Comfort Food

With all the upset from one country to another, my Sicilian Butcher and I have fallen into a kind of comfort food safety net.

It's funny, I think about food and place as related mostly to terroir, the land, the agriculture. I used to say that winter existed for the sole purpose of producing mandarin oranges and clementines.

This too, sadly has changed. The winter is an important growing season for citrus in Sicily. Before we left a few weeks ago, I was eating lots of Mandarin oranges. The flavor and aroma was intense, intense, intense. We would squeeze the rind to spritz the house with it's oils. Ahh. What a refreshing and delicious way to clean the house.

Here though, the clementines and mandarine oranges are without flavor and the rind without any casalinga (housekeeping) value what-so-ever.

This has gotten me thinking about how I now travel to follow the harvest in a manner of speaking. And each location both New Jersey and Sicily welcome us each to our second home. I have made a list of the foods we both commune with while home in our new country.

My comfort foods while in Sicly: ricotta from the farm- still warm and draining, sausages made without preservatives by my favorite butcher, contraband raw milk for a euro from the bike delivery man with farmer's hands and an intellectual's, wire-rimmed glasses; mandarin oranges, Red Wine, Gandolfa's ragu, Lemon Granita, any granita, Gelato, Tiramisu, pistachios, iced tea we make by the gallon, nutella and panella.

The Sicilian's comfort foods in the States are philadelphia cream cheese, American fried chicken, barbeque sauce, nutella from a glass jar- imported from Italy (not made here by Ferraro with peanut oils and corn syrup in the plastic jar), fresh mozarella, mortadella, sold by Rizzo's Pizzeria and Deli on Central Ave. in Jersey City Heights, gorgonzola cheese, his own cooking. Lobster, Mussels and Espresso.

The need for comfort food is, I guess self-evident. In these periods of not really being anywhere, as tourists in the world of immigration both in the States and in Italy we seek home. Of course we have each other and this grounds us where ever we are. Food though, well two chefs need that too.

A dish I can never satisfyingly make in Sicily, despite the super abundance of breath taking produce, is my American staple, which I first enjoyed in Paris.

Grated Beets & Carrots

1 medium Raw Beet without the greens
3 medium carrots

1 large lemon -juiced

4 Tbs extra virgin olive oil.
2 tsp of good quality dijon
salt and pepper if it needs it after the lemon.

1.Peel the Carrots and Beet

2.Using a box grater a food processor with the medium fine grater attachement, grate the beet and the carrots.

3. In a bowl big enough to hold the beet and carrot mixture mix the lemon juice, dijon and olive oil.

4. Toss in the carrots and beet.

5. Salt and pepper to taste

toss and serve.

 

This tastes great for a few days. The beets and carrots get softer and the flavors blend beautifully if you can wait to eat it. I add a little here, a little there. Makes any dish yummy.
 
 
There is a version of this that totally rocks, in where we substitute carrots with peeled, grated granny smith apples.
 
Whew. Just thinking about this makes my lips pucker and my liver sing! And definitely something I miss when in Sicily.

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