Yannow, this never occurred to me.
I remember way back when, when I still lived in St. Louis and my buddies George, Cliff, and Steve would come over to watch football, occasionally there would be some weed smoking going on. Back then, when I could still cook, I would have football parties at my apartment, not just for the Super Bowl, but for regular season games as well. I would cook up a feast. Steve’s wife Alixe, one of my best friends in the world, hated football but would come to the party for the feast that I would cook. There would also be a lot of beer drinking going on. George and I came up with the idea of drinking Bud in the little seven ounce bottles so the beer would not get cold. I had a fridge with a little pull out drawer right under the freezer and that’s where we would put the beer. When one pulled a beer out of the right side, he would have to take a beer from a bottom shelf and put it in the left side of the drawer. Two cases of the little bottles would work out just right.
Alas, I don’t have any football fanatic friends down here in Georgia, so I no longer cook up feasts like I used to do. My sister always said she would have liked to come to one of my football parties but since she lived in California, the land of fruits and nuts, she was unable to. She’s thinking of coming down for the Super Bowl so maybe I’ll try to cook sumpin’. Maybe I’ll make some lasagne. This would be a good excuse for some cannelloni but that’s really a lot of work the way I make it. I make the pasta from scratch and I use two different sauces, a white and a red. The stuffing is veal and chicken which I cook in white wine with onions and garlic and then run through the food processor. I then add some egg yolks and some of the white sauce. It is delicious. It takes over two hours to make.
When Sherry still lived in California, one of my cousins moved out there. We had him over for New Year’s Day and made cannelloni. When we put it on the table, he asked what it was. We told him it was cannelloni, tubular pasta stuffed with veal and chicken and topped with two sauces and cheese. He politely took one tube to try it out. By the end of the meal, he was using a spoon to scoop out the remainder of the sauce. Yeah. It’s that good.
The first time Sherry made it for me, with the recipe she had, she used manicotti shells instead of making the pasta from scratch, which is what we do now. By the end of the meal, Ryan and I were laying on the floor moaning with our full stomachs. We couldn’t stop eating. Since then, I’ve tweaked the recipe. The original recipe didn’t have any garlic in it and used parsley instead of spinach which I use. It used carrots in the meat stuffing and I don’t. It also didn’t have chicken in the meat stuffing. The cannelloni I ate on Dago Hill (now due to PC it’s just called The Hill), the Italian neighborhood in St. Louis, where Yogi Berra grew up, had chicken and veal, so that’s what I use. Making the pasta from scratch is so much better than using manicotti shells. The pasta made from scratch is thinner, al dente, and melts in your mouth.
This became a New Year’s Day tradition.
Ryan would even go off his diet for your cannelloni!
OK – Ya’ did it with the description – Now I demand a recipe. My bestus-favorite food in the whole world is Italian but I know nothing about cooking it. My wife, a native-born Hoosier and does a great job cooking Italian, considering she’s not Italian. She makes her own pasta and cans her own sauce.
My thing is; Barbecuing and Smoking, which I believe I have surpassed having it down to a science and now consider it my art form. My 20 personal recipes for my hot sauces aren’t far behind.
But living in rural Ohio, we have nothing that equates the great Italian foods I’ve had in Detroit, St. Louis and South Florida. Just Olive Garden – YEEACH!
So GOC, if ya’ can, share a few secrets on your Cannelloni. I’m sure your loyal readers would be most appreciative.
I’ve referred to it as the bud bowl a couple of places, and made clear its got nuthin to do with beer.
GO SEAHAWKS!!!
This post should have a “don’t read before dinner” warning! Wish I still lived in GA. Would ask for an invite to the bud bowl party….
Now listen here Denny. You cannot use all that purple prose to describe the food, and then not share the recipe! It is almost cruel and unusual treatment. We promise not to tell anyone else if you share it with us.
Hell yeah – send it on. I am not a chef but those who eat what I prepare tell me I’m pretty good at cooking, so I’ll thump my chest a little. Italian HAS to have garlic. Don’t tell anyone, but I can also cook vegan, for when we have the nutcase over. I usually make a very meaty dish for others, just to piss her off. I love being an ass sometimes.
If you’re going to share the recipe, then me too!
Congratulations, Denny! I never was much of a Chef. But there’s one dish I can prepare extremely well. I get a lot of praise for it. And my guests always ask for the recipe.” Are you kidding?” I always say, ” It’s my secret. Let me retain the illusion that nobody else in the world could repeat my performance. ” Today, anybody can Google and find dozens of recipes for that dish. But it will never turn out like mine. It’s not what’s in it that can turn a special dish into a phenomenal success. It’s the unique way one prepares it…..Vive la différence!
Exactly! That’s the way I am with my lasagna. I could not give you an exact recipe for my red sauce since I cook it to taste. I have that same problem with some of my other recipes as well.
Denny, you & my wife oughta get together. She’s an RN, but her passion is cooking, & one of her prized dishes is her marinara sauce. I don’t think she has a recipe for it per se, just adds a “Little bit of this, & a little bit of That” til she gets it right. She’ll take a big potful of it in to the VA hospital where she works, & it always comes back home cleaned out… I think they LICK it clean…
I remember back in the eighties and nineties getting together with my buddies and watching Browns games. We would cook wings on a smoker, make home made chili, and other kinds of random ethnic treats. After the Browns have come back in 1999 unfortunately you have no appetite nor can you digest food if you watch their antics on the field. You inspired me, though. I may watch the Superbowl just to throw some wings on the smoker and grill up some Slovenian Sausage just like back in the day.