Pasta with Peppers and Goat Cheese - a new tradition

"We don't worry so much about saving traditions. Traditions change all the time. We want to save the culture of food here." Giovanni Rebora in Laura Schenone's The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken.

That quote returns to me again and again during holiday cooking.

Am I keeping the "home fires burning" with traditions? Or saving the culture of memory for my family? Pizza du Grane or Neopolitan Wheat Pie or Easter Grain Pie - it's been made in most Italian families for generations. The wheat symbolizes spring - new birth and new life. Around the country, my cousins are making these. We stir the pastiera together.

Pastiera: soaked and cooked wheat berries later cooked in cream, milk and sugar. There is no shortcut - no microwave recipe. I stir the pastiera as my mother does and as my grandmother did.

I am told my great-grandmother was working in a field when my great-grandfather came by on horseback. Stunned by her beauty, he spoke with her, courted her and married her. She was a coarse peasant (my grandmother's assertion) and his family was not pleased. For great-grandfather was a landowner. It was the 1800's and a caste system was still firmly in place. And that is all I know of her.

As a young child I saw fields from Italy - re-imagined in my own mind as the fields on outer Long Island and New Jersey that I visited. I see her hunched over and then suddenly looking up - the sun momentarily blinding her and finally seeing my great-grandfather. Hard-work and innocence in her eyes. Did she see "love at first sight?" Or escape? And I continue to picture her beauty. It's part fairy tale with a "happily ever after" that would take generations to be true. In the meantime, much bread was broken and years of meals were shared.

With so little knowledge of her, the pastiera binds us. Surely Philomena stirred the pastiera as I did tonight. For Tess - Mary Theresa - my grandmother must have learned the recipe from her. Which was passed down to my mother and aunts without ever writing a word. The baking of the Pizza du Grane has become more than tradition - it's been the cornerstone of my Easters and one of the things that gave my Midwestern children a slice and a surety of their Italian heritage. I think "Pizza du Grane" might have been their first Italian words (spoken in dialect of course). If you want to explore spring, find the recipe here. It's sweet, creamy, a bit chewy and filled with promise.

Good Friday always meant shellfish pasta. Part culture of course - fasting and no meat on Good Friday. Part tradition.

My mother bought no less than 8 pounds of shellfish for dinner for six. And one of those six does not touch fish! Culture or tradition? She feeds a village when she cooks. This is hardly fasting.

Under the shellfish you will find 3 pounds of pasta. For 6 people! There are no protestations when you see the table groaning from excess - for it is not the amount of food that my mother was thinking of - it was the amount of nurturing she wanted to give.

With the shellfish pasta dinner held earlier this month, Good Friday's tradition changed. The busyness of our lives begged for simplicity.

Penne with Peppers and Goat Cheese (adapted from Tastes of Italia) - serves 6

1 pound penne pasta (I used whole wheat)

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 red pepper, seeded and cut into thin strips

1 yellow pepper, seeded and cut into thin strips

1 green pepper, seeded and cut into thin strips
(I used a medley of peppers and more than the 3)

2 garlic cloves, sliced thin

4 ounces goat cheese - crumbled

salt and pepper to taste

fresh Italian Parsley - for scattering

Cook penne pasta according to package directions. In a medium-large skillet, heat the oil. When hot but not sizzling add the sliced peppers and garlic. Reduce heat to low, cover and let simmer for 15 minutes. Add drained pasta and stir well - coating all well with peppers and the oil. Add the goat cheese and mix well. Salt and pepper to taste. Transfer to serving bowl. Scatter parsley and serve.

I will do this again and again. Until it jumps from tradition into the land of "culture." In the heat of the summer when the peppers beg for a new use, I will greedily pick them and steam them in oil. I will endeavor to mix them with pasta and share my bounty. Or maybe I will just slather them on crusty bread and keep them as a guilty secret with just a few scattered crumbs telling of my crime. Maybe they'll be mixed with Fontina or fresh mozzarella or - oh dear my cheese obsession is showing. I'll stop.

A tradition that my daughter keeps alive is the dyeing of the Easter eggs. The egg decorations reveal what has been important to her during the past year. (e.g. we had years of lots and lots of cat-decorated eggs. The Easter cat trumped the Easter bunny every year.)

As you can see, she's moved on from cats. Really. That's a tiger.

And her sweetie is as enamored with decorating eggs as she is. (Although I will say his Humpty Dumpty egg resembled a zombie.)

Tomorrow the colored eggs get baked into Easter breads. And the Biscotti Regina will be baked. (Recipe is here for these sesame delectables: easy recipe, you do not have to stir with my ancestors to get it right.)

Buona Pasqua, Happy Easter, Happy Passover, Happy Spring. I wish you new traditions and old. May spring whisper new promises that bring joy.

'twas the day after Easter ...

... and I'm still recovering. The Haas tornado whipped through the home in the afternoon and we certainly made merry. Now, today - too many chocolate eggs and cannolis later - I feel a biscotti and a cafe are in order - only the biscottis are gone. I sent Easter sweets - including three types of dessert up to Collegeville - with my son today. This is to ensure that I do not make too many trips to the refrigerator this week.

Now, my mother's Wheat Pie is another story. The Pizza du Grane remains in the fridge - carefully hidden by Kirsten. It is my daughter's favorite dessert and she guards it as a She-Bear guards her cub. It somehow did not make it to the dessert buffet table yesterday! In fact, when my husband peeked into the fridge yesterday and exclaimed, "Oh no - we forgot to put out the Easter Wheat Pie" and indeed - started to actually take it out - my daughter rushed into the kitchen, grabbed the pie from his hands and carefully sneaked it back in- and covered with "stuff." More on that tomorrow. Happily, there were at least 8 desserts on the table. It was not missed. Really.

As I bemoan the loss of my biscottis which disappeared quickly, I am cheered by the knowledge that I have the recipe and the ingredients! And now you will, too.

From: Sweet Sicily: A Story of an Island and Her Pastries by Victoria Granof
8 T unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
2 egg yolks
1/2 cup milk
Grated zest of 1 lemon
2-1/2 cup flour
2 t baking powder
3/4 cup sesame seeds

In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until just combined. Beat in the yolks, milk and zest. (The mixture will seem curdled and that is fine) Sift the flour with the baking powder and stir into the butter mixture. Mix until the dough comes together in ball. Cover and refrigerate for at least one hour or up to 1 day (being a lazybones I always refrigerate overnight). It makes the dough easier to handle.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease two large baking sheets.

Ms. Granof has you rinse the sesame seeds in a fine mesh strainer and dry. I did not do that. I did turn them out in a shallow baking pan.

Divide dough into eight equal parts. Shape each one into a ball and then roll each ball with the palm of your hands on a lightly floured ball into a rope about 8 inches long. With a sharp knife, cut each rope into 4 pieces. Roll each piece in the sesame seeds and place 2 inches apart on the greased baking sheet. (I needed to brush them with milk so that the sesame seeds would adhere.)

Bake for 20-25 minutes until browned. Let cool for five minutes and then place on baking racks.

I probably ate 2 piping hot! Sweet Sicily is a sumptuous book - containing mouth-watering photos and some history behind each of the pastries and the various cultures that have influenced Sicilian desserts. I may need to write a play about a dessert. And it won't be a drama! Happy Easter Monday, all!