From Heartbreak to Heartburn!

If you read my third post, you realize I truly love everything Italian-especially Italian cuisine.  I must take after my Great Aunt Sally, who we nicknamed G.A.S, which stands for her initials, not her intestinal system.

Great Aunt Sally 1968

G.A.S. always cooked Italian and grew her own tomatoes in front of her apartment building in Brentwood, California. They were the most robust tomatoes I had ever seen.  Red, round, plump-Perfect for homemade pasta sauce.  I’m sure I must take after her or somewhere in my gene pool there were intermarriages between Jews and Italians because my main diet is Italian food. Just give me garlic, onions, olive oil and fresh basil, and I’m simply in heaven.  Not that I don’t love chocolate, but there’s something scintillating to the senses when sautéing the above ingredients. 

Her husband, my Great Uncle Morey-affectionately known as G.U.M. -had no idea what chicken soup with matzah balls was, chopped liver, knadelach or other Jewish treats because she only cooked Italian.  That was her thing.

I’ve had this <ahem> sort of reputation for cooking…badly.  It really wasn’t my fault that I almost burned down two kitchens and my brother ended up with food poisoning. 

My brother has always been super skinny, much to his dismay.  So, one summer when I was visiting him in California, I decided it was my mission to help him gain weight.  Keep in mind I was a teenager with a big heart and zero knowledge about anything kitchen-ish. My entrée was:  Cottage cheese with fruit.  Like how would I know that’s what you eat when you’re on a diet?  Anyway, after I looked at the bowl of white cellulite and chunks of fruit, I thought, How boring!  Immediately I took out food coloring and decorated his dinner.  When he came home later that night, I proudly presented my first home cooked meal for him.  His face dropped.  I looked into the bowl and saw that the colors ran together, looking more like mold than anything made for human consumption.

That was the last meal I cooked for him.  Ever since then, I’ve had this reputation to live down. 

It didn’t help that my dad couldn’t cook, either.  The day after we had this incredible lobster dinner-again, I was a teenager so don’t judge me too harshly, I decided to make lobster salad with the left-overs.  Not knowing how many minutes I needed to cook a hard boiled egg , I ended up breaking into the shells too early with gooey yellow yolk running down my arms. By the time I used up 18 eggs, I finally got it right and the rest as they say is history.  Unfortunately, mine.

Every Mother’s Day, my dad would don himself in a chef’s apron and hat, walk out to the backyard with arms filled with hamburgers and buns, tongs, lighter fluid and coal.  He’d march over to the Hibachi grill and get it good and hot. My mother had prepared brisket meat into round, plump shapes ready to be cooked by my father.  Dad carefully arranged the meat on the grill and immediately mashed, mutilated and basically destroyed the food with a spatula, removing every trace of fat and juice. When they were burned and black, he removed them and placed each one carefully on a bun and with a look of contentment, served us a Mother’s day lunch we’d never forget…or be able to eat.  I grew up thinking grilled hamburgers should look like a hockey puck.  What did I know?   All I can say in my defense, is that I can’t deny genetics.

Fast forward twenty years…Okay, I admit, I’m a slow learner…but when I finally get it…you get it good.  And I mean that in a good way.  So, over the last two decades when it came to cooking, I always prepared something Italian for friends and family. Until one day.

One of my Indian clients was cooking something aromatic and I went crazy.  I’ve never had a sense of smell and all of a sudden, my olfactories were working over time.  I begged for the recipe and the following week, she handed over her prize possession: her mother’s recipe for Moglai Chicken.

It was to die-for.  Literally.

I want to share the recipe with you, but I must caution you to read my next post before attempting this! 

You’ve been warned!

<<<Broken  C diminished chord running up the piano keyboard in the background

creating suspense and drama>>>