Finally, I finished reading Marcella Hazan's autobiography -- "Amarcord". She is the author of the only Italian cookbooks that you will find in my family's kitchens...or at least the only ones that we use.
She starts with :
"You could describe the road my life has taken as a series of unexpected and improbable turns."
Umm...yeah. She was trained to be a science professor. Sound familiar? Maybe a small hint from the universe...
She had many bold moments as she veered away from that career path. She grew up experiencing the horrors of World War II, and then married an Italian Jewish man who had grown up in New York. She ends up back in New York, with no knowledge of the language, no job and no family or friends besides her in-laws. She does what I would have done....lots and lots of cooking.
She also learns to speak English in order to conduct cooking classes. My favorite example of botching the language was this:
"Somehow, one day, when we were discussing what I was going to teach the next day, I slipped into the language of the lesson. I said, at one point, 'I am going to show them how to screw the shrimp.'
'Say that again,' Victor said.
I repeated the words.
'And you have been saying it all the time?' he asked.
'Sure'.
'And no one has ever made a comment?'
'No, why, what's wrong with it?'
I never tried to use the word 'skewer' again."
That took me right back to my first day in liceo, Italian high school, when the teacher greeted me with "Ciao!" and I responded "Ciao!" and the whole class bust out laughing. Hmmm, that happened to be the only word that I knew in Italian at the time, and I was pretty sure how to use it. WRONG. One never greets an elder that one does not know in this way. "Salve" would have been the proper response.
I found this to be a slow read, but a really interesting one if you like cooking. One particularly sweet moment is when she describes a woman holding an infant at a book signing, explaining that they named their baby after her because of the enormous impact of her cookbooks on their family.
So, in Marcella's honor, I share my hands-down favorite recipe of hers because it is SO SIMPLE.
Lemon Chicken
Wash a whole chicken well, and sprinkle with salt and pepper, rubbing it into the skin with your fingers. Take one large lemon, or two small ones, and rub between your hand to soften it. Pierce it all over with a fork. Stick it inside the chicken.
Put the chicken in a roasting pan breast-side down, and cook for about 30 minutes at 350o F. Turn the chicken gently, and then cook for about another 40 minutes. Raise the temperature to 400oF and cook for
another 40 minutes.
Serve, spooning the sauce created over the chicken.
Important caveat: do NOT check on the chicken. When I was in high school, I tried to make this chicken for a favorite math teacher and his wife. I was so nervous that I checked the chicken over and over. Dinner was delayed by about 1.5 hours, during which time my dad had to sit and talk with them. To put it mildly, they were NOT his favorite people. He finally forgave me during my college years....and then I started dating their son.
(no...it was not Bill...)
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