Taking a break from the
DOCG madness and the
Calabria Sequence, which got a nod from
Eric Asimov and the
New York Times this week. A brief flashback to Southern California and last week, when I made a quick trip to see my Mom and my Aunt Mary, who are both nonagenarians. Aunt Mary, my dad’s sister will be 95 soon and my mom was just 97. Both live independently ( my mom still drives and goes to the gym!) and both are good barometers, on both sides of the family, for longevity and health. We should all be so lucky.
Anyway while poking around my mom’s cabinets in her apartment, I found a bottle of 2006 Vietti Rocche Barolo. No slouch this wine, I had just had it in
Italy with Luca Currado at the winery in Piedmont. And here was this knocked out bottle just waiting to be opened with a home cooked meal.
I had to ask my mom where that bottle came from. “I got it at either Trader Joe’s or Cost Co,” she trilled, “and I only paid about $12.00 for it!” My mom, what can you say about a gal who has survived the 20th century and is still in the ring, ready to rumble? I don’t know if she got lucky or whatever the situation that occurred for that wine to be sitting in her cabinet (the wine sells for well north of $100 in retail shops) but I figured is was meant for dinner. As it was my mom had prepared one of her iconic family recipes, the Eggplant Parmigiano, which in her little corner of Calabria (Bucita) they use hard boiled eggs in the casserole.
Talk about Old-School Southern Comfort food, man, it doesn’t get any better than this. Add to it her stuffed artichokes and I was walking on air. A trifecta of greatness, Vietti Barolo, my mom’s eggplant and artichoke dishes,
those fellas in Santa Monica could take a lesson from Mrs. Cevola. Thanks mom, I loved it and I love you and Zia Maria.
It never rains in California
But girl, don't they warn ya
It pours, man, it pours.
