California is home of many legendary movie star desserts. Of course, there are those who claim that this recipe goes back to the royal Romanovs in Russia at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Others place it with Auguste Escoffier, when he ruled the kitchen at the Carlton Hotel in London. But one thing is abundantly clear: high-spirited twentieth-century restaurateur Mike Romanoff, of the legendary Romanoff’s restaurant in Los Angeles, grabbed the America franchise for himself when he popularized the dish in the 1940s at the Hollywood celebrity haunt. The part about his descent from Russian royalty may have been press angentry; the part that’s significant is the way he changed the dish. For Escoffier, Strawberries Romanoff was a question of marinated strawberries and whipped cream. For Mike Romanoff, the whipped cream was folded into…ice cream! How wonderfully, flamboyantly American! If there’s an eight-year-old somewhere deep inside you, you can’t fail to love the following version of his creation.

Makes 4 servings

Ingredients:

1 pint strawberries
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice
2 tablespoons triple sec (orange-flavored liqueur)
1 teaspoon finely grated orange zest
1/2 cup whipping cream
1/2 pint vanilla ice cream, softened

Directions:

1. Wash and stem the strawberries. Cut into quarters, reserving 4 small, whole strawberries for garnish.

2. In a medium bowl mix the strawberries with the sugar, orange juice, triple sec, and orange zest. Let stand, covered, in the refrigerator for at least two hours.

3. When ready to serve, remove the berries from the refrigerator. Whip the cream to soft peaks, then gently fold into the softened ice cream. Gently fold the strawberries into the ice cream mixture.

4. Serve in martini glasses or wine glasses. Garnish with reserved strawberries.

This recipe is from my book It’s All American Food.

Photo courtesy of Barbara Kiebel of Creative Culinary.

What this country needs is a good five hundred American affineurs!

Affi-whut?

Hey, I’m just back from France…where I am always gastronomically programmed to seek out three things that are absolutely unparalleled:

1) Oysters (the French obsession with these critters insures superiority all the way from oyster bed to oyster platter)

2) Les abats (offal, another item that needs cultists in a culture to survive)

3) Cheese, which in France is unequivocally the best

Obsession plays a huge role here, as well, in French Fromage World.

Now, I’m not saying we don’t have good cheese in America, both domestic and imported. And I’m not saying that the cheese chain in the U.S. isn’t better than ever, resulting in the best cheese selection I can remember in American shops and restaurants.

But dude…we still ain’t France! Not by a kilometre de campagne!

There are numerous reasons for this, but the key one has to do with the French concept of the affineur, or the “raiser” of the cheese…a concept in very short supply in the U.S.

In France, in the cheese world, les vedettes…the rock stars…are not usually the actual dairy farmers, and cheese producers…(though good French gourmands are aware of them, too).

No. The real stars are the ones who receive the cheese from producers, then hold it in their shops, downstairs in the cave, until the cheeses are just á point (perfectly ready to eat). The cheeses may hold in that window of perfection for as little as a day, sometimes a few days. A great affineur knows exactly when to sell it to you…will not sell it too early, will not sell it too late.

But there’s more than mere timing involved. A great affineur truly “raises” his or her cheeses as if they were children. Some days, if the cheeses are too moist, they must be dried with a towel; some days, if they’re too dry, they must be moistened. Most days they need to be turned, or shifted in the cellar; some of them need a wash on a regular basis with strong alcohol to develop a certain flavor in the rind. There is no specific list of what the affineur must do in his her or cave; are there any rules for parents? Affinage, and parenting, are creative activities!

I tapped into this all over again, a few weeks back in Paris, when a chef friend took me to her favorite affineur in that cheese-mad city:

Cantin, a tidy, super-aromatic cheese fantasy on the Rue du Champ de Mars, in the 7th, not far from a good open-air market, the brilliant bakery Poîlane, and La Tour Eiffel.

Cantin is owned by Marie-Anne Cantin, who truly is a rock star in Paris. Gourmands come from toutes les arrondissements to get a few quivering slices of this or that from Marie-Anne.

I was a little intimidated on approaching the shop, because the great one has a reputation for persnicketiness. On some days she’s fine, they say…but on some days you my get your hand metaphorically slapped with a cheese spatula. So, I just went about my business, looking at the marvelous orbs on display…

Mostly goat cheeses near the shop’s window

Magnificent hard cheeses in foreground, like Emmenthaler

Cantin is so powerful that she has her own Roquefort prepared for her by one of Roquefort’s few producers

I guess I did it all politely…because, suddenly…the apparition appeared, looking for cheese talk! And what a pleasure it was…

Marie-Anne Cantin, the Parisian cheese legend

A few hours later, I was enjoying a Cantin selection at the wonderful home-cookin’ bistro Reed, not far from the cheese shop:

An array of Cantin cheeses at Reed, including (at 10 o’clock) the greatest St. Felicien I have ever tasted

Here’s what I want you to do: ALLEZ-Y!!!!!! As soon as you can! Because this is not about Marie-Anne Cantin alone–this is about an epochal surge threatening to sweep away all that’s good about French cheese. As you can imagine, the bureaucrats in Brussels are eager to “regularize” European cheese, make it more industrial, take it increasingly out of the hands of such a one as Cantin. And they, the bureaucrats, have made progress in numerous food areas, wiping out the small businesses of many tiny artisans, such as charcutiers.

I hope the EU never wins this one. But in case a bad ending is in the offing…we know that people like Marie-Anne Cantin are at the heights of their powers right now. Visit them now. Support them now. Expose your kids to this culture…because they may not have the pleasure of doing the same for their kids!

French fries–despite the Gallic monicker–are among America’s most beloved treats. But I think of them as restaurant food, above all–fast food places, coffee shops, lunch counters, upscale California grill restaurants, bistros of all sorts. They are ubiquitous in American restaurants…and rare at home. Why? Because, I contend, home cooks are not pleased with the results they get when they haul out the deep fryer. It’s frustrating to discover that McDonald’s makes fries vastly superior to yours. Restaurant fries are often light, crispy, airy, with what I call an irregular, “nubbly” texture on the outside. Home fries are usually slick and smooth on the outside, lacking texture interest, just a fried potato stick with no magic. Until now. Stealing a secret from the fast-food industry, I have devised the following recipe–in which the fries are actually cooked three times: they are boiled first, to make them more interesting in texture, then fried twice, as per the classic french-fry recipe. With so much handling, you must exercise care, lest the potatoes break. But the effort is well worth it; these fries are as good as any restaurant fries in America.

Makes enough french fries for 4 people

5 large russet potatoes
2 tablespoons table salt (plus coarse salt for sprinkling)
2 tablespoons sugar
2 quarts vegetable oil

1. Peel potatoes, and trim each one into the shape of a rectangle. Cut the potatoes, the long way, into broad slices that are about 3/8″ thick. Then cut each slice into French fries that are about 3/8″ wide. (It is important for the size of the potatoes to be correct for the cooking process to work perfectly. A French fry cutter that yields 3/8″ fries is a good investment.) Hold the cut potatoes in a bowl of cold water until ready to use.

2. Place 3 quarts water, the 2 tablespoons of salt and the 2 tablespoons of sugar in a large pot. Bring to a boil. Add the fries to the boiling water, let the water return to a boil, then immediately reduce the heat so that the water comes to a gentle boil. Cook the potatoes for 7 minutes, or until they are quite soft but still holding together. You don’t want to make mashed potatoes, so check the potatoes during the last few minutes of the boiling period. Remove them with a wide, slotted utensil (what chefs call a “spider” would be ideal), and place them on paper towels in a single layer. Bring to room temperature (about 10 minutes.)

3. When ready to do the first fry, heat oil in a deep, heavy, straight- sided pot to 250 degrees. Using your hands, carefully place a small batch of fries on a spider (or another wide, slotted utensil), making sure not to break them. Slowly lower the spider into the oil, drop the fries in the oil, and cook them for 2 minutes. After removing them from the oil with the spider, place them on paper towels in a single layer. This step essentially blanches the potatoes, so there should be very little color. Repeat with the rest of the potatoes, in small batches, until all of the french fries have had a first fry.

4. When ready to serve, heat the oil to 350 degrees. Using your hands, slowly remove a small batch of the fries from the paper towels without breaking them and place them onto the spider. Slowly lower the spider into the oil, drop the fries in the oil, and cook, stirring occasionally to insure even browning. You want the French fries to have a deep golden brown color, and for the surface to be a little crinkly; this should take about 3 minutes. Remove them from the oil with the spider and place them in a single layer on a baking pan lined with paper towels. Sprinkle generously with coarse salt. Repeat with the remaining fries. Serve immediately for maximum crispness-but if you’re holding the first batch or two, hold the completed fries in a 300-degree oven.

Note on Freezing: After completing step three of the process, the first frying, you can place the fries on a baking pan in a single layer and freeze them. Once they are frozen solid, place them in an airtight freezer bag and keep them frozen until you need them. To cook them, thaw the fries in the refrigerator, then fry them using the directions in step four.

This recipe is from my book It’s All American Food.

Photo courtesy of www.merelymarie.com

The Goghstronome who got me cookin’

My week in Holland was a high…I haven’t even come down enough to tell you about it coherently. And yet, despite having just returned from there at 35,000 feet…my Tuesday story describing my recent gastronomic uppers is already due…today!

So here’s my plan…based on my great good fortune in attending THE re-opening of the mind-expanding Vincent Van Gogh museum…at the end of my trip, just the day before I left for New York…I’m going to post for you a Goghstronomic photo essay!

I had already been lucky, art-wise, in Amsterdam. The opulent Rijksmuseum, which holds the greatest Rembrandts, Vermeers, etc…had been closed for ten years of renovation…until two weeks before my arrival! I got a guided tour there on my first day ever in Holland, April 23, 2013…which left my oils oozing, my acrylics resinating, and my water colors dripping.

Rembrandt’s masterpiece The Night Watch, in the distance, at the end of a long gallery at the beautifully restored Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam

But my chances for Van Gogh didn’t look so hot. Sure, there’s a small collection of Van Gogh at the Rijksmuseum on another floor…but I wanted the main course, the Van Gogh Museum itself…which, I was told, to my great consternation…was closed for repairs!

After a glorious five days of eating and drinking in Holland–you will see my big, in-detail report soon–I flew to Paris to track down some wine, and spend another glorious three days (details soon!)

Then, on Wednesday, May 1, I flew back to Amsterdam to do a little business in acquiring Cameroon peppercorns as a new product (more on THAT later!)…and to catch my flight to New York on Thursday, May 2.

So here’s the trippy high that descended on me as I returned to the Netherlands on the first day of May: on the jet, I read in the Dutch newspaper during the flight that the Van Gogh Museum was opening…TODAY!

OMG. My flight was due at 1PM, and the museum was closing its doors at 6. Surely, it’ll be chaos. Surely, I’ll somehow fail to make it.

But surely…somehow…it worked out!

I got there at 4:15…just as the line at the entrance was beginning to peter out. By 4:30 I was in…which gave me 90 glorious minutes of Van Gogh-inhaling before the 6PM close. In fact, I felt like I had the munchies. Because the crowd was thinning, I was able to walk right up to canvases both un-famous and famous…and, with my little camera, take a bite of them. I took few whole-canvas photos, but I had snacks all over the frames…which, in most cases, created whole new looks at the work of this amazing artist.

Here’s a bunch of Van Gogh bites…leading up to the series of paintings that were downright gastronomic! Come on…it was 6PM…I was getting hungry!

As every art historian knows, Van Gogh’s earthy work changed considerably after he did what I did…go to Paris! The color of the South began to bleed into his paintings…as did his new fixation with Japanese painting!

Here is a Japanese painting that he wanted to “copy”…

And here is his copy:

Here’s another Japanese painting he wanted to copy:

And here is his copy:

And here’s one more Van Gogh work in the “Japanese” style.

From there, the sky was the limit……

By this time, I was getting good and hungry…and not just for oreille panée! I started thinking about one of the best bites I’d had all week in Amsterdam: french fries, with mayo, from a little stand with a long line! And, of course, it was then that I discovered Vincent Van Goghstronome’s particular obsession with…potatoes!

He painted potato peelers. He painted potato farmers. He painted potatoes by themselves, just like these:

Most famously, he painted “The Potato Eaters,” finished in 1885–often considered his first great work. Here are two “bites” I took from it, followed by pretty much the whole canvas:

And that’s when the museum closed…just in time to get to my favorite french fries stand and devour another kind of masterpiece:

Straight away, I will post my report on my entire gastronomic odyssey in Holland…and will, of course, tell you exactly which french fries stand you MUST get to when you visit.

I can pretty much guarantee it won’t be closed for renovations.

This creamy, nutty, fluffy crowd-pleaser can be made a few hours before a party and refrigerated. Bring to the buffet table whole, then cut in slices and serve on cake plates.

For the sponge:
1 cup pine nuts, untoasted
12 large eggs, separated
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Grated zest of 1 lemon
1/2  teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/2  cups sifted all-purpose flour

For the butter cream frosting:
8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
8 ounces (1cup) cream cheese, at room temperature
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
4-6 tablespoons heavy cream, more as needed
1 egg yolk (optional)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons lemon juice
Grated zest of 1/2 lemon

for the topping:
2 1/2 cups pine nuts, toasted

1.  Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

2. Begin making the sponge: Lightly butter and flour two 10″circles of parchment paper cut to fit two 10″ spring form cake pans.  Place them in the pans—butter sides up—and set aside.

3. Purée the cup of untoasted pine nuts in a food processor until they resemble smooth peanut butter, pausing once or twice to scrape down the sides of the bowl.  Next, using an electric mixer, beat the 12 egg yolks and one-third of the granulated sugar at medium-high speed until thick in texture, light in color, and the batter forms a ribbon when the mixer blades are raised from the batter. Beat in the vanilla, lemon zest and the pureed pine nuts until just blended.

4. Clean the mixer blades well and, in a clean bowl, beat the egg whites with them until frothy. With the mixer running, gradually add the salt, and the remaining 2/3 cup of sugar. Continue to whip the mixture until the whites stand in soft peaks, drooping just a bit when you raise the mixer blades.

5. Gently fold the egg whites, one-third at a time, into the yolk mixture.  To keep the mixture light and airy, it is not necessary to entirely incorperate the whites before the next addition.  In the same fashion, fold in the 1 1/2 cups of flour in thirds, completely incorporating the mixture after the final addition.  Divide the batter between the cake pans, place in the oven and bake until a skewer inserted into the cakes comes out clean, 25-30 minutes.  Place pans on a rack to cool completely.  When cool, cut carefully around the inner circumference of the cake pans and remove the cakes. Place cakes back on racks, and reserve.

6.  Make the butter cream:  With the electric mixer, cream the butter and cream cheese, occasionally scraping down the sides of the bowl.  Gradually beat in the confectioners’ sugar, followed by a few tablespoons of cream and the optional egg yolk.  Beat in the vanilla, lemon juice, lemon zest and additional cream as needed, to produce a frosting that is easily spreadable.  (You may make the butter cream in advance, and store it in the refrigerator–but allow it to warm slightly before use.)

7.  Assemble the cake:  Combine one-third of the frosting with 1/2 cup of the toasted pine nuts.  Place one cooled cake on the counter, or on a cake stand. Evenly spread the frosting with the pine nuts on top of the first cake. Top with the second cake, flattest side down.  Evenly spread the remaining frosting (which has no pine nuts) over the entire cake top and sides. Then cover the entire cake, top and sides, with the remaining 2 cups of pine nuts.  When applying them to the sides, gently press them into the frosting in small handfuls.

Photo courtesy of Bigstock

It has been a dream, for years, to slap my name on a great tin of caviar. Well, I’m selling outstanding products now, as you know…including some of the world’s most food-loving Champagne…so why not endeavor to find its caviar soul-mate?

I endeavored. I found.

Let me ‘splain.

I think of every product I offer as a kind of revolution in itself…the product representing a new, better way of doing things in its world.

Here’s the existing problem with caviar: it’s all about trust. And the consumer’s not always in the best position to offer trust.

If you buy, say, Beluga caviar from some producer or other…you’re getting ripped off! Beluga caviar is illegal in the U.S. right now. That’s problem #1: the producer’s lying!

Next problem: the provenance of what you’re actually getting! If some producer tells me I’m getting Osetra, it may well be Osetra…but the producer may fail to tell me that it’s not Osetra from the Caspian Sea, but Osetra from, say, a new experimental farm in Israel. I know a famous caviar restaurant in New York City, Caviar Russe, that continually tries to obfuscate the source of its caviar. Now, what they offer may be good…but don’t you have a right, at these prices, to make an intelligent decision about your choice?

Lastly, even if you know EXACTLY what you’re getting…is it a great example?

One of the dirty little secrets of the caviar world is that sturgeon suppliers harvest many fish simultaneously, then pack the eggs of each fish into discrete tins, usually two kilos worth. So if an Italian Osetra producer is ready to ship its Osetra to a big distributor in the U.S., that U.S. distributor may receive twenty different tins of caviar, each tin packed with eggs from one fish only. The distributor in the U.S. needs to open those large tins and re-pack the caviar in smaller tins…but, along the way, the distributor is sampling the contents of each tin, determining which are the best tins. Because, believe it or not…twenty tins of caviar from the same source, and the same kind of fish…will taste completely like twenty different caviars!

These tins are all from the same producer, each tin with the eggs of one fish only…but every tin with the same kind of fish.

And now comes the Rosengarten plan. I have developed, over the last decade, a beautiful relationship with the Petrossians, the Armenian family who revolutioned caviar when they moved to Paris in the 1920s. Today, they are world leaders in quality…not to mention their uncontested leadership in developing new, non-Caspian Sea sources for great caviar (a necessity in today’s world).

I’m not sure why the caviar gods have smiled on me so benignly…but I now have an arrangement with Petrossian to sell Petrossian Caviar, A David Rosengarten Selection.

And here’s how it works.

Just before caviar-selling season (say, the holidays)…I don my lab coat, hair net, etc., walk into the inner sanctum of Petrossian World…and confront 20, or 30, or 40 two-kilo tins of caviar for tasting and analysis.

I did it just last month, as a kind of dry run. I was tasting with Alexandre Petrossian, the scion of the family, who lives in New York. We went through twenty tins (tough work!), all of them from the Sacramento Delta farm in California most famous for raising one of the great non-Caspian contenders, Transmontanus, or White Sturgeon. That’s exactly what we had, here, the yield of twenty different White Sturgeons. And we both decided that tin#7 was incontestably the best: the right amount of salt, the deepest, most complex flavors, the most obvious lack of flaws (like bitterness), the sexiest, velvetiest texture, the most right-on heir to Caspian glory.

Alex directed the bulk of this winning tin into his general marketing…but secured for me 12 two-ounce tins of it. Each tin has the glorious Petrossian iconography on it…as well as a sticker, saying “A David Rosengarten Selection.”

I’m showing these tins to friends right now as part of the dry run. But I will be back with Alex in July, tasting the caviars that both he and I will sell for the 2013 holiday season.

The implications are enormous: I will be your taster! I will be as close as you ever get to going into a caviar tasting and selecting EXACTLY what you like. To my knowledge, no one else is doing this, tin-by-tin…not even the big-name chefs who offer you “their” caviar! If you like my taste in caviar…you’re in! Trust ME…and the trust issue in buying caviar will finally be resolved!

To see a video of me tasting Petrossian caviar with Alexandre Petrossian, click here.

Steamed clams are served around the country, but the Yankees of New England have a definite advantage in this delicacy–for New England is soft-shell clam country, and soft-shell clams make the best steamed clams in the world. Their main advantage is that they don’t get tough or rubbery when you steam them open–and the fact that they’re also extremely sweet and clammy-tasting doesn’t hurt either. You will know them in fish stores (they are increasingly available outside of New England) by their white, brittle shells, and by the curious-looking tube that protrudes from one end (often referred to as “the pisser.”) Enjoying them is simplicity itself. Follow the easy recipe below, then serve piles of the clams. Each diner removes the clam belly, peels off the brown skin around the attached “pisser,” breaks open the rim of the belly (in case it contains sand) and dips it in clam broth, then dips the belly, just before eating, in melted butter. The following recipe yields a particularly strong flavored broth–because I like to use it as the base for New England Clam Chowder.

Makes 2 hearty first-course servings

4 cups water
4 large celery stalks with leaves
1 firmly packed cup of coarsely chopped parsley leaves and stems
4 lbs. steamers (soft-shell clams)
1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter, melted

1. Place the water, celery and parsley in a large pot with a tight-fitting lid. Bring to a boil. Add the steamers, close the lid, and shake the pot. Cook over medium-high heat for 5-10 minutes, or until all the clams have swung open wide.

2. Divide the clams among two large serving bowls. Pour the clam broth (leaving celery, parsley and sediment behind) into two large mugs. Divide the melted butter between 2 small bowls. Serve immediately, with one large bowl on the table for discarding empty clam shells.

Riesling! Clams! Heaven! Try my 2011 Vom Kalksteinfels Riesling, from Philipp Kuhn, in the Pflatz. Click here.

This recipe is from my book It’s All American Food.

Photo courtesy of Bigstock

The Grandma Pizza

I’m lovin’ the contemporary explosion in New York pizza; there are so many styles now available, so many shapes and sizes, and, of course, the part I like least…..so many toppings! (Basics, pizzaiolo, ya need basics!) About ten years ago, for The Rosengarten Report, I did a classification of New York pizzas…but the scene is crazy out of control now…with classification seeming possible only to the most anal of New York pizzaphiles!

So ixnay on the assification-clay. To me, in all this pizza overkill, there is only one new pizza in New York that is sure to endure as a long-running New York classic: The Grandma Pizza, which swam into our ken about 15 years ago (though I ignorantly ignored it in The Rosengarten Report, because my ken was doing something else).

And I find most people outside of New York…not to mention many New Yorkers!…still don’t even know about it!!!

I’m writing this…because yoo godda knowaboudit!

Let’s hit the historical trail to set the scene. Back in the old country, grandmas and grandpas made a pizza in their home kitchens (some even in frying pans) that had a thin crust, just a little fresh tomato, just a little cheese. I’m not sure they had a name for it, other than “pizza.”

When pizza began its conquest of New York, around the turn of the 20th century, all the old Naples styles were converted into something that would work better in a New York pizzeria. This home-style pizza disappeared, even classic Naples pizza (small, runny, high crust) disappeared. What evolved was “New York pizza,” a big round that you could cut into 8 slices, much drier and more baked than true Naples pizza; all these factors made a New York “slice” easier to serve, carry and eat.

The one other pizza that in the 20th century joined the New York slice pie in pizzerias was the “Sicilian” pizza–a rectangular tray of pizza, thicker and usually slightly softer in its dough than the round one. There is an ancestor in Palermo for this kind of pie, but it ain’t exactly the same.

So…in New York…circa 1960…if you went into a pizzeria, you asked either for “pizza” (the big round one), or “Sicilian” (the thick rectangular one).

Then…possibly in the 1970s…pizza-makers on Long Island, as the story goes, started getting nostalgic. They longed for that simple home pie that their mothers or grandmothers had made. By all accounts, they started making, for themselves, a rectangular pie…that was much thinner than the standard Noo Yawk Sicilian pie. The tomatoes on it were fresher, sometimes raw, and the cheese was lighter. Someone started calling this neo-pie “Grandma Pizza,” after its origins in the Old Country–and it lay dormant among the pizza-making domestic cells of Long Island for a good ten years.

Then…someone (historical accounts differ, but credit often goes to King Umberto’s, in Elmont) put this thing on the menu. It took off…locally. For most of the 90s, it was strictly a Long Island thing, with maybe a foray or two into eastern Queens.

Today, in 2013…it is on its inexorable march west, and has spread much more widely. Sure, there are parts of New York City that still don’t have it…but there are many parts that do.

I find the Upper East Side, believe it or not, to be a new homeland for Grandma pizza. Why? Who knows? But do keep in mind that Grandma pizza is thinner, lighter, and fresher-tasting than other New York pies. Ya think thin, light and fresh might play on the Upper East Side?

I recently walked into two great and busy traditional pizzerias on the Upper East side…the kind that sell 1960s-style “slice” pizza…to learn what I could learn. And everything these two pizzeria owners told me fell easily into the “big” story.

Stephen Vanacore owns Mimi’s, on 84th St., a local pizzeria that has been going strong for over 50 years.

Stephen Vanacore, Owner of Mimi’s

“Yeah, we make Grandma Pizza,” he told me. “But not all the time. Sometimes the spirit of my dad walks in, and we make it.”

Stephen’s dad Dominic, who died ten years ago, “used to make it for himself, no customers, starting about 25 years ago.” (Just as pizza scripture reads.) Then, 15 years ago, says Stephen, “Dad started to make it occasionally. He found that our customers liked it.”

“Any special prep tips?” I asked Stephen.

“I can tell you exactly how much thinner the Grandma’s dough is. We use 1 1/2 balls of fresh dough to make a Sicilian pie…but only one ball of dough to make a Grandma, in the same pan.”

And…he added…”no long-cooked tomato sauce, as you’d have on a regular pie. Grandma gets only short-cooked marinara sauce, chunky.”

A little further down the avenue, at 70th St., lies Mariella Pizza–a hotbed of Grandma! She is always on the counter as you walk in to the shop and, during lunch hour, fresh ones are constantly being churned out of the pizza oven.

Joe Cavaleri, co-owner of Mariella Pizza

“Mariella,” says Joe Cavaleri, “was the first one to sell Grandma pizza to the public, about 15 years ago.”

I knew that once there were nine Mariellas, so I asked which one debuted it.

“This one!,” said Cavaleri. “You’re standing in the place!” And the other Mariellas? “We are not part of a group any longer…so I don’t know!”

When I asked Cavaleri if the Grandma was a popular item, his response was kind of a classic “are yooo kidding me? Last night we delivered an order of 17 Grandmas to a party at Marymount College! People love it!”

Any secrets in the Mariella Grandma? “Oh yeah. We’re thin, like the others,” Cavaleri said. “But they all use oregano. We use basil–fresh, on top! Also, they all mix the oil and garlic into the tomatoes. We don’t. We spread the dough with oil and garlic, then put the tomatoes and cheese on top of that.”

And it is a beautiful thing to behold…

Grandma pizza with basil topping ready to go at Mariella

As you can see, it is not a muddle of cheese and tomato, as most regular New York pizzas are. The sauce–though not raw, and not chunky–is quickly cooked, and gets applied in discrete dabs (“just one or two dabs per slice,” Cavaleri points out.)

It is one of the factors that helps this pie feel…well…fresher and lighter! But I don’t think it takes a Bloomingdale’s credit card to love the Grandma.

Our Naga Jolokia Ghost Chile extract is a Screaming Mimi Award Winner at the NYC Hot Sauce Expo!

Bob Henry, Our Chile Extract Producer from Henry Family Farms, Accepts Ghost Chile Award

Come see me this Sunday, April 21 from Noon-2pm. I’ll be signing hot sauce bottles at the dRosengarten.com booth and would love to see you! I’ll also be judging the Bloody Mary Mix Down at 2pm Sunday—so stick around to see the results.

And meet Bob Henry, my friend and small batch hot sauce maker out of Virginia responsible for our fantastic hot sauces. He will also be at our booth. Read his interview on Chili Pepper Madness Blog here.

Henry Family Farm Extracts
*The tangy Jamaican Lime is like adding citrus juice with a built-in chile kick to all dishes requiring acid. It is fabulous on raw seafood, like clams and oysters…and absolute salvation on ceviche, since the extract treats the fish better than lime juice does!

Recipe: Jamaican Chicken Wings

*The African Fatali, as a member of the Habañero family (which has a cookie-like aroma), loves cozying up to creamy dishes, appearing to make them creamier still. Creamy indian curries, Central European sour cream sauces, salads with mayonnaise….all vibrate when this extract is added.

Recipe: Hot Shrimp with Yellow Habanero Dipping Sauce

*The Ghost Chile from India–the darling of the chile world right now–exudes tomato/bell pepper flavors in addition to extreme heat. Add Louisiana hot sauce to gazpacho…..and you’ll taste Cajun Gazpacho. Add Bob’s Ghost Chile extract….and you’ll find a heightened gazpacho that still tastes exactly like gazpacho. I like to call it “Ghostpacho.”

Recipe: Ghost Chile Con Carne

More video hot sauce recipes here.

My chile extracts are available now for 10% OFF in my shop (TASTE10 at checkout).

Hot Sauce Toast at the dRosengarten.com Booth

Thin people are ordering egg white omelets all around me these days, but I’ve never been moved to do the same. Until now. The downfall of the egg white omelet, to me, has been its insubstantiality, and its usual lack of flavor. However, by infusing it with a major dose of what the Japanese call umami–a basic building block flavor to them, kind of mushroomy–you can make your egg white omelet become as delicious as it is healthful. Do note that the following recipe calls for a teaspoon of oil (to insure good browning, which is very important, and no sticking.) But you can avoid the oil by using Pam. And, though it adds a few calories, a thin brush of Chinese oyster sauce over the omelet at the end sends it into the umami stratosphere. I’m guessing that after tasting this thing, you egg-white-omelet resisters–like me!–will be converted.

Makes one serving

Whites of 3 large eggs
1/4 teaspoon thin soy sauce
1 teaspoon vegetable oil (or a copious spray of Pam)
1 teaspoon sesame seeds
1 tablespoon finely minced scallion (white and green parts)
1 medium-sized dried Chinese mushroom, soaked in hot water for 15 minutes, squeezed dry, and minced
1/2 teaspoon Chinese oyster sauce, room temperature (optional)

1. In a small bowl, beat together the egg whites and the soy sauce for 20 seconds. Reserve.

2. Place the oil in a small, 6″ sauté pan over medium-high heat. Or, spray the pan well with Pam and place over heat. Add the sesame seeds, and spread them out evenly. As soon as they start to color (they’ll turn golden in 30-60 seconds), add the scallions. Distribute evenly. Immediately add the mushrooms. Distribute evenly. Pour the egg-white mixture over all, spreading it out evenly. Let the egg whites set for 30 seconds, then insert a spatula under the egg whites, all around the pan, to loosen the egg whites from the bottom and make sure they’re not sticking. Once they’re loose, immediately swirl the pan so that any extra uncooked egg white on top of the omelet swirls out to the perimeter of the omelet (this cooks the excess egg quickly.) Turn the omelet over–either with a wide spatula, or by flipping the pan, or by inverting the omelet onto a plate, then sliding the omelet back into the pan. Cook on the second side for 10 seconds only. (The total cooking time of the eggs should be 1-2 minutes.) Then flip the omelet onto a plate, browned side up. If desired, brush omelet with a little Chinese oyster sauce. Serve immediately.

Just so happens!…this extraordinarily light omelet goes perfectly with my extraordinarily light 2004 The Nude Gran Cru Champagne from Michel Gonet. Click here.

This recipe is from my book It’s All American Food.

Photo courtesy of Bigstock