Staten Italy : nothin’ but the best Italian-American classics, from our block to yours

300 Pages·2015·32.1 MB·English

by  Basille

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Dedicated with love to Joy Garcia (right) and Bella Basille
(center), our mothers. Ma—without youse, New York would
starve.

F
ive years ago, when we told our family that we were leaving behind four
generations of restaurant business in Staten Island and Brooklyn to open our own
shop in Manhattan, Fran’s mother said to us: “They’re gonna chew you up and
spit you out.” She told us that we were gonna lose all our money, that we had no
idea what we were doing, and that there was a pizzeria on every corner in the
city.
But we did it anyway. We borrowed the cash, we built it ourselves, and we
stuck to what we knew—pizza and beer. After being open for just a few weeks,
there was already a line around the corner. People would ask who our publicist
was, and all we’d say was, “What’s a publicist?” We were doing what we did
best and what we loved to do: feedin’ people and feedin’ ’em well.
Then we started cooking other food besides pizza. Francis would bring in a
couple of heads of cauliflower, mix ’em with some cheese, eggs, and parsley, fry
’em up into little pancakes on an electric griddle, and put ’em out on the counter.
People were flippin’ out for them too. They’d sell out as soon as they came outta
the fryer. So we started doing the same thing with Aunt Loulou’s Escarole
Fritters, Grandma’s Meatballs, Stuffed Artichokes, and Fried Rice Balls.
This wasn’t the food that you see on fancy Italian menus, and it sure wasn’t
the stuff they eat in Italy. We might have Italian roots, but we’ve never even
been to Italy (except that one time). The only Italian words we know are the bad
ones from when our grandfather would yell at us. We’re Italian American, and
this was the food we grew up eating in our homes in Staten Island—or as we like
to call it, “Staten Italy.”
You know the place—that little island off the boot of Manhattan where you
can’t swing a cannoli without hittin’ an Italian. It’s that special part of the world
where one side of the street is your motha’s brotha’s sister-in-law and your
fourteen cousins and the other is your best friend Joey and his fourteen cousins.
It’s where your mother or grandmother is out hollerin’ at six p.m. every night for
you to come in for suppa. Dinner is always an event, a production. It’s never
about grabbin’ something quick because food is a big deal here, nothin’ but the
best. Sitting down to eat all together is like going to church—the most important
thing on that particular day. The house smells like sizzling garlic and oil—
because Grandma always says she can make anything taste good with garlic and
oil—and on the table are things like Broccoli Rabe and Sausage, Lucky Clams
with Parsley and Garlic, Pork Cutlets with Vinegar Peppers, Chicken Rollatini,
and Broiled Legs and Thighs with Lemon.
Whether you’re Italian or not, this is the kind of food we all grew up eating.
It’s the ultimate comfort food. It’s why people line up around the block to eat at
our six restaurants, and it’s definitely why two cousins from Staten Island could
go from peeling garlic in their mothers’ shop to having a hit show on the
Cooking Channel. It’s a hot, steaming bowl of Mussels Marinara with Linguine,
served up with a side of nostalgia. Okay, so maybe your mother was doling out
peanut butter and jelly and chicken à la king, but when you went out to eat?
We’re willing to bet that your favorite meals were the ones you ate at that old-
school Italian joint—the one with the heaping plates of pasta smothered with red
sauce and topped with fistfuls of grated cheese.
This book is our way of sharing a little slice of Staten Island with the rest of
the world. It’s the recipes and traditions that have been handed down through
four generations of our family, recipes as full of Italian-American flavor and
personality as the kitchens in Red Hook and Carroll Gardens and Staten Island
where they were originally made. This is definitely not some kind of wannabe-
authentic Red Sauce situation written by a couple of guys who are classically
trained in some foo-foo cuisine. For us, this is what was on our table growing up,
plain and simple, and it’s what we now serve for a living. It’s the fish suppers
that were always on Friday; the beans and macaroni that were on the table two,
three days a week; the Sunday gravy that was cooked up with neck bones, short
ribs, and braciole that was outta this world. It’s the huge pots of crab sauce our
grandpa Dominick cooked down at the docks, the sandshark that everybody else
was throwing back in the water but that we grilled up with a red wine gravy, the
gigantic icebox cakes Aunt Loulou always made, and the roast beef our grandma
drilled a hole through so she could stuff it full of garlic and parsley. It was the
meatballs we ate with Italian bread on Sunday, and then ate again on Wonder
Bread for lunch on Monday. And it’s definitely the cold eggplant. Because no
matter what was being cooked or what we were celebrating—Easter, Christmas,
Lent, your birthday, Tuesday—that eggplant was always on the friggin’ table.
Grandma Connie and Grandpa Dominick in their hero shop
Basille’s on Forest Avenue in Staten Island
Dolly with Sal’s father, Vito, and Aunt Loulou
Artichoke Pizza on 14th Street;
Grandma Connie with Sal’s father, Vito, and Uncle Mikey