Mustard Fried Pork Tenderloin on Apple Compote

3/13/50...3/4/70

Remembering Harmon J Bove Jr.

The Quintessential All American Boy

This is a look back by Mrs. Tom's brother Peter. It was March 8th 1970 and the sports page of the Burlington Free Press was filled with the usual stories except for one. Big George Scott had led the Red Sox past the mid-west all stars whoever the heck they were. Billy Kidd was getting an award for being crazy on a pair of skis. Austin Carr broke the NCAA single game scoring record with 61 points to lead Norte Dame over Ohio University.

However the major headline on this day was a Tribute to Harmon J Bove my beautiful cousin. Jules Brulater the sports writer for the Press wrote, "this is the hardest column I have ever had to write". Harmon was 19 and gave his life for his country in a war we still have trouble understanding. Harmon was like a brother to everybody he meet. Brulator wrote that he gave warmth, knowledge, advise and true friendship to all that came in contact with him.

Harmon was arguably the best athlete in Vermont upon his graduation turning down a full scholarship to Nebraska (the defending National champions) to play football and signing with the Houston Astros right out of high school. Harmon and I graduated high school in 1968 he in Burlington and I Rutland. It was 1968 and the war in Vietnam was still raging away and we were losing our children at an awful rate of attrition. It is well documented that the war was not very popular especially on college campuses. Where I was fortunate to find myself. Harmon was all about duty, honor, country.

Harmon was called up to the big league soon after arriving and putting on a Houston uniform. In typical Harmon fashion he didn't want the guard to interrupt his focus with the team so he joined the Marines. He marched bravely into the darkness to fulfill his duty. I never saw him again, he didn't get to play on that big stage that awaited him on a warm spring day.

I don't think Harmon was afraid of anything with the exception maybe of our Aunt Elmer. It was 1966 and Harmon came to live in Rutland for the summer where we both worked for our Aunt Elmer at the 7UP bottling plant in Rutland. Harmon and I became very close that summer. We both shared one real fear, the wrath of Aunt Elmer. She was a women rooted firmly in a man's world in the late fifties and early sixties. She ran a bottling plant with a iron fist. When she was riled up she could expound with a profound rhetoric akin to any railroad conductor.

It was a hot summer Saturday and the plant was closed, except for the anticipation of a truck load of sugar that was to arrive. Aunt Elmer left Harmon and I alone to see to it that the sugar made its way up the small conveyor and to the second floor of the plant. There were 100 bags to arrive and they weighed 100 pounds each.

While waiting for the truck to arrive , we became board. So we started to use the conveyor like a skate board something that had just been invented. Well sure enough the conveyor stopped running and we were scared to death of what Elmer would say when she returned to find the sugar on the main plant floor. So Harmon and I carried 100 bags of 100 pounds of sugar to the second floor. I will never forget it! There was still the dilemma of the conveyor and confessing to its demise.

It seemed this might be one of those times where discretion be the better part of valor and a small white lie would be of no consequence, so we told her that just at the end of the mission to hoist the bags to the second floor the conveyor stopped working. She walked to the room under the stairs and flipped the breaker and the bloody thing started right up!

They named the football field after Harmon and numerous foundations shot up in his name. In his compelling accounts of the Vietnam War. Gene R Dark dedicated his book The Brutality of War to Harmon Bove. The images are so vivid that they tear me apart thinking about my beautiful cousin, who's courage and kindness serve as my reminder all these years later. It was March 4th 1970 he was 10 days short of his twentieth birthday on a foreign soil, Quang Nam Province in South Vietnam. It seems surreal to me but I'm sure not to the men who stood beside him. In the many tributes I found about Harmon, One of the men that served next to him said "he just wouldn't stay in the rear"

 



 

Apple Time and Tonya

 

As promised here is a little more complicated apple celebration, but worth every minute of the preparation. The Mustard Fried Pork is a traditional southern dish done on the plantations and always with venison, so feel free to substitute the venison if you have it. My brother and his family serve it every Christmas Eve.

Mustard Fried Pork Tenderloin on Apple Compote with black pepper cider sauce

This dish can all be prepared ahead of time.
 

Ingredients:
2 pork tenderloins
1 cup of brown veal stock ( ask your favorite restaurateur if he will sell you a cup or get more and freeze the rest in an ice cube tray)
 4 tablespoons of apple cider jelly
1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup crushed black peppercorns
3 lbs fresh picked Vermont apples seeded, quartered and peeled
1/4 cup dry white wine
      pinch of fresh ground nutmeg1/2 cup all purpose flour
      Jar of French's yellow mustard
      oil for pan frying

Mustard Fried Pork:

Cut the pork into rounds 1 1/2 inch thick and lightly pound them. They are tender so no need to pound thin like veal, just a few gentle thumps. Now coat the pork with black peppercorns. Be generous with the pepper( not to worry trust Mrs. Tom on this) Then dredge the pork in the generous gobs of mustard until the meat is totally and evenly coated. Refrigerate at least 3 hours or even better over night.

Fry just before service. In a hot skillet or fry pan pour enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan... heat the oil to fry temperature, test by popping some flour in the oil to make sure it is ready to sizzle. Take the pork from the mustard and dredge through the flour  and into the pan. Fry about 90 seconds on each side.

Apple Compote:

In a skillet melt a tablespoon of butter and sauté the apples  until they have are soft. Add two tablespoons of cider jelly and the white wine, stir until the jelly melts and let it simmer slowly. Pour in the 1/2 cup of heavy cream, stir until the apples are well coated. Season with S&P and nutmeg, reserve warm or at room temperature.

Black Pepper Cider Sauce:

In a small sauté pan combine the cup veal stock and 2 healthy tablespoons of cider jelly. Over a medium high heat reduce until 2/3 of cup remain. Be careful the sides of your pan don't burn because of the sugar in the jelly. Whisk in the butter and a tablespoon of black peppercorns. If it gets too thick add a little warm stock.

Presentation place the compote in the center of the plate and lay the pork around the base of the apple almost standing like an Indian t-pee, then drizzle your sauce around the base of the mixture. I won't tell you to consider sautéing a little warm red cabbage sautéed in bacon fat because the fat police will have my head but the combination is epic!

Hot Apple Dumplings

Is summer really gone?

We have been so busy at Proctor Gas. It seems everyone is preparing for old man winter to arrive. Since he gave us an unprecedented break last year we can only imagine what might be in store this year. Remember we have everything needed to keep you cozy this winter at our Proctor Showroom. With the end of summer and the fall rolling in, I'm thinking of the beautiful season ahead. There is nothing like Vermont at peak foliage.

Before we know it the leaves will begin their annual journey and we will be raking them from our lawns, making piles for the little ones to play in. My beautiful cousin Francesca with the leaves at their peak will take that wonderful leap of faith and marry her sweetheart. The ceremony and celebration will lead us right into the outstretched arms of the holiday seasons.

One of the great rites of passage in Vermont is the emergence of the Macintosh apple. There is nothing that signifies fall and Vermont like taking the little ones to pick apples. We can use them for  so many dishes. Of course I recommend picking and eating or brew up some fresh hot apple cider on a fall night. Warm homemade applesauce served with a pork tenderloin or even better a saddle of venison. Next week we will do a pork tenderloin with an apple compote and black pepper cider sauce. However if you want to indulge yourself in a bit of a sinful desire, here is my mothers :

Hot Apple Dumplings, serve them warm and with some Ben and Jerry Vanilla Ice Cream. Yikes!

Apple dumpling Biscuit Dough

2 cups all purpose flour

3  level teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon of salt
7 heaping tablespoons of Crisco
3/4 cup of milk

Place all ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Remove to a flat floured surface and knead the dough for two or three minutes. With a floured rolling pin roll out the dough into a flat sheet about 1/2 inch thick.

1 hot simple syrup ( 2cups water to 1 cup sugar-boil) maybe a little extra

1 stick room temperature butter
1 stick cold butter
1/2 cup light brown sugar
12 Macintosh apples peeled seeded cored
Juice of one lemon
1/4 cup of sugar
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees

In a bowl place the apples and toss with lemon, white sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon. Get them well coated.

Spread the room temperature butter and brown sugar evenly on the rolled out dough. Place the apples evenly onto the biscuit dough. Roll the dough with the apples in it similar to a jelly roll.

Cut the roll into 1 1/2 inch wide wheels and lay them in a buttered baking dish. Cover them with the hot simple syrup. (Have extra syrup in case you need it to cover). Place a slice of butter from the cold stick on each dumpling. Bake for about 35 minutes or until nice and brown. Check on them.

Mrs Tom's Secret: Eat them before the word gets out!

Crisp Salmon with New Potato Crab Hash

Oh Yah We Were Italian

First of all we lived in close proximity to about 250 Cousins, Uncles and Aunts. In our family three brothers had married three sisters in Naples Italy. They had 18 children, my mother the youngest of them. Close proximity means very close, like in the same house. Here you found my grandparents when they were still alive, my Uncle Gigi and Aunt Esther, Aunt Teresa mom's sister, her brother Uncle Peter, Mama Lee, my brother and I and of course a restaurant that sat another 50 guests nightly.

It was a 19 room house with 11 bedrooms on the top two floors. Two of the bedrooms were in the attic. Now they were finished nicely wallpaper and all. There were Italians living in the two houses next to us, the Valente's, they had two houses the size of ours side by side that housed four or five factions of their family including the grandparents, all the girl children and their husbands and children. My Uncle, Dr. Bove lived across the street with my five cousins. He was really a first cousin of my mother but we never bothered with that distinction, he was Uncle Eddie aka "the doc". His was a huge house that at one time contained his office where he saw patients. Then he opened a new office, you guessed it, across the street and above his office just so we didn't waste a inch of space lived Aunt Dot and Uncle John his brother and my cousin Paul.

 

How close was the new office you ask? Well when my brother would come home late and mom would ask him in the morning "what time did you get in" he would answer 1pm or so trying to be vague as possible and Aunt Dot sitting with her coffee and donut would chirp in "it was 2:15, she never slept! Right on the same block and around the corner was my Uncle Vic, mom's other brother who had taken over my grandfather's grocery store and he lived above the store with my cousins Barry, Vic Jr. and his wife Aunt Gina. When my brother moved back to Rutland after college and bought his first home, yup right there on the other side of the Valentes just 4 doors down from where he grew up and directly across from Uncle Eddie, Aunt Chris and the 5 cousins.

There was family everywhere and we were an Italian neighborhood. As part of that dynamic it seemed important that we all had a grape vine, ours was the biggest and covered a beautiful slate patio out back. How I remember picking and eating those concord grapes off the vine during football season. The old wine presses were in still in our cellar along with a dirt wine room but with the passing of my grandfather went that technology and passion. Our vine was identical to old Mr. Valente's, not 50 yards away however for some reason when he wasn't looking his grapes tasted a bit better.

I don't believe we ever went to a grocery store, everything was delivered to our house from the Italian bakery, or the food purveyors. We never ate a loaf of white bread or a can of anything! If we went to a grocery it was Uncle Vic's or the Salarni Brothers who were the only ones that could cut the braciole the way my mother wanted it.

Every holiday brought with it "the gathering" especially Christmas where we would have 50 to 60 Aunts, Uncles and cousins for dinner at the restaurant. It was a closeness that was lost with the passing of my mother's generation. I miss it and am sorry that our children have missed out on it.

 

Mrs. Tom loves fish! Here is a new version for you.

 

Crisp Salmon with New Potato Crab Hash

Serves four

4 / 8 oz skin on salmon filets

20 small peeled and par-boiled new potatoes
1lb of lump crab
olive oil to sear the potatoes and fish
1bunch scallions/ chopped
mix together 4 tablespoons virgin olive oil, 3 tablespoons water and three tablespoons lemon juice...whisk together
fresh dill/chop do not bruise
10 oven roasted roma tomatoes cut in half
Salt & Pepper

In a sauce pan pour the oil and heat. Place the potatoes in the oil and sear them mash the potatoes with a fork until they are rustic mashed fold in the crab add the scallions season with salt-pepper, fresh dill and then fold on the center of the plate.

For the salmon - A Mrs. Tom Secret:

Place the salmon on a cutting board skin side up squeeze the salmon from end to end so it humps in the middle and with a sharp knife score the skin with 6 cuts just through the skin and into the flesh. Place the salmon skin side down in a hot skillet or pan with oil and sear for about 4 minutes do not touch salmon until you turn it. It will keep the fish crispy and will hold its shape because of the scoring of the skin.

Place the fish on top of the hash drizzle with the oil, water, lemon mixture, place the tomatoes around the fish serve and enjoy.

Lee's Veal Parmigiana

Memories of the Casa Bianca can be euorphic

Fond memories of growing up at the Casa Bianca are ever present in my mind. Sure the great food was a part of what made it special but the guests who came through our doors both the front and the kitchen were just that, guests to my mother and more like family than customers. Being in our living room manifested this euphoria and sense of belonging. For years our guests would beg us not to advertize as to keep the Casa thier little secret.This is why those who remember the Casa and share the loving memory of Mama Lee maintain an indelible lasting experience, one that I have never felt in any other restaurant but only there in the living room of my home.

Over and over I hear our former guests talk about Lee and Mary and the effect they had on them and in many cases the children of so many who grew up finding a special place at the Casa's tables. Today as I travel and dine all over the country I suppose I judge all comers against that  experience that was the Casa Bianca. There is plenty of great food out there and a plethora of talented chefs. However, it is almost impossible to find that something that existed at the Casa. The thing that set it apart and made it home to so many. Unless you were there I'm sorry you won't get it. Those of you who were are now the Casa's fraternity knowing that we will never add another member.

I hope that we are building that same legacy here at Proctor Gas the propane people where you feel like a guest in our showroom and part of the Proctor Gas fraternity.

Here is the Casa' biggest seller over those 40 years. And just for fun the menu from August 12th 1984...were you there?

Appetizers
My black bean soup w/ spicy tomato salsa                                                              

Baked stuffed clams                                                                                                          

Chilled Idaho trout sun dried tomatoes, olives and basil                                           

Mussels w/scallions, garlic tomatoes and extra virgin live oil                                 

Tortolini w/ snails in a light tomato pesto sauce                                                                   

 

Entrées

Veal Cutlet Parmigiana                                                                                                 

Veal Piccata , lemon white wine and capers                                                                  
Veal cutlet Maria, w/ proscuitto,  eggplant and fresh mozzarella                             
Jumbo shrimp scampi, Genoa style on pasta                                                                
Grilled chicken breast w homemade  lobster artichoke ravioli red pepper aioli           

Braciole                                                                                                                                

Jambalya, Naples style, shrimp chicken and Italian sausage                                     
Double Cut Pork chops, braised red cabbage and warm house-made applesauce   
Roasted rack of lamb Italian style                                                                                               
Grilled or blackened Mahi Mahi w/ pesto hollandaise                                               

Fresh pasta pescatore, shrimp , mussels, calamari                                                       

 

Desserts

Frozen honey vanilla Mousse, w blackberry sauce                                                       

Peaches in hot wine strawberries and cream                                                                

Lee's famous hot fudge on ice cream                                                                              

Homemade Italian cheesecake                                                                                        
assorted Italian ice creams                                                                                                           

 

For those who really want a walk down memory lane check this out!

The Casa 1958 the year I was born, The original sign read Italian Restaurant Steaks and Chops! But there was not a chop on the menu and only one steak!

Phone # ...Prospect 3-8068 as listed on the menus

Price of entree included a Complete dinner:

antipasto
soup
spaghetti
green salad
entree of your choice
dessert
coffee or espresso

The most expensive entree, with 7 courses STUFFING MENU was the  veal cutlet Parm dinner for $3.50... but! if you wanted extra sauce you had to get up another..extra sauce .25 cents...if the 6 extra courses was too expensive for $1.50, you could get the veal parm for:

veal cutlet ala carte $1.90

or

Linguini and clams $1.25

 

Undesrstand this was not a 7 course tasting menu as you might see today instead all were full portions. You wewre not allowed to leave the table unless you were stuffed and having trouble moving.

Here is Lee's Veal Parmigiana you can sub chicken or pork

Veal Parm

Have your butcher cut your cutlets from the top with the cap removed.  Just tell him that and he will know. Pound them thin but not too thin about a 4 to 5 ounce piece being careful not to tear the meat.

Serves six

6 5 oz pieces of veal pounded

bread crumbs
8 eggs beaten in a flat bottom pan large enough to dredge the cutlet in
3 cloves garlic chopped small
3 tablespoons chopped parsley
1/2 cup grated Romano cheese
black pepper
6 large or 12 small slices of fresh mozzarella cheese
pinch of salt as the cheese will make it salty

oil for pan frying

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

 

In the flat bottom pan with the eggs add the ingredients...garlic, parsley cheese and pepper beat together until well incorporated. Have the bread crumbs on a dish where you can dredge in the crumbs then into the egg mixture.

Have the cooking oil on the stove in a heavy skillet large enough to hold two of the cutlets at once. About a 1/2 inch of oil in the pan. Make sure the oil is hot before you put the cutlet in or it will not stay together. Test your oil by dropping a touch of the egg mixture in the oil. If it fry's up immediately then you are ready otherwise wait for this temperature to occur.

Dredge the cutlet in the bread crumbs pressing them to the meat, you can bread the cutlets all at once and set aside. Test your oil to make sure it is hot enough. Then one at a time put the cutlets in the egg mixture and get well coated then go right to the hot oil with one smooth quick motion. Just don't splash the oil. Use a pair of tongs for this. The egg should sear quickly and leave for about 2 minutes on each side.

Remove to a plate with a paper towel under the cutlet and let them rest for 3 minutes, letting the paper towel extract any extra oil. Then transfer to a flat 1/2 size sheet pan or something like that and place cheese on top, put in the hot oven. When the cheese is melted they are done. Serve with pasta and sauce.

Of course there are many options to how to do a cutlet and you would never find it done this way in Italy but my mother did it this way. In Italy it would most likely be crispy (bread crumbs on the outside) with a slice of lemon no sauce no cheese.

A Mrs. Tom side note:

My  mother fried all the veal parms  in a iron skillet that is in my kitchen today. She used a fork that cost about .99 cents and was duck taped together. One of those designed for cooking on the outdoor grill. It was about 18 inches long and was in the kitchen for more years than I could remember. After Anna passed away the fork stayed and was still in use when my mother passed some 12 years later. We should have framed it! Anna was my mother's cook for 25 years and had a special hand roll down to a science that got the cutlet from the egg batter to the hot oil in one smooth back of the hand roll. Those of you who entered the Casa through the kitchen and had to slide past Pauline Anna's sister (on the dish station for 15 years) will remember this.

 

Casa Bianca's Hot Fudge

I never meet my Grandmother

The Battle of the Philippines

I SAW THE FALL OF THE PHILIPPINES.

By Colonel Carlos P. Romulo.
New York: Doubleday, Dor an
& Company, Inc. 1942. 323 pp. $3.
Reviewed by HENRY C. WOLFE

Some excerpts from the stories

" In this little history of his native land Carlos P. Romulo dramatizes the national

philosophy behind the fall of the Philippines.

Colonel Romulo was General Mac-Arthur's personal aide and chief press

relations officer for the troops on Corregidor and Bataan, a Pulitzer Prize winner
in journalism. A brave soldier and an inspiring officer, he was the last man out of Bataan.

During his escape" He had to leave his wife and children behind him, and he does not yet know their fate. His seventeen-year-old son fought on with the doomed defenders.

Through its stark and beautiful chapters runs the question of the starving men of Bataan: "When is help coming from America?" No American can read this book without p r i d e . The gangrene-eaten, bomb-rocked soldiers of the Philippine foxholes stand with the noblest heroes of all time.

The Battle of the Philippines is the story of seven thousand American soldiers and seventy-five thousand Filipinos against two hundred and fifty thousand Japanese. It is the story of men and women who stayed "civilized and kind in the face of unspeakable horror."

Colonel Romulo played a heroic part in the cruelly unequal combat. After the removal to Corregidor he wrote a little news pamphlet for the soldiers and made his perilous way to the fox-holes at the front to bring news and encouragement to the fighters. He did his share of the fighting, too.

Colonel Romulo is a Pulitzer Prize winner, but his book has a beauty that arises from no conscious literary art. It lies rather in the dignity of his spirit, in the sporting generosity of his admiration for the courage and ability of his fellows, in the nobility of his emotions

The author pays tribute to General MacArthur and President Quezon. It is ironical to recall that when the reviewer returned to the United States from the Far East shortly before Pearl Harbor he met many Americans, especially in New York, who doubted the Filipino President's loyalty and belittled Filipino devotion to democracy and the United States. This was exactly the propaganda that the Japanese had imed to spread.

These Americans should read Colonel Romulo. There is no finer exponent of democracy anywhere in the world today. Tie heroic Filipino defense of freedom at Lingayan and Manila, on Bataan and Corregidor has made history. Let us hope that we shall soon redeem General MacArthur's pledge to the President of the valiant Filipinos: "We'll go back to the Philippines, Mr. President, and if necessary I'll put you back in Malacanan on the points of my bayonets."

—From the book

Death and destruction left in the wake of Japanese bombing of the Cavite Navy Yard on Dec. 10, 1941.

JANUARY 16. 1941.'^

General Romulo and Mrs. Bove

 Brigadier General Carlos P Romulo who made an unforgettable impression on the people of Montpelier when he spoke here, has written another book. "My brother Americans" in which he tell of his experiences while touring 466 cities of the United States.

Romulo made the trip at the request of General Mc Arthur in an attempt to tell America the truth about  the story of Bataan. To make the US understand what prompted 75,000 Philippines and 10,000 Americans to take up arms against a quarter of a million Japanese in a hopeless defense of the peninsula. Everywhere Romulo spoke including our little Montpelier , there was not a dry eye. The tears were for the suffering,  heroism and courage which was displayed by the Americans and their Filipino brothers at Bataan and Corregidor.

Although Romulo was received as a hero in Montpelier, he didn't speak of the visit in his book instead there was an excerpt about My Grandmother. Instead he speaks of Rutland Attorney Peter Bove and his mother.

"I arrived in Rutland around noon and was meet by a committee  headed by Peter A Bove. an Italian American lawyer and chairman of the group in charge of meeting me. He invited me to have lunch. (of course he is a Bove it is what we do best). I explained that I was very tired and asked if I could just rest in my room.

"The engagements were coming too fast and the distances too long. It had been a scorching day and I had fainted twice previously. I was learning that I had to relax if I was to keep up this pace of lecturing."

"I was trying to rest when Bove came back to my room". ' I have my car outside and you have to eat something sooner or later. Why not come out to my house for a quick little bite with my mother asked Bove" ( right quick little bite like we understood what that meant in the Bove Family).

He goes onto say in his book! "Never have I spent more peaceful hours. His mother was an elderly Italian woman who could speak little English, but we talked like old friends as she fluttered about the kitchen in the complicated and exciting business of Italian cookery while I tilted on a chair against the wall feeling I had known her all my life. It would have given a linguist horrors to have heard our conversation about Italy, the war and the United States, she speaking in Italian mixed with a little English and I in Spanish and English and a little Italian aided by a spattering of Tagalog. No matter we made Grand conversation."

"Then before luncheon, this delightful woman looked over her bounteous table (just a little bite) and we waited the words of grace".I have heard the prayers of preachers and prelates all over this earth but never a prayer more sincerely spoken." " Let us thank God we are here, she said " " in this blessed America."

I never meet my grandmother but today she is in my heart. It was here that my mother learned her incredible passion for great food and the quintessential hospitality of the Italian Table. In honor of my Grandmother and for all the Casa Bianca Junkies out there, here is something you would have never pried out of Mama Lee. I'm a bit concerned about the repercussions still!

The Casa Bianca's Hot Fudge

Makes about two quarts

16 squares Bakers Chocolate Naps

3 cups of half and half
2 1/4 lbs sugar
8 oz of unsalted butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon of Vanilla

Combine chocolate and H&H in a heavy saucepan. Cook and stir over low heat until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth and blended.

Add the sugar, butter and salt continue cooking until mixture is slightly thickened, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and the vanilla. Serve at room temperature, store in the refrigerator and reheat slowly over a double boiler.

Sorry Mom it was time!

Enjoy

Mrs. Tom

Coffee -Crusted Cowboy Porterhouse with Tobacco Fried Onions

Growing up Restaurant

Growing up with a restaurant in the living room of your home was unusual enough. By the time I was twelve my brother was gone off to college and my mother  had one of the most celebrated restaurant addresses in Central Vermont. Most all of my friends were arriving home after school to a much more tranquil setting.

It was probably very close to the same program each night at dinner for most of my friends and their families. Not I however, the living room of our home was filled nightly with the hustle and bustle of the movers and shakers of our small town and a queue of diners from all over New England who traveled to Vermont to ski. So while most of my friends were home watching Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best and Bonanza we were inundated with characters from all walks of life.

The dining room was filled with business men, politicians, clergy and of course an occasional wise guy. At an early age I meet all sorts of characters all bound together by a common desire, my mother's food, the camaraderie of the Italian Table and the ultimate, a visit to their table from Mama Lee or a special treat she might send out from the kitchen. It was fun and exciting to meet all these people, many became lifelong friendships for our family that otherwise would have never existed. I try to keep that flame burning today at Proctor Gas providing the same quintessential hospitality my mother extended to her guests.

I would give anything for just one more visit from her to our table.

Coffee -Crusted Cowboy Porterhouse with Tobacco Fried Onions

This steak is probably enough for the ladies to share - not the case for Mr. Tom!

Serves 4-6

4- 22 OZ choice porterhouse steaks or your favorite steak

The Rub

tablespoon of fresh ground dark roast coffee

teaspoon of light brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon chili powder

2 teaspoons sea salt

teaspoon of fine chopped rosemary

teaspoon of course ground black pepper

virgin olive oil

Heat the grill on high heat and turn it back to a medium high for cooking with the lid closed. To add a smoky flavor you can soak some wood chips wrap in foil and poke holes in the foil. Put the chips on when you start the grill up on a direct heat.

Place all the rub mixture in a bowl and mix well. Rub the virgin olive oil on the steaks and then coat well with the rub. Let the steaks sit at room temperature for about an hour.

Make sure your grates are clean and grill the steaks on the medium high heat with the lid closed. About 4 minutes on each side for medium steaks a little less for medium rare. Once you remove the steaks let them rest for at least 5 minutes before you cut them.

For the onions

1 large or two small yellow onions sliced very thin

1 cup of all purpose flour

1/2 tablespoon chili powder

1 teaspoon cayenne chili pepper

Frying oil

Mix the flour and the spices and dredge the onions in the flour and fry them to golden. You can do these ahead and just serve them as a garnish on the top of the steak warm.

www.proctorgas.com
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Kahlua Mousse Parfait

It was all a secret.

I was watching the Food Network this week and there was the new programming with Bobby Flay. Three days to opening. It seems as though they have a show for everything as the public is hungry for anything on the Food Network. Now much of the stuff is made for TV as it is not possible or does it make any sense to put yourself in a three day box to open a restaurant in three days. The first impressions are too important, mostly restaurants can make or break it in the first ninety days. You pen when you're ready period.

I was watching just such a show this week, it was an Italian Pizza place with SECRET family recipes. It cracked me up, Bobby couldn't believe it as the family matriarch was not going to let anybody on the staff have the recipes. This was the fabric of the show Mama was not going to give it up. Secrets are good in a time of war but have no place in a restaurant. Not only was he going to have to open the restaurant in three days but he had to pry the recipes from the stubborn closed fingers of Mama.

Well the whole thing hit home because my mother was the same way. She didn't believe in giving anybody a recipe for anything for any reason. Her brother Vic brought donuts every morning he was standing there at Bush's Bakery when they came from the fryer to the front case, he rushed them to her warm. A dozen every morning and there were never any left.

Even her brother Vic, if she was doing something in the kitchen she would hide the ingredients, such as the meat sauce. I have no idea what she thought he would do with the secret knowledge. This applied especially to her desserts. Over the forty years she ran the restaurant and before the internet where you can get a recipe anytime for anything, people always wanted Lee's recipes...they had value in our town.

In most cases if she was pushed into the corner by a good friend relative or customer she would give a recipe, however she always left something out. She was a bit evil like that! In the case of her Kahlua Mousse she would never mention the marshmallow's and without them, forgetaboutit!

 

Kahlua Mousse Parfait

Serves 8-10

48 marshmallow large jet puff from Kraft 1 bag

1 ¾ cups hot coffee

¼ cup kahlua

2 pints heavy cream whipped until it peaks

2 pints strawberries washed, hulled, sliced

Pour hot coffee and kahlua over marshmallows in a double boiler until melted. Stirring them gently until they melt down and are a brown liquid. Put into the refrigerator and let it jell. Do not let it get too hard just firm. Fold in the whipped cream and whip with a  fine whip, do not leave lumps! Pour them into glasses and they are ready in a couple of hours, best to sit over night though.

With a spatula get them into a parfait glass. Garnish with walnuts and shaved chocolate on the top.

In a parfait glass, wine glass or alike. Layer the mousse and berries, top it with shaved chocolate, walnuts and a garnish with a berry on top.