Artichoke Heart

Whenever I tell someone that I grew up in Yonkers, I inevitably hear the following questions: “Are you talking about Neil Simon’s Lost in Yonkers? Have you read it?”

No, I’ve never read or seen the play. But the city in which it’s set is undergoing a renaissance. Back when I was in grammar school, Yonkers was primarily known for its bitter desegregation struggles. Downtown was characterized by its gritty and industrial atmosphere, not its restaurants. But in the past few years, new bars and restaurants have slowly emerged, adding exciting dining options to this long-neglected riverfront neighborhood.

No other eatery has epitomized this renewal more than chef Peter X. Kelly’s X20, a year-old contemporary American restaurant situated on a historic pier near the heart of downtown Yonkers. Kelly is a hometown boy, raised in a nearby housing project. He is well known in the area, with three highly-esteemed restaurants in Rockland County. My parents, my sister Melissa, Jim, and I headed to X20 on Saturday night for my mother’s birthday, and experienced Yonkers in a whole new way.

The steel pier hosting the restaurant extends over the Hudson River, offering spectacular views of the Palisades and not-so-far-off Manhattan. As I walked into the spacious 2nd floor dining room with its 25-foot ceilings, I simply gasped at the incredible panorama. Next I marveled at the generous space between tables, the gracious and professional staff, and the manageable noise level that allowed my family to speak and hear each other with ease. 

The ample menu of intriguing meat and seafood options obviously aims to please a variety of palettes. After much struggle I finally settled on the spaghetti chittarra for my appetizer ($14.50). A small tangle of perfectly cooked spaghetti tossed with light crabmeat, toasted breadcrumbs, and green onions exuded freshness and springtime. As a pasta lover, I easily could have eaten a full-size serving. But I needed to leave room for my second course of red-wine braised osso bucco, which was served with a barley risotto, shaved root vegetables, wild mushrooms, and a handful of fava beans ($30.00).

While my spaghetti chittarra epitomized the arrival of spring, the osso bucco was hearty, rich, and slightly too much food for me. The tender braised meat and savory risotto created a comforting combination of flavors, and if I had tried this dish on a cold and wintry day, I’m sure I would have loved it.

I ended my meal with a piece of classic red velvet cake ($8.50). And as I watched my mother blow out her candles, I thought how nice it was to come home to Yonkers and see positive changes in the city; I vowed to do it more often. Perhaps next time we return we can try Dylan, X20’s low-key sushi bar.

And, just in case you were wondering, Jim and I accidentally took a few wrong turns on the way back to Brooklyn. I guess you can say that on Saturday night we were indeed lost in Yonkers.

X20, Xaviar’s on the Hudson, 71 Water Grant Street, Yonkers, New York  T: 914-965-1111

As I’ve already mentioned, one benefit of my knock-down, drag-out hummus competition was that it required several trips to Atlantic Avenue’s Middle Eastern food shops. At Sahadi’s I slowly wandered among the imported, exotic foodstuffs. I also spent some quality time ogling the piles of pita bread, cookies, and sweets at the Syrian Damascus Bread and Pastry Shop. 

Of course I never left either store empty-handed. But let’s concentrate on my visits to Damascus, where I bought sweet, sticky baklava, in both walnut and pistachio varieties. Intricate bird’s nest pastries currently await me in a white paper bag on my kitchen counter, almost too pretty to eat. I stocked up on light, airy, white and whole-wheat pita bread. I also purchased an unfamiliar shortbread cookie that I couldn’t bring myself to save for later: gorayba. 

I knew I had to try these bracelet-shaped butter cookies from the moment I saw them behind the glass display case at the pastry shop. They practically begged me to buy them, bring them home, and enjoy them with a hot cup of tea. 

Gorayba are usually defined as Arabic cardamom shortbread cookies, made on special occasions and found throughout the Middle East. Sometimes almonds or pistachios are placed at the intersection where the two ends of dough meet. According to Claudia Roden’s The New Book of Middle Eastern Food, it’s important not to overcook the gorayba (also spelled ghorayebah). They must remain quite white in color, because their flavor changes greatly if they even slightly brown.

Some recipes say that the addition of cardamom is optional; I’m not sure I tasted it in the cookies I recently bought. Roden’s book also suggests hazelnut, nutmeg, and cinnamon variations. In any case, these cookies are memorable for their buttery, slightly sweet simplicity. Jim says his Greek grandmother used to make a similar cookie called koulourakia, but we have to investigate this more fully. And I have to make another trip to the Damascus Bread and Pastry Shop, as I’ve eaten all of my gorayba.

Damascus Bread and Pastry Shop, 195 Atlantic Avenue, between Court and Clinton Streets, in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.  T: 718-625-7070

Although Jim and I love strolling around Brooklyn, we recently took another step forward on the path to adulthood and bought a car. I already have several excursions to new restaurants and neighborhoods in mind. In fact, Jim and I didn’t wait long before we made our first one. As soon as we signed the bill of sale on Friday, we fastened our seatbelts, turned the key in the ignition, and drove straight from the car dealership to nearby Di Fara’s in Midwood, Brooklyn.

Like many New Yorkers, I had read that Di Fara’s serves the best pizza in the city. Its fans are pretty convincing, directing their enthusiastic praise towards the seventyish-year-old Domenico De Marco, who has been making his thin-crust, Neapolitan-style pies in this gritty corner shop for over 40 years. He personally rolls out the dough and assembles the ingredients for each pizza in front of the eternal hungry masses waiting at his counter. 

When Jim and I walked up to the shop on Friday night around 7 pm, I was expecting a line out the door. But the scene was eerily quiet, with only a faithful few stalking the counter while De Marco worked his magic in a white apron and newsboy cap. He started by slowly and deliberately pushing dough for a new pie into a circle. Next he carefully spooned San Marzano tomatoes, three types of grated mozzarella cheese, and parmigiano reggiano onto its surface before drizzling olive oil from a copper kettle on top. When the cooked pie emerged from the massive steel oven, De Marco reached for a plastic container of fresh basil, snipped some fresh leaves with a pair of scissors, and sprinkled them across the pizza’s surface. He also applied a second dose of olive oil across the pie. Once it was boxed up, the cycle began again with a new batch of dough.

Instead of ordering a pie, Jim and I decided to order our own slices with different toppings. We sat in the green-hued, rather grungy room and silently sipped our Cokes with the rest of the eager patrons. My first slice of plain arrived in a few minutes. As soon as I bit into it, I noticed the sharpness of the parmigiano cheese ($4). The crust was thin and light, the sauce sweet and fresh. But if I have to be honest, I enjoyed my slice with artichoke hearts more than the plain, and not just because I love artichokes ($6). It came to me piping hot, with the hearts tender, fresh, and silky.

I’m already planning my next visit, when I will order a full pie. I’m trying to figure out whether to go with the classic round or the Sicilian-style square. If being an adult with a car means I can get to Di Fara’s anytime I want, then I’ll happily accept it.

Di Fara Pizza, 1424 Avenue J between 14th and 15th Streets, in Midwood, Brooklyn. T: 718-258-1367. You don’t need a car to get there; take the Q train to the Avenue J stop, and the shop is about a block away.

“Mom, tell them about the antipasto,” exclaimed Mary Lou Sanelli, her straight, brown hair grazing her shoulders. I sat with the rest of the audience at the Tenement Museum on New York City’s Lower East Side, waving my paper fan in the hot, stuffy room, trying to keep cool.

“No, I can’t,” said the smiling, wide-faced woman in a strong Italian accent, her hair swept up into a bun. But after a bit more cajoling, Mary Lou Sanelli’s Barese “mamma” (played by actress Jackie Leone) discussed her recipe for pomodori all’olio (tomatoes in oil) with the audience. After this quick cooking lesson, Sanelli paged through her book, The Immigrant’s Table, and dove into a reading of her poem “Antipasto,” described as “a meal in and of itself.” She spoke of mozzarella, olives, pickled eggplants and peppers, procured by her mother after a long drive to the city, and served on approved Roman Catholic holidays.

I first came to know this book of poems and recipes when my cousin in Port Townsend, Washington, sent it to me a few months ago; the author is based in the same town. Sanelli’s poems, with titles such as “Minestrone” and “Finocchio,” illustrate her Italian immigrant family and their cultural struggles, as well as the author’s own coming of age as a first-generation American. Each poem is paired with at least one family recipe, and photographs of Sanelli’s family are scattered throughout the book.

Born on the Lower East Side of New York City and then raised on the East Coast, Sanelli eventually moved to the West Coast in attempt to break free from her family’s Old World traditions. But after a period of time, she realized that leaving the past behind was impossible. Instead of trying to escape her history, Sanelli decided to embrace and understand it by exploring her mother’s cherished recipes. She realized that food shaped many of her childhood memories, as seen in the poem “Veal Scaloppine.” Sanelli’s protests against eating meat, framed in a poem about this traditional Italian dish, pitted her directly against her parents and their beliefs, causing true conflict between two distinct generations. 

By exploring her family’s culinary traditions and writing about them, Sanelli gained the understanding about her own identity that she was looking for. This was obvious from the lively and light-hearted reading I witnessed last week between the author and her ”mamma” at the Tenement Museum. Throughout the evening, Sanelli added and subtracted from her poems, creating dialogue about the recipes, her memories, and her mother’s own struggles as an immigrant. We were all family for an evening, and it was a wonderful way to experience the book again.

I enjoyed this book for many reasons: The writing is simple and evocative, the format intimate and personal. But I also identified very strongly with the poems themselves, which inspired memories of my own Sicilian grandmother, and our visits to her home in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn when I was a child. Our gatherings around her lace-clad dining room table, always surrounded with platters of finocchio, spaghetti, and meatballs, are forever embedded in my mind and my soul. Sanelli’s book reinforced my belief that food, whether it’s gnocchi or manicotti or any other traditional family dish, has the power to shape us all.

As promised, I have completed my hummus recipe smackdown. Last weekend I tested Food & Wine’s recipe for hummus masabacha, and this past Sunday I whipped up Cook’s Illustrated’s Ultimate Hummus. With such a title for its recipe, Cook’s must have been feeling pretty confident in its chickpea prowess. I whirred up the food processor and got ready to determine if the magazine was all bluster and intimidation, or if it really had the hummus goods.

In terms of the actual cooking process and ingredients list, there is little difference between the two recipes. Both start with dried chickpeas that are soaked overnight, although Cook’s doesn’t soak them with baking soda. Instead, Cook’s adds the baking soda while the chickpeas are cooking on the stovetop the next day. Both recipes use lemons, garlic, cooking water, tahini, and cumin, although in slightly different quantities. In the most significant differences between the two, Cook’s Illustrated eschews the lemon tahini sauce utilized by Food & Wine, and purees the cooked chickpeas and dry ingredients on their own before adding the liquid ingredients to the food processor in two separate stages.

Even though the differences in the recipes are slight, Jim and I strongly preferred the hummus from Cook’s Illustrated. It was mild but slightly nuttier in flavor than the Food & Wine batch, and was somehow much creamier as well. Also, the Cook’s recipe creates a more moderate batch of hummus than Food & Wine, perfect for us to share over the next couple of days without fear of wasting it.

So, I hereby declare Cook’s Illustrated the winner of my hummus cook-off. But really, there are no losers here. Both magazines produced perfectly good recipes for one of my favorite Middle Eastern spreads, and both versions are much better than the pre-packaged stuff from my corner bodega. And anyway, since I have been able to eat fresh hummus for a week straight, I think I am the real winner here. That’s all that counts.

(Unfortunately I cannot link directly to the recipes on the Cook’s Illustrated website; you have to be a member of the website to see them.)