My Sopranos Luncheon

No, I'm not having lunch with the Sopranos(I wish)

A few months ago, before I moved, a co-worker gave me this cookbook. I was thrilled. Along with recipes, it shows Soprano family pictures, (i.e. Medow's graduation, holidays with the Soprano family, etc). It has receipes for "men only" gatherings, confirmation, Easter, etc.)

Anyway, every so often my daughters and I will have what we call a "girls day", either going to lunch, shopping or just hanging out. We talked about having a "Sopranos lunch" after I moved to my new place, with each of us picking a receipe out of the book and making something new. Well, today is the day. We went to the Italian market in Tustin yesterday to pick up some stuff. It won't be a seven course meal, but rather a "luncheon". Call me goofy, but I even got out my good china.

We are really making this a special event and all regard it as a special bonding time I guess. We are all having fun. I will be taking pictures and hopefully will post some (if I can figure it out.)

My girls "know" that I post here, and know about our BB meets, and even know who I am talking about if I say Geoff, Lori and SC (even though they can't figure out why I call him S.C. and not his name ) For some reason, they find that amusing.

They DON'T know that I am "The Italian Stallionette" (that would crack them up), nor do they know that my avator is Carmella Soprano. My daughter e-mailed me yesterday (yes, we talk on the phone and e-mail ) about this lunch and started with "Dear Carmella"

I wasn't going to post this basically "unimportant" thread, but figured why not share it with the BB. I'm looking forward to it.

Anyway, thanks for letting me share.

TIS

That sounds cool. Please post some recipes that you've made.

I actually had my sister and brother in law over one night to watch The Godfather and I made Clemenza's recipe and bought cannolis. My brother in law brought the booze. It was quite a night.

My girls have never seen GF, can you believe it? Both my daughters (and sons-in-law) like the Sopranos, but don't have HBO and have only watched a couple seasons when a friend lent them to me.


TIS

Beth, looking through the cookbook, most of the receipes appear surprisingly easy. Almost every dish requires olive oil.

I'm hungry already.

A while back friends from these boards came over to my house one sunday for dinner. When they walked in they handed me a bag. There was a box in the bag and when I pulled it out there was a toy gun taped to the top of the box. Then our friend from here turned to our other friend and yelled : "Didn't I tell you to LEAVE the gun and take the cannolis?"

Someone gave me this Soprano's cookbook a while back :




TIS - What time should I be there for the Soprano's lunch?

DC,

That would be wonderful. Lunch is at 1:00 (3:00 your time) You still have time to catch a flight if you hurry. I'll get the ingredients for those little blue drinks your so fond of.

TIS

No problem. I'll use Don Malta's private Jet!

TIS - this sounds lovely. What did you and the girls end up making?? I remember that Signor V. kept talking about a recipe thread, and I keep meaning to post my Penne Vodka recipe (because it really is ridiculously easy), but when I'm sitting down with my computer, I don't want to get up and rummage for the recipe!!

Those books sound really interesting. I wonder if they have chapters like:

1. Accounting for all your butcher knives

2. Ten new uses for your walk-in freezer

3. A sit-down dinner vs. a "sitdown" dinner

4. Unobtrusively removing the body from the buffet table

5. "It's not a bloodstain, it's wine!"

6. "It's not wine, it's a bloodstain!"

But, seriously TIS...

When do we eat??

Signor V.

Well as usual I'mm having a problem posting an image. I have a couple pictures I'd like to share. Someone tells me if this link works, since I can't seem to directly post an image.

The Italian Market in Tustin

http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/47b7da23b3127cce8290fd32de1900000016108BatmbRyya8

I interrupted the girls to tell them to "smile pretty." Oh, and I forgot...one guy in the group. Baby Evan.

http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/47b7da23b3127cce8290fb79de5100000016108BatmbRyya8


TIS

The Sopranos cookbooks are actually very, very good. The recipes come from Michele Scicolone, one of the premier voices in Italian cooking, for over 20 years. If you can get past some of the corny dialogue from Tony and his associates it's a great addition to any cookbook collection. The photography is top notch.

I find it kind of amusing (and fun), how they put the Soprano family pictures (i.e. Meadow's Graduation) as "real" events.

Anyway, I'll take it you can see the pictures, so I'll do a couple more.

Our lunch consisted of Shrimp Aragonate, which I made, and one daughter made Bowtie pasta with fresh tomato and mozzerella and my other daughter made an Italian Egg/greenbean & vegetable salad.
Of course, fresh Italian bread, and we each had a canoli for desert.

http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/47b7da23b3127cce8290febe1f3c00000016108BatmbRyya8

http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/47b7da23b3127cce8290fa639ed300000016108BatmbRyya8

Me and my oldest daughter(TIS Jr)

http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/47b7da23b3127cce8290e9295f3800000015108BatmbRyya8

Me and my daughter, TIS the third

http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/47b7da23b3127cce8290eced1f6600000016108BatmbRyya8

The bad part was, nobody was available to take a picture of all three of us together.

http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/47b7da23b3127cce8290e2241fa800000016108BatmbRyya8

So two days later we were all together at my daughter's and I had my son-in-law take a picture of the three of us.

http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/47b7da23b3127cce8290b2921f3600000016108BatmbRyya8

Geez, this reminds me of the old joke, "you wanna see pictures of my vacation?" You know when everyone stuck looking a home movies for 3 hours.

Thanks for letting me share. We decided we are going to make a yearly thing out of this.

TIS

Very nice TIS. Is it hard to get good Italian bread in California ?

Finding a good Italian market is hard to find in CA IMHO. I always compare the Italian bread or pasta sauce to what my mom's tasted like, and if it's close, it's good. I do make my own Italian bread, but unfortunately haven't done so in a while.

The bread I got was a hard crust Sicilian and I must say it was delicious. Don't know how it would compare to NY though. I have a feeling any Italian food is better in NY.

TIS

Try getting it in Texas. You'd have better luck getting blood out of a stone. If I could have one thing Italian every day for the rest of my life, it would be the bread. E vero!

Most of my time is still spent in New York, but I am in South Florida quite a bit. And I have to say, that over the course of the last 10 years or so, they've come a long way, in culinary terms. There's a pizza place in Delray Beach, that I'll dare say, would probably succeed in New York. Just go into any PUBLIX and you'll be shocked at the quality of the meat and fish departments. Bread, on the other hand, well, only in New York, right ?

Italian bread, rolls and bagels. Only in New York.

Funny you mention bagels DC. You and SB will appreciate this, being Brooklyn boys. When I worked in Marine Park, bagels on sunday morning were tradition, everything bagel w/ cream cheese, I can smell it right now if I try hard enough.

The pics are fabulous TIS. And Evan is quite a looker.

There used to be a Bagel store on Flatlands Avenue that was on the corner and right on the opposite corner was a Bialy store. I cannot remember the names of them.

We usually got them at a little place on Quentin Rd.

TIS -

That baby is beautiful!!! And your daughters, who btw look just like you, are beautiful also. You have a very lovely family TIS!

TIS, your daughters obviously look just like you and have also inherited your ability to eat and eat and eat and not gain any weight!! You have a lovely family, TIS, and I'm so glad that you enjoyed your day. As one Italian to another, your table looked appropriately overloaded, as if another 10 or 15 people could have stopped by and eaten!!

Super pics TIS
You have a lovely family