How To Stuff An Artichoke

I'm still trying to define what I want this blog to be about. I've wanted to write for some time and this seems like an effortless way to get started. Two things I think about daily are food and my family, whether it's what I'm making for dinner or what we're ordering out, so I'm pretty sure I will be writing about both. New York City is one of the greatest cities for food. This morning while my son was playing soccer the mouth watering smell of the ovens firing up from the Pizzeria nearby drifted over the field, and this week I took great pride when walking through Grand Central I overheard a young woman looking at the pastries in the window of Zaro's say to her friend, “I think New York has better food than California.” We do have great food and the choices are endless.

Something I've been thinking a lot about lately is how families change and traditions are lost. With my family spread all over the country and my husband working this Easter and Passover we did little more with our son than an Easter basket filled with candy. Growing up we celebrated both Passover and Easter in our home. My memories are vivid of the long crowded table filled with food and the elders sitting around it. I wonder if it was as much of an effort back then for my mother as it seems to me now.

I want to share this trailer from my talented friend Cybele Policastro's film, How to Stuff an Artichoke. I think it fits in perfectly with what I'm trying to write about here. Tradition, family and food.  The film is about her Aunt Lillian and a changing neighborhood.  Lillian who was born in the kitchen of the family building on Bleecker Street lived in Greenwich Village her entire life.  In it she prepares the Artichoke dish that has been a tradition in their family for generations.   

CLICK HERE to watch the trailer

Lillian Graziano in her Kitchen on Bleecker Street.

Photos by Erica Freudenstein

www.ericafreudenstein.com

Live Chickens

Today driving along the West Side Highway at a snails pace I looked down at a dead chicken laying in the road, and that's when it hit me maybe I do have something to blog about. Staring at that chicken brought back memories from a long time ago, when I was fresh out of graduate school and working as an in house temp for Liz Claiborne. At the time I worked in Textiles typing contracts 8 hours a day. I remember my office mate Liz who was Puerto Rican sharing the story of the Santería with me. She told me how people in her neighborhood would go out in the middle of the night and stand in the crossroad holding a paper bag with live chickens inside, then throw it up in the air. Sitting all day typing those boring contracts I learned a lot about her and the world she came from.  Now years later stuck in traffic and staring down at a dead chicken I remembered her and the stories we shared. I love animals and certainly don't condone throwing live chickens on the highway, but who am I to judge as I put away the left over chicken I made for dinner tonight. Maybe the Santería chicken laying there, died for a more noble cause than mine.

Tonight I prepared fried yucca for my family's dinner, a dish my Peruvian husband taught me to make. I think, yes it really is true, New York brings together people from all walks of life. It is a melting pot. I also think I'm not so different from my Lithuanian Catholic mother who learned to make chopped liver and noodle kugle for my Jewish father's family. 

I hope this will be a place where everyone can share their traditions and memories.