiggiano Reggiano)

I'll do this all in real time, so let's get chronological!

Put on a large pot of water under the highest heat you got. Pasta needs a lot of water, otherwise, it gets gummy. My brother, the Slim Bro, only uses cold water to start. He insists that the hot water tastes different, and he's my big brudder, so I believe him! Lots of cold water in a big pot over the highest heat. Then...

Put the olive oil in a large saucepan. I use extra virgin olive oil, and I recommend it highly. If you can't find an extra virgin olive oil, at least find one that hasn't been too promiscuous.

Turn the flame on low.

Peel the paper shell off the garlic cloves, and mince, mince, mince. I love garlic. It's good for you. My Uncle Oscar hollers at me when I use this much garlic, but when he ain't around, I use even more!

Mince the garlic and put it in the olive oil. If you like anchovies, add three, and mash them until they disintegrate. It adds a nice flavor to this dish-just don't let the anchovy haters see you do this!

Turn the flame up to medium low.

Peel the paper shell off the onion and chop, chop, chop. I like Vidalia onions, but almost any onion will do, except the Spanish/purple onion, which tends to turn the sauce into a funky color.

Add the chopped onion to the garlic and olive oil. If you need more oil, add some. If you like things spicy, add some crushed red pepper.

Take the head of cauliflower and peel off the green leaves, and cut away the stalks, and throw that stuff out. Sure, you can put the stalks in the freezer for soup, but, you know what? I never use ‘em!

Chop the cauliflower crowns into manageable pieces, small enough to fit in your mouth. Sometimes I use the upper portion of the stalk as well as the crown. Make sure you sliver the stalks, cause they can be pretty tough and chewy when they're big.

Turn the heat up to medium high.

The onions should be clearish, and the garlic should be golden. As soon as the saucepan gets hot, add the vegetable broth and the white wine. Let the sauce return to medium high heat, and let the broth/wine mixture reduce for a couple minutes. Then add the cauliflower.

Turn the heat back to medium, and let the cauliflower cook. Stir, stir, stir.

Rinse off the roma tomatoes, and remove the seeds and the innards. Chop the tomatoes into small pieces.

When the cauliflower are almost done, add the tomatoes. Try not to let the tomatoes disintegrate. They need to stay chunky -- don't cook for too long, a couple minutes. And don't stir the sauce too much-the tomatoes tend to fall apart.

Then add the peas. If you can find fresh peas, God Bless You. There ain't nuthin' like fresh peas. But they're hard to find. So I usually use frozen peas. I put the frozen peas right in the sauce, and let them cook for a couple minutes.

When the peas warm up, sample the sauce. Add salt or pepper, to taste. The tomatoes should be intact, the cauliflower should not be too mushy, the peas should be warm, and if all is good, remove from heat.

When the pasta water comes to a furious boil, add some salt (I use way too much), and then add the pasta. I use penne rigate with this dish. Keep the heat on the highest possible setting! When the pasta is al dente, firm and chewy, drain the water, and transfer the pasta to a warm bowl.

Shprinkle with olive oil, and gently toss. Then add most of the sauce, and gently toss again.

Lately I've been using toasted nuts on top of some pasta dishes. I like the texture and taste that warm nuts bring to a dish.

Put some slivered almonds in a small dry pan. Turn up the heat and toast your nuts until golden brown.

Dish up your pasta, top off with some sauce and some freshly grated cheese, and then turn to the one you love, and say...

“Would you like some toasted nuts with that?”