If you are wondering just where the heck Mama Delicious has been…
…on the road taking notes of dinnertime, cussing out American sausages that will always leave me lonely for flavor, searing off large chickens, and teaching in The New York Citay. The daughter of an institution called Manducatis, has opened her own version of a neighborhood favorite full of love, and I make a cameo on Monday nights. I have a simple goal of showing people how to cook from the inside out, and there is no easier way to do it than by stirring up a risotto. The goal of people taking the class may have been a little different–to learn some quick and easy’s–and I may have even said that that would be a possibility, but I can’t help myself. It is true for a good risotto you have to make your own stock and you have to get out there and hunt down arborio, carnoroli or vialone, (all grown in the Po Valley), saute an onion until it has surrendered, and then start breathing from your perineum for a stir that can last up to 40 minutes, but who isn’t going to know how to cook after that?

We made seared scallops, a roasted tomato risotto with fried basil and garlic, a whole roasted red snapper with shallot, a couple more of those grape tomatoes, paper thin lemon slices, garlic, fresh thyme, and slivers of fennel, seasoned inside and out with salt and rubbed with olive oil, a side of swiss chard, and a tart of roasted bosc pears and black grapes.
It took 3 hours to cook and eat our way through, and nobody left early.