Rabbit Punches

Besides the chickens, we also have rabbits. I tried to get two does (females) and a buck (male) for breeding purposes. I ended up with two bucks and a doe. One of the bucks is sweet and gentle, and loves water, in fact he drinks it as I fill his bowl by turning his head sideways and putting his mouth in the stream. I named him Slurpee for obvious reasons. The doe is a pretty nice doe too, though she hasn't had much luck kindling (having little bunnies) her first kindle died, and her second mating resulted in a false pregnancy. The third member of the menagerie is a little demon of a buck that lies to box at my hands and bite me. I call him "Tyson" after Mike Tyson. I am contemplating rabbit cacciatore.

People often say rabbit tastes like chicken. I don't think so. The texture is a bit reminicent of chicken dark meat: thighs or legs, but it has its own taste: mild, suckulent,  delicious!


Rabbit Cacciatore Recipe:

One 2 1/4 lb rabbit, cut into 6 to 8 pieces
Salt and freshly ground pepper
4 Tbsp fresh basil leaves
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 chopped medium onion
4 cloves garlic, quartered
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1 teaspoon fresh rosemary leaves
3 cups of chopped, very ripe tomatoes (or canned plum tomatoes)
2 red bell peppers, seeded, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 can of whole black olives, pitted

Salt and pepper the rabbit pieces, rub with the basil leaves, brown in olive oil in a large skillet, Cook for 2-3 minutes on one side until lightly browned, then turn the pieces and brown on the other side for a minute or two more. Remove the rabbit pieces to a dish to set aside. Reduce heat to medium. Add onions to the pan, cook for 1 minute. Then add garlic, bell pepper, and mushrooms, cook for a couple minutes more. Add the rosemary and the remaining basil. Rinse, drain and quarter the olives and add them to the pan. Add the rabbit back into the pan along with the olives. Cover with chopped tomatoes. Reduce heat to medium low; cover the pan and cook for 35 minutes. Increase heat to high and cook until the liquid has reduced by half.

Tyson, you'd better watch out! Revenge might be delicious served warm, and it's Italian!

Torre Catch-a-Chicken

We have chickens! But the darn things aren't laying eggs. There are five hens and a rooster. The rooster is a wyandotte, and the hens are red sex-links (they were bred in a cross producing red females) I'm feeding them laying crumbles, some corn for scratch and supplementing with oyster shells. I leave a light on in the chicken house, and have golf balls and fake eggs in the nesting boxes. If I let them out they follow me around. They come when I call. They seen happy, but I didn't get them as pets! I talk to them, nicely. Even when I threaten to cacciatore them I use a soft tone, and they look at me with their heads cocked making clucking noises. They have pea sized brains, and they often look at my feet as if they've never seen them before and wonder if they might not be edible.

In the meantime I guess I'll have to eat something else for breakfast, maybe I'll have some Farina. According to the OED Farina (fah-ree-nuh) is a noun meaning:
1 flour or meal made of cereal grains, nuts, or starchy roots.
2 (archaic) a powdery substance.
And the source is British, from the latin for grain.

Bull Shtuff. Farina means flour in Italian, and Farina (as a breakfast) came from Italy. In America it is mostly called Cream of wheat.

Here is a recipe "Per la Vostra Salute!" (To Your Health)
2 cups low-fat milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup farina (not instant)

Bring the milk and ¼ teaspoon salt to a boil in a small saucepan. Whisk in the farina. Reduce heat and simmer, whisking occasionally, until thickened, 2 to 3 minutes.

Farina, it's Italian!

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Update on the Chickens, We lost a hen a few months ago, and we bought 6 Cochin Hens that will begin laying in the fall, and we get an average of 2 eggs a day right now.


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This just in... black snakes were stealing our eggs, and the hot weather thwarted them. I caught one trying to eat a golf ball. We put golf-balls in the nest to induce the hens to lay, and apparently the heat wave warmed the golf balls up enough to confuse the snakes. I killed the one snake I found with the golf ball stuck in his mouth, I watched him trying to get it back up, but the curve of his teeth prevented him from getting it out, he just couldn't un-hinge his jaw enough. Perhaps he was just re-positioning for another swallow,  but it didn't look like it would end well for him, and a quick death seemed only humane. He was a black snack that I would gladly have relocated, so I felt bad. The next day two other golf balls were gone, and the egg production is now 3 to 4 eggs a day.

My Italian Valentine

Saint Valentine was Italian, well, actually there are several possible candidates for the historical figure that became Saint Valentine, and all of them are Italian. Little is known about the saint other than that he was martyred on February 14.  In fact, the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre seems more likely an event to be associated with any candidate for the real Saint Valentine than would this holiday of cards and candy, with the exception of one account, that has Valentine martyred for performing marriage ceremonies when he was not supposed to be performing any Christian ceremonies. That has something to do with romance, right?

Cupid is Italian, I mean our cupid, the chubby little baby with wings. The Greek Eros was a slender youth, but the Romans sculpted him chubbier, in the renaissance he somehow became a Putto (what we incorrectly call a cherub) a male baby, sometimes with wings, but always carrying his bow and those insidious bolts of desire.

Though Punxsutawney Phil sounds like an Italian gangster the closest thing Italians have to groundhogs day is a proverb that goes "Se San Paol Pe ciar e la Ceriola sciira, De Pinverna no g'o pii paiira Milan" which means "If St Paul('s day) be clear and Candlemas cloudy, we have no more cause to be afraid of winter." (Candelmas is Feb2). This is a pretty obscure proverb, however. Most Italians are more familiar with April 4th as the day of weather prognostication. Another old saying goes "Quattro aprilante, giorni quaranta" or "Quattro aprilante, quaranta dì durant" literally "April 4, 40 days", meaning whatever the weather is like on April 4th it will be like for the next 40 days.

This February has 29 days, leap-year day is an unlucky day in Italian tradition. If a baby is born on Leap Year Day it is said that either the child or the mother will be dead within the year. OK, so maybe that was gloomy, but hey, it's Italian.

An Urban I-talian in Rural North Cackalacky

Karen and I moved into Dad's house in Bear Creek North Carolina in November, but the reality of it is just begining to sink in. I finished growing up in rural New York, so I realy wasn't expecting the big culture shock that is part of every day life here. I went to the small general store in the near-by town of Goldston the other day, where I introduced myself to a fellow shopper, with whom I had struck up a conversation about local amenities. The first time I said my name I could see the gears turning behind the poor fellows eyeballs, so I repeated myself, and through some cultural filter my new aquaintence latched onto "Troy" (a common occurrence in North Carolina) and paired it with a phrase that almost made me laugh out loud. "Ye'r not from arround here, are you Troy?" he asked in a genial way (no, I didn't hear distant Banjos, I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it).

A few minutes later he introduced me to his wife, forgetting the "Troy" he introduced in this fashion: "This here's Danny, he's an I-talian fellow from Neew York" (the "New had an extra long "ew" to it). I understood the "Danny" thing, people hear my last name and associate me with Danny DeVito. Taking no offence I steered him back to "Troy" and found out where I could buy some chickens, and the best place to get Rabbit food and laying crumbles, and all about "The Devils Tramping Grounds" which were in Bear Creek, on the other end of 902 from my house. All-in-all he was very friendly and helpful, but I parted from his company with the distinct impression that he had viewed me as a rare and exotic creature, an oddity of nature that he had to point out to his wife. Don't get too close, honey, he seems friendly, but he might bite!

As to the Devils Tramping Grounds, tradition says that it is a patch of ground in the woods of Bear Creek where plants will not grow within a circular path supposedly tramped down by the devil as he paces arround plotting evil against humanity. Supposedly nothing left inside the circle is there the next morning, and no-one can remain there overnight, though there is much evidence to the contrary since the stories surfaced in the 1930s.

This is oddly reminiscent of a site in Italy not far from the town of Piedimonte Matese where my father's maternal grandfather came from. The name of the place is "Passeggiata Del Diavolo" which translates to "The Devil's Walk" or "The Devil's Footprints". The area is volcanic, and there is a set of footprints in volcanic rock. People used to believe that the devil left them there as he paced or danced around on the lava, but scientists now believe ancient humans left their footprints in ash as they fled the volcano.

So, calling me Troy or Danny, that's sooo North Cackalacky, but imagining the Devil's been pacing arround in your back yard, that's either North Carolinian, or it's I-talian.

Felice Gravy Dad!

Christmas is coming, and soon my wife Karen will be making "Italian Gravy" for the lasagna we will have on Christmas Day.... If she starts with fresh Tomatoes she will first peel them using the method my father taught her, dropping them into boiling water, draining the water and plunging them into an ice bath so that the skin splits and peels away easily, but since this is December she will probably start with canned Plum tomatoes from San Marzano. Either way she will use my mother's version of my Grandmother's recipe for "Gravy" (Tomato Sauce). The main difference between my Mother's version of gravy and my Grandmother's was that mom used a big fatty piece of chuck steak for the meat where "Nana" would use either her Meatballs or Braciola (lean beef, pounded thin and filled with rasins, garlic and pignolli (pine nuts); rolled and tied then browned to seal in all the goodness; and then simmered in a big pot of gravy all day long.) or pork any of these would work for the meat ingredient but usually Nana used all three.

After my mom died, making tomato sauce was like therapy for Karen, and our house would often be filled with the smell of it, and it transported me back to the days of my childhood. The first smell that this wonderful task would emit was that of olive oil and garlic warming in a skillet Karen's version of the task meant cutting the chuck steak up into pieces and dividing out the fat, which che would still brown in the aforementioned skillet with the lean meat, and then she would simmer both in the sauce for several hours before removing the fat and discarding it.

The return of Captain Artichoke

When he was about 12, my son Robert took to brushing his hair straight up like a character from Dragon Ball Z, and a good friend of our family dubbed him "Captain Artichoke!"

Fortunately the hairstyle faded quickly, unfortunately the name lingers on, much like our Thanksgiving traditions.

At our house, we love to serve Artichokes every Thanksgiving, and often on Christmas and at Easter as well, just as my Nana and Aunt Agnes did. Now if you didn't grow up eating them, they can be a little frightening to prepare, but it is really quite simple:

Cut off the stem so that the bottom of the artichoke is flat, and can sit upright.

Peel the tough outer layer of the stem and chop to about the size of a garlic clove.

Peel about 3 cloves of garlic per artichoke, and quarter.

Artichokes have little thorns on the end of the leaves, so I usually take a kitchen scissors and cut of the thorned tips of all of outer leaves. This step is optional because the thorns soften with cooking but I like to do it before spreading the leaves open for stuffing.

Spread the leaves open, stuff in the stem pieces and garlic cloves.

Drizzle with oil.

Place the choke in a pot and add watter till it comes half-way up the artichokes.

Add the juice of a lemon and a few fresh basil leaves to the water.

Cover the pot and boil till the outer leaves come away from the artichoke, and you can pluck a leaf easily, and the flesh is tender.

Serve immediately.

Some people like to dip the leaves in melted butter, personally I like them plain, you just peal the leaves one at a time from the outside, scraping each leaf between your teeth to strip away the succulent flesh. until you work your way down to the choke, where the hair like thistle-down will need to be scraped away from the artichoke heart. The heart itself, is pure heaven, being the tenderest most flavorful part of the artichoke.

It's delicious, and it's Italian, my whole family agrees, especially Captain Artichoke.

Sorry this July entry is so late, my father passed away on June 26th, and it has been very hard to get back to this blog, since he has been, and will continue to be, so much a part of it.

Independence day is a good time to remember that although he was very proud of his Italian heritage, my dad considered himself first and foremost, an American. Both of his grandparents and his Father were proud to become naturalized citizens of the United States, and growing up during World War II he developed a deep and abiding love for his country that is shared by the majority of Italian Americans.

He served in the U.S. Army from 1957 to 1950, between Korea and Vietnam, and though he never spoke of it, my mother once mentioned that even that long after WWII he had some restrictions placed on his clearance because he was of Italian decent.

Many of you may know that Japanese Americans were held in interment camps after the attack on Pearl Harbour. What you may not know is that when the United States declared war on Italy and Germany shortly thereafter, Italian Americans who were not naturalized citizens were classified as enemy aliens.

In 1942 there were more nonnaturalized Italians residing in the United States than any other ethnic group (some six-hundred-thousand of them). Enemy alien laws placed restrictions on Italians, who were subject to curfews and could not travel far from their homes, and were refused jobs in factories that supplied the military with munitions and equipment. They had to cary photo-identity cards, they couldn't posses guns or short-wave radios. An estimated 10,000 Italians on the west coast were forced to relocate, and within 6 months of the onset of U.S. Involvement of the war 1,500 Italians were arrested for violating these restrictive laws. Though Italian resident's of the United States faired better than their Japanese counterparts, some 250 Italians were sent to military camps, some for as long as two years.

This didn't stop Italian Americans from serving their country. More than 1. 5 million Italian Americans served in World War II, according to the late Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. In a speech to the Italian American War Veterans of America August 25, 1961, Rockefeller said that Italian Americans constituted "more than 10 percent of the might of the American forces in World War II.

One such Italian American was John Basilone, the only enlisted Marine in U.S. history to receive the nation's two highest military honors: the Navy Cross for valor and the U.S. Congressional Medal of Honor for his service in World War II. Basilone, a Marine sergeant from New Jersey, fought at the Battle of Guadalcanal (1942), raised millions of dollars in war bonds, and was killed in action during the Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945.

Another notable Italian American was Captain Don Gentile of the U.S. Army Air Force, who shot down over 30 Nazi planes during World War II. Eisenhower called the 24-year-old pilot a "one-man Air Force" and personally pinned the Distinguished Service Cross on him. The "Ace of Aces" was born in Ohio and bought his first plane when he was 15. He died in a training accident after the war in 1950 when he was only 30.

Italian Americans have held some of the highest possitions in the military such as Four-star General Anthony Zinni, a veteran Marine and the son of Italian immigrants, who commanded Operation Desert Fox, the U.S. bombing of Iraq in 1998. It was the largest U.S. offensive since the Gulf War in 1991. A highly decorated officer, he was Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Central Command.

And General Carl Vuono, who was the first Italian American to be appointed Army chief of staff. He served from 1987-1991 and was appointed by President Ronald Reagan.

Who knew? American Patriotism and service, it's Italian!

Italian American service facts from The National Italian American Foundation who thank military historian Rudy A. D'Angelo.

Enemy Alien information from The home-front war: World War II and American society By Kenneth Paul O'Brien, Lynn H. Parsons and Italian and other internees in Canada and abroad By Franca Iacovetta, Roberto Perin, Angelo Principe