Let's Cook with Titina

It was of my dear friend's birthday this past week, so I tried finding something fun and different to do to celebrate.  We both love to eat and cook, and I remembered taking a cooking class at Capri Flavors, a Italian food distributor in Morrisville, NC.  Perfecto!  I had her go to their website and peruse the menu - there are four different menus offered in a three month span, and the menus change quarterly.  She settled on the Bologna menu, and settled on a Friday evening class.  (They also have classes on Monday evenings and Wednesday mornings, as well as private classes).

We arrive about 15 minutes before our class, and we walk into a small store stocked with all Italian specialties, from Italian pastas and tomatoes to cured meats, cheeses and wine.  Costanzo, one of the proprietors, greets you and checks you in for class.  Through the store, there is a beautiful kitchen with twelve barstools lined around it, and Titina, Costanzo's wife, greets you with an apron and name tag.  Her son, Ugo, was also assisting in the kitchen this evening.  We go back out into the shop and purchase a bottle of Sicilian wine to enjoy while taking our class.

Titina and Costanzo came to the United States from the small island of Capri back in 1994, settled in North Carolina after spending a couple years in Rhode Island.  They had run a hotel back in Capri, and desired to bring all the Italian specialties to the United States.  Titina's mother is credited for creating the caprese salad back in her restaurant in Capri.

We begin our class by preparing a simple bruschetta, which my friend and I are asked to help assist by chopping grape tomatoes, while Titina puts the olive oil, garlic, and parsley together.  Then we mix our chopped tomatoes in, and top some warmed ciabatta bread.  Once assembled, each student gets a couple pieces to enjoy as class begins.

Titina starts preparing dinner by preparing the dough to make fresh sheets of pasta for our lasagna bolognese, which one of the students helps mix and knead, then lets set.  While the dough is resting, she begins teaching another student to make prosciutto and peas, by simply crisping up some proscuitto in olive oil, onions and garlic, then adding peas to a pan and letting simmer.


We continue through the class making a fine meal - watching two gentlemen cut dough and make the fresh pasta sheets, another student help make the bolognese and bechamel sauces, and my friend and I help assemble the lasagna.

Not to forget a dessert, two students help assemble a tiramisu.  Although it needs overnight to properly set up, another class graciously assembled the one we got to eat.  Tiramisu always seemed like it was a daunting task, but after this class, I am ready to add it to my dessert recipe arsenal.

Lastly, we make a quick opening plate of prosciutto and melon and a salad with a light lemon dressing.  Once everything is ready, we sit at a family style table with the entire class and Titina and Costanzo, and exchange stories of Italy and good food.  The food you are taught to make is not only delicious, yet relatively easy to make, and if you don't have the tools (like a pasta rolling machine), Titina will take questions and help you make simple, wonderful Italian food in your home.  The cost of all this is only $60/person, and with the $13 bottle of wine we bought (which would have been $40-50 in a restaurant), you get a high quality restaurant meal, without the restaurant price, and you get the recipes to try your hand at it.

My friend absolutely loved her gift, and we are looking forward to doing the same thing for Christmas. Hopefully, we can get in the class where we can make gnocchi, and enjoy yet another fabulous Italian meal with two wonderful hosts from Capri.

Capri Flavors
1012 Morrisville Parkway
Morrisville NC 27560
www.capriflavors.com

You're Gonna Wanna Go to Lackawanna....for meatballs

Living in the south, I've struggled to find good Italian food.  When I lived back north, great Italian places were on nearly every block.  I was spoiled when I lived in North Buffalo, which is the section of the city where Italian immigrants settled.  There were great little Italian places, so it was a luxury to have to pick and choose.  So when I travel back to my hometown for a weekend, Italian food is usually in the mix of my self-induced 72 hour food coma.

Back in Raleigh, one night while watching TV, MM and I flipped over to Food Network and all we see is a huge piece of lasagna and a huge meatball at the Mulberry Italian Ristorante.  Our mouths watered instantly.  Where in this great country could we get this lasagna and meatball?  We hit the info button on the TV, and it simply says New York.  We assume that it's somewhere downstate near New York City (sidebar: Buffalo is not close to NYC - about 8 hours...I lived closer to the City when I lived in Virginia.)  When I pull up the website to get the address, I'm amazed.  It's in Lackawanna, NY.  LACKAWANNA?

Lackawanna, NY is an immediate southern suburb of Buffalo, which is a blue-collar town with a Ford plant and old steel mills, so hearing there is a culinary gem in there is quite surprising. The restaurant opened back in 2005 and changed to an Italian format a year later. So on my most recent trip back home, I was tasked with choosing where to go for family dinner.  No question - I needed to try this place.  Fortunately, my family had dined here before, but was limited on the menu since it was lent (no meat), so they were as excited as me.

We navigate through a quaint neighborhood that runs up against one of the old steel mills (coincidentally, one of my good friends grew up in that neighborhood) and we find Mulberry -  a little corner restaurant with a black awning.  We head in and the restaurant is long and narrow, with some old Yankee Stadium chairs as a waiting area.  The walls are painted a deep red, covered in pictures of the Rat Pack, New York City, and New York and Buffalo sports memorabilia.

The menu has an ample selection of Italian favorites - pasta, chicken, eggplant.  The lasagna is their speciality - the beautiful thing about it is that it changes daily.  The night we were in there, it was a 3 meat lasagna, made with beef, shredded pork and italian sausage.  My sister and her fiancee were both set on getting that, so I knew I could snatch a bite of the house specialty. But I wanted the other house specialty - the meatball.  

The meatball comes with select entrees or can be an appetizer.  Right - one meatball as an appetizer.  So I choose for my entree the Gnocchi di Ricotta Fatto in Casa - homemade ricotta filled gnocchi, which comes with the meatball.  The soup of the day is a Banana Pepper Bisque, which sounds amazing, so I have to partake in that as well.

The soup had more heat than I was expecting, but it is served with a piece of fresh bread, that helped cut the heat.  Super creamy and super flavorful.  But this still did not prepare me for my entree....when it arrives, I'm amazed at the size of the meatball.  It's the size of my fist!

The meatball is huge and packed with great flavor.  But the gnocchi was easily the best I've ever had.  Usually gnocchi is rather dense, but each dumpling was so light and the ricotta was so incredibly fresh.  Simply to die for.  I flew back to Raleigh the next day, and brought my leftovers home with me so MM (who is Sicilian and picky on his Italian) could try, and I received these two texts:

"I had the gnocchi.  Oh Dear."

"That meatball is not fair."

My sister and her fiancee get the full size portion lasagna (mainly so he could have leftover lasagna for lunch the next day...), and blown away at the size - a full size portion is easily 3-4 portions anywhere else.

I'm not a huge meat lasagna fan, but I really enjoyed this, especially the shredded pork inside, since it's a texture not usually seen in lasagnas.  The cheese again was so light and fluffy that this didn't seem like a weight in your stomach. My sister barely put a dent in this, much to the delight of her fiancee, since he was the benefactor of lunch the second day.

I did save room for dessert, since my sister's fiancee talked about the cannolis all weekend.  The standard cannoli has a citrus ricotta filling, but I opted for the nutella cannoli, topped with pistachios.  Simply heavenly.    When you reach the bottom of your dessert plate (after you've licked it clean), the proprietors' humor comes out with a message on the plate.

The only big mistake with Mulberry is that I hadn't been there sooner.  MM is already planning his trip back home to drive to Lackawanna.  There was a jingle back in the 80's for (from what I can remember) a furniture store that said "you're gonna wanna come to Lackawanna....", and you definitely will want to come again and again for an amazing meal.

Mulberry Italian Ristorante

64 Jackson Street

Lackawanna NY 14218

www.worldfamouslasagna.com