What better companion can any one ask for; that loves you unconditionally except God? Well I have one, my little Angel, a 5 pound white Maltese puppy, 1 ½ years old.  He is my little shadow and he follows me everywhere I go. When I talk to him, he understands just looking at my expression or in my eyes.  Angel knows when I am happy, sad or crying, he gently lays his little body on my stomach and kisses my face.  In the morning, Angel and I take our regular routine bike ride. He always sits in front in his little basket looking proud especially when people along the trail admire him.  They comment on how pretty he looks, and he knows it. When I’m leaving the house, he waits for my command, either to go with me or to stay. Angels’ barking is very impressive, but when we go for a walk and he sees a dog bigger than him, he runs for his life. I love my Angel. I’m proud to see him so well trained. When I go to bed, he’s first on my pillow and doesn’t move until I’m ready to get up.  But Angel is not always and angel. He doesn’t like to see me talking on the telephone. If I’m standing or sitting he scratches or bites my feet. At night when I’m on the phone lying down, he bites my hand. He also doesn’t like to be picked up by babies or little children like a toy. He either runs to me or seeks shelter somewhere. When I look back at my life, I often wonder why I didn’t get a dog a long time ago?  He is the best friend and companion you could ever ask for. I hope you have a friend too.  Ciao, happy summer,

 Love Momma

Last summer my daughter Jan and I toured northern California on a cookbook signing and cooking shoot.  It was in Bakersfield that we discovered the difference between regular canned food verses organic.  The difference was like night and day. The tomato sauce we made was naturally sweet. It had better taste, less salt, no acidity and less cooking time.  We promised never to buy regular canned goods again only organic. I should of known, since I was born on a farm eighty years ago that all we grew and ate was organic.  I don’t even remember seeing any cans or jars of food in the market in those days.  This weeks Rescued Recipe comes from a lady who talks about her mom with much nostalgic and sentimental memories.  She remembers her making home made strawberry jelly every year and how good it was.  Her story has touched my heart because I too have done that in my life, a long time ago in the sixties and seventies in Lake Tahoe. One of my hobbies was gardening, besides cooking.  I had a glorious vegetable garden, also many fruit trees and a large spread of strawberry plants.  Every year  in the summer I would process the fruits and can them. My children remember my pantry always full of canning jars of vegetable, fruits, jams and jelly.  Most of the jars I gave away to family, friends, and neighbors.  My children like to tell their friends that I have a green thumb. Not so, every body can have a green thumb. It is something you love to do and take proper care, water, feed, sun and sometimes even talk to the plants.  If you’d like to read the Rescued Recipe and story of the lady who sent it to us, it will be in Saturday’s newspaper in the Scottsdale Section where you can always find Jan’s column

 My rescued recipe for this week is over one hundred years old. It was given to me many years ago from a very dear, dear friend.  It was his mothers and grandmothers favorite recipe. When Andy first brought the torte to my house I loved it so much that I made it my favorite right then too.  Sometimes I make it for a special occasion or holiday. This is so good, so different, and so unique.  Try it, if you like French desserts, you are going to love this torte. 

Ciao, until my next blob, may God bless you, Love Momma

Mrs. Kallin’s Strawberry Almond Torte

 Ingredients:

1 cup shortening (half butter and half margarine)

½ cup sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 cups flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

1 cup strawberry or raspberry jam

 Directions:

 Cream together shortening and sugar.  Add egg and vanilla and mix.  Blend in flour and baking powder to form a dough. If the dough is too grainy or crumbly, add 1-2 tablespoons of cold water. Take ¼ of the dough and set aside for the lattice topping. Roll out the remainder of the dough and place in the bottom of one 10″ x 15″ pan (or two 9″ x 9″ pans). Spread jam evenly over dough.

 For the Topping:

 Ingredients:

4 eggs

1 ½ cup sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

4 cups ground almonds (blanched or with skin)

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 ½ teaspoon almond extract

1 cube (1/4 lb.) butter, melted

 Directions:

 In a food processor, grind almonds to a course meal-like consistency.

In a large bowl, blend together eggs, sugar and salt. Add ground almonds, cinnamon and almond extract. Add melted butter and combine all until well blended.  Spoon mixture evenly over jam. Roll out remaining dough and cut into thin strips. Place diagonally over top of torte to form a lattice crust. Bake at 325 degrees for 50-60 minutes. Serve with small dollop of jam on top.

*Note: Recipe may be cut in half

 Go to Rescued Recipes for the pictures

On June 24 I celebrate my 80^th birthday and I have so much to be thankful for.  Oh my God, I wouldn’t ever imagine coming this far, when in 1949 I tried to come to this country, first as a tourist, then as a student of no success! The only way I was able to come was to marry an American citizen and that was more than 60 years ago.  I remember being in church and ask God, “Please grant me the desire to go to America and after that I don’t care if I die.”  God listened to me, but He did not deliver. I’m very glad and thankful for I got to come to America, this beautiful country that I love so much and for what it made me today.  I’m blessed and proud to have had three children, four granddaughters, four great-granddaughters, and 6 sisters living and in good health in this country. 

I have been a famous Chef and I have been on television and radio. I have lived a successful and prosperous life with a husband’s love and admiration.  Today I’m still very active and plan not to quiet down or sit in a rocking chair, but every morning when I get up I thank God for another day.  Yes, even though my mother lived to be 100 years old, I still take one day at a time. For tomorrow my never come. Only God knows what is in store for us, especially the way we live and the way the world is today.  When I came to America at the age of twenty, not knowing a word of English, I went to work and learned to be a butcher, working side by side with my Husband in our own meat market in San Francisco.  In the late fifties we moved to Lake Tahoe. We opened our first restaurant on June 27, 1957. I was a chef and cooked for many movie stars, casino owners, and entertainers for many years.  While my children were growing up I learned to snow ski, water ski, play golf and tennis, I loved hiking and biking and learned to drive a car. I’m very thankful for I had a wonderful life. Oh though I worked very hard to be where I am today, but the opportunity I had was well worth all the sacrifice.  God Bless America!

To celebrate my 80^th birthday, I made and give you the recipe of a very special and famous Waldorf Astoria cake. You are going to love it and make this your very own special occasion dessert.  (To see pictures of Momma with her cake check the Rescued Recipes section by clicking here)

Ciao,

Love, Momma

Red Velvet Cake from Waldorf Astoria Cookbook

 Ingredients

 For the Cake:

 3 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped

2 cups granulated sugar

4 large eggs

1 ½ cups vegetable oil

1 ½  teaspoons pure vanilla

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 ¼ teapoons baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

3 cans (12 oz) canned beets, drained and pureed

1 teaspoon red food coloring

 For  the Icing:

 2 cups heavy cream

12 ounces cream cheese, room temperature

12 oz mascarpone cheese

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, sifted

 Directions:

 For the Cake–

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Melt chocolate in a metal bowl and set over a saucepan of boiling water or in the top of a double boiler. ( Or, melt in a microwave for 20-30 seconds.)

Meanwhile, place sugar, eggs, oil and vanilla in the bowl and mix for about one minute on low speed.

In a mixing bowl, sift together flour, baking soda and salt. Add dry ingredients to egg mixture and continue to mix on low speed until well incorporated. Add melted chocolate and mix on low speed.  Add pureed beets and food coloring. Continue to mix on low speed until all ingredients are thoroughly combined.

Divide batter evenly between 3 greased and floured pans and bake for 20-25 minutes or until cake springs back when touched, or when toothpick comes up clean.

Cool for 10 minutes in the pans and turn layers out onto rack to cool completely.

 For the Icing-

Pour cream into small bowl and whip to soft peaks. Refrigerate. Place cream cheese in a bowl and mix on low speed until soft and smooth. Add mascarpone and mix until combined. Add vanilla and powdered sugar and mix well. Fold in whipped cream by hand with spatula. Refrigerate until ready to assemble.

As summer approaches, and children are out of school, many mothers are having their hands full trying to keep their children busy and involved in some kind of activity.  My granddaughter, Gina, remembers those hot summer days when she was a little girl selling lemonade on a homemade stand at .25 a glass trying to make some money to go to summer camp.   Gina asked me, “Nonna, what did you do when you were a little girl out of school for the summer.”  Gina, first let me tell you how lucky our children are to be living in this beautiful country of ours.  Today they have so much, anything they can imagine and wish for.  I remember those long summer days in Italy on a farm when I was a very young girl.  It was so long ago, before the Second World War. The first time I discovered a lemon on a marketplace, I was a teenage girl.  Not only did we not have lemonade, we didn’t even have lemons or lemon trees as they don’t grow in the north of Italy because the climate is too cold. Even in the south, where the weather is warmer, they don’t even have them in abundance.  But at Christmas time it was a treat to find one or two oranges in my stocking along with nuts and candy.  The most fun I remember was on Sundays, after service. Outside in a little piazza, there was a man selling granatina, (ice cones). Momma will buy us each one, and we got to choose our flavor.  Other times we would visit Zia Amabile, my mothers’ older sister. She had a food stand and my mom would buy the biggest watermelon she could find and cut it in many slices so we could have one or two pieces each. It was so good, I remember eating the green parts too, down to the skin. When there was a festival of some kind in the village, we all participated and I got to ride a Merry Go Round and eat candy and cookies. On hot days, we would jump rope or ride our bicycles, and swim or bathe in the river not to far from our home. On bad or rainy days we would play cards, checkerboards and we would play “marbles” but we used rocks instead.  Some member of the family with more education would read us some storybooks like Romeo and Juliet, or Three Musketeers or passages from the Bible.  In the Evening we would play hide and seek and chase the fireflies singing a little song. ‘Lucciula, lucciula, vien da me, che ti daro il pan del Re. Il pan della Regina lucciula, lucciula picolina.’  Which means ‘Light light come to me, that I will give you the bread of the King and Queen, my little light.’  But we were not all angels, sometimes, in the evening a bunch of us children will go and steal some fruit from other people’s property. And then be scolded from our parents.  So Gina, my love, we didn’t have much or many things but we were happy and contented. Today the more I look at our society, and the world we live in, the more I miss those simple innocent years of my youth.
Ciao, Happy Summer
Love Nonna

 
The Rescued Recipe for this week is Lemon Cheesecake and you’re going to love it.

 
For the Crust
1 C ground Lemon Wafers or Nilla Wafers
3 Tbs melted butter
1 tsp lemon extract
Grease and 8×8 spring form with butter. Mix wafers with butter and lemon in a bowl. Coat the spring form bottom and sides with the mixture and set aside.

 
For the cake filling
24 oz of soft cream cheese (3 Packages)
1 C sugar
4 Eggs
1/3 C fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 tsp grated lemon peel
1 tsp vanilla
2 Tbs Flour

In a medium bowl mix together cream cheese, sugar and eggs When creamy add lemon juice, lemon peel, vanilla, and flour and blend well. Pour into the prepared spring form.  Bake at 325 for 45-50 minutes. Check for doneness by gently shaking the pan. It is set when it doesn’t juggle anymore.
Remove and cool for 20 minutes.  Gently removed the sides of  the spring form pan.

Glaze Topping
On a small pan, put 1 tsp unflavored gelatin, and 3 Tbs water. Bring to a boil stirring constantly.  Once boiling, remove from heat and add 1/3 C lemon juice. Stir well and drizzle over a cold cake. You can then decorate it with lemon slices if you want.

For a full color picture of the Lemon Cheesecake, click here to go to the Rescued Recipes Section.

Unless you are a mother it is very hard to understand the joy, sacrifice and the pain, a mother goes through in her lifetime.  As children we take for granted the responsibility of a mother nurturing, sheltering, protecting, making our life safe and easy and most of all her love for us unconditionally.  Many times I think of when I left Italy at the age of 18, that that early winter morning in December 1949, to embark on a long journey to come to America.  I can still hear the loud screaming and crying of my mother from the balcony or our home, trying to say goodbye.  I couldn’t imagine her pain and broken heart then. As time passed I was blessed to share many beautiful years with my mother here in the United States until she passed on at the age of 99. I remember the joy I felt when I was expecting my first child. Then the second came along and then we knew that the third was a baby boy.  Seeing them growing up, taking pictures, share their dreams, I wouldn’t change those precious moments for anything in this world.  Today I am a very proud mother and grandmother and great grandmother for their love and respect and for what they have accomplished in their lifetime.  I sincerely feel that my sacrifice was well worth it. 
But not all is joy and happiness in this life. There are pains suffering, and sorrow too.  When one of my children is sick or going through bad times, I feel their pain. And when you loose one of them your life goes with them. Part of you has been taken away and you will never recover. I’ve been there, I lost my son, not yet a year ago, you still live, life goes on, but you will never, never stop grieving.  My wish for you on this Mother’s day is to love honor and respect your mother. We only have one, and it is God’s greatest gift.

Mother’s Day Rescued Recipe
Italian Almond Torte

When it comes to traditions in the D’Atri family it is easy to figure out.  I have two children, four grandchildren, and four great grandchildren and every time my family makes plans for a special occasion, Birthday or Holiday it is always in Nonna’s home.  Nonna’s home is a place where we all can be together, have fun and laughter. It’s a place where memories start and a time when we eat our traditional food.  I come from a large family in Italy and I remember always celebrating Holidays and special occasions in our grandparents home all together.  Today I like to keep traditions alive with my family and hoping that someday they too will continue the same traditions with their own family. (I feel that my age is creeping up on me and I think the younger generation should take over, but that doesn’t seem to be.)  ha ha   If you have any wonderful family traditions you would like to share, please e-mail me, I would love to hear from you!  Love, Momma 

When I got commissioned to do the blob for Earth Day, I asked my granddaughter Gina and my great-granddaughter Olivia, what Earth Day meant.  “Conserving and recycling”, they said. “Oh, conserving has been my life story” I said. First, as a young girl and later as a mother and wife with my own family. I am the 4th of 7 girls. I remember wearing shoes passed down from my older sisters, either they were too big, to swim in it or too short to hurt my feet and toes. Hand me down was the name of the game. I had my first bought dress at the age of 10 or12. We never wasted, threw away or discarded anything that was good or reusable. I remember when the earth was beautiful green, pure water, clean air and no bad environment. I often think what it will take to make it clean and healthy again. Energy was not a problem; our appliances didn’t need gas or electricity. We used candles or kerosene for light and wood or charcoal for heating.  Our main transportation was a bicycle to go and come from work, school and recreations. For long trips there was a train or a horse and buggy.  I remember my mother’s most beautiful victory garden, the most beautiful garden you’ve ever seen. The Garden of Eden. She cultivated beautiful green healthy organic vegetable and fruit trees. I always enjoyed helping and working with her making compost and turning the soil over to fertilize the garden.  I can still smell the aroma of the ripe fruit and the taste of fresh tender vegetables.  Oh, how I wish I could turn the clock back one more time and relive those precious memorable days. Life was pure, simple and healthy. Life was good then. Today our children don’t know what I’m talking about. I would like to tell them Earth Day is not only April 22, but 365 days a year. If we want to try to change this planet for a better living and a better environment we need all the help we can get, not only from us, from our government too.  We have only one chance in this life, let all of us work together for a better future.

P.S. Today I got a letter from my sister Norma. She’s lived in Victoria, Canada for the last 50 years.  But when come November, she leaves for Hawaii, until the end of April, every year. A few years ago, she met a wonderful German friend, Connie, and together they rented a small space of land from the city of Oahu, to make a vegetable garden. The minute she arrives, they start working, tuning the soil and planting the seeds. 
“Dear Livia, I wish you could see the amount of vegetable we give away everyday to friends and neighbors. Connie and I take turns to water and weed the garden. I can’t tell you the joy and the therapy I find working in my garden and seeing the beauty of the natural progression daily. I have been waiting for you to come and see me for a very long time. Ciciana, I’m still waiting for you. I miss you so much, love Norma”
Norma is 86 years young, works and swims everyday. She loves her family, life and God. 

She brings us today’s rescued recipe, Un Bella Insalata: “ A Beautiful Salad”

Salad:
1 head of radicchio
2 tbs pancetta, fried and chopped fine
½ sweet yellow onion, thinly sliced
4-5 cherry tomatoes, halved
1 oz gorgonzola cheese, crumbled
2 tbs toasted almonds, slivered
1 white mushroom, finely grated
½ golden delicious apple, cut into wedges

Dressing:
3 Tbs balsamic vinegar
3 Tbs marsala wine
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
2 drops white truffle oil
1 clove garlic, minced fine
salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
Toss together radicchio, pancetta, onion slices and tomatoes. Pile the salad in a mound on a serving platter. Mix together ingredients for dressing and shake or stir well. Pour dressing over salad. Top with grated mushroom, crumbled Gorgonzola cheese and slivered almonds.  Garnish with sliced apple.  Serve with crostini or crusty fresh bread.  Serves 4.

If I can turn back the clock and go back in time when I was a little girl 4 years old, in 1932, what was the thing I remember most? Some memories you never forget as long as you live.  I lived on a farm with my mother, father and 6 sisters, an uncle, his wife and 2 daughters, my grandmother and my grandfather.  I remember our home, 3 stories high, made out of rock and cobblestone with window shutters.  The First floor was a large kitchen and a long table with benches all around.  One bedroom was my grandparents, and another room we called La Cantina, because that is where our family kept all the food supply, like wine, salami, cheese, bread and homemade jarred goods. The floor was compact dirt; there was no brick, or wood flooring.  No electricity, heat, or running water. The bathroom was also outside.  The second floor was comprised of three bedrooms with an extra open loft space where most of us slept together dormitory style. One bedroom was for my parents, one for my Uncle and Aunt and one for the nursery. The rest of us squeezed in 5 or 6 to a bed, with mattresses made out of dried corncobs. We called the third floor Il Granaio (which means the grainery) because we kept all the dried food for storage there, grains, corn, wheat, rice, etc.  The barn was attached to the house and that was where we spent most of our time in the winter with the heat of the cows to keep us warm. My mother was a wonderful cook and she did all the cooking for the family. We had a stove, which was a lot like a square brick barbeque with an open fire pit and a grill on top that we fed with wood. I remember having a chimney with a long chain hanging down with a hook at the end where you place the pot and pan to cook over the open flame. Only being 4, I still remember sitting on a little wooden bench where my momma was cooking and smelling the aroma of that wonderful homemade food. I also remember a big black cast iron skillet where she made the polenta every night. And when it was ready she would turn it over with a SMACK! onto a round wooden board. Polenta was one of my very favorite meals. I had it in the morning soft like cream of wheat with a little sugar, or fried polenta crushed into cold creamy milk with a little sugar, there was also Polenta with beef stew and anything with gravy. But the way I loved it the most was the way my mom made Polenta with Chicken Cacciatore.  I loved it so much that my Uncle called me Polentina until the day he died.  And that is the truth!
    Because my father did not like work as a farmer he bought a house with more conveniences and moved us to the city when I was 10. Life was quite a change from the farm, I had a new bicycle, new shoes, new friends and my own bed! Life was good for a few years, until the war broke out, that’s when everything stopped. My town was the most bombed city in all of Italy. But that is another story for another day. The only thing that didn’t stop was my love for cooking with my mom.  I always wanted to learn. I remember coming home from school and the first thing I did was walk right in to the kitchen and look to see what my momma was cooking. You could smell the aroma a block away; she just had a special touch.   When I got married and came to America, my Momma gave me my most precious gift of all, a cookbook: Il Talismano Della Felicita, the Talisman of Happines.  My momma knew I didn’t need anything else.  I still make polenta quite often because my family loves it too. I hope you enjoy today’s blob and my rescued recipe. Try it; I know you will come to love it like I do.  Please tune in for more stories and Rescued recipes,
Love Momma

Buon Giorno, It is a beautiful spring day here in Arizona.  Thank you God for another new day and the opportunity to help other people with my time. Today I have a big stack of Rescued Recipes to taste from people requesting help or to find their lost family heritage recipes with their stories and family nationalities.  Today’s recipe comes from Gene Styles and this is his story: 
              “This recipe is a 125 year old family heirloom that you won’t find in any Ukrainian cook book, unless you can find a recipe called Pirozhki.  This recipe has been in our family for 5 generations and it comes out of a little farm town in the Ukraine called Pet’ro’vs’koye about 80 miles from Kharkov. The town, which was nearly destroyed in WWII, has only 3 buildings standing. The apples, cherries and peach orchards are still there along with an original 400 year old well where people still get water. This is all of the information I could get from my mother, but I know you will enjoy them.”
 
Gene I tasted your original recipe. The dough is very good and light. The filling needs a little help. I made some changes on the recipe to add some flavor and cut the recipe in half.  Hope you don’t mind. Most important it needed salt. Salt is number one in a culinary kitchen to savor food and bring up flavor. How ironic that salt brings back and reminds me of a true and sad story of a long time ago.  I remember being 13-14 years old in 1943-44 during the Second World War when I spent one summer in Iasolo, not very far from Lido Venice with a family friend.  Salt was very hard to get or buy, because all the saline along the Adriatic and Mediterranean sea was contaminated with dynamite explosives. No companies were able to process salt. It was available on the black market if you could afford it. We were supposed to have ration coupons, but it was never distributed properly or in an honest way. That summer my job was to get salt water by the bucket, carry it home and pour the water in a large metal container then let the sun evaporate the water for days until it was all gone but the salt remained. We would then gather it up for the family cooking. Today I come to appreciate very thing I have and work for. For me wasting food or even throwing away a piece of old stale bread is a sin. Before I dispose of it, I kiss it, remembering when I had none.  Hope you enjoy my Rescued Recipes and my true story.  Come and visit me again for more recipes! 
Ciao, Arrivederci,

Love Momma