Got invited to a work function on a Thursday night and were too embarrassed to tell your boss you really can't miss this week's episode of Jersey Shore? No problem. Spoiler Alert: This week, Snookie gets drunk, Ronnie and Sam break upget back together break up, Mike and Pauly try to smash with girls at the club, and everyone gets melanoma.
Not that I have much room to record much of anything, what with every single episode of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations saved by Aaron. He likes to keep them, watch them over and over again, and you know...get inspired. Last month, it took everything I could do to convince him that buying a white linen suit and fedora and booking a puddle-jumper from Miami just to get an authentic Cuban sandwich might not be the most thought-out plan ever. "But Tony did it...."
Well, fortunately for me, last night he watched an episode where Tony goes to Naples, and it inspired the shit out of him. Now our whole house smells like garlic and tomatoes, a delicious scent which, by the way Febreze should really consider adopting for their next line of air fresheners. I'd rather smell pots of house-made marinara and sweet garlic and basil than Yumberry Sangria or Glistening Alpine any day.
So Tony visited someone's Italian mother in Naples who stood over a pot that had been simmering since like, ten in the morning, chain smoking a cigarette and speaking rapid fire Italian as she chopped onions and as the beautiful, rich red TV-screen sauce bubbled, spattering itself all over the stove and the sink (which, if you look closely, is on top of the washing machine) we knew that we had to have Italian tonight.
Forgive the redundancy because I know that I just posted about Italian food, but after seeing this woman move so deftly and with such incredible purpose and intent in her natural element, Aaron was inspired enough that I came home and had a weird de-ja-vous moment of seeing an identical pot blub-blub-blubbing on my own stove and I immediately knew two things: First: I was going to have to get up early tomorrow and go to the gym because second: it was going to be a very very very good night. It didn't hurt that I also saw this...
...which is pretty much the carnivorous equivalent of a Jenna Jameson movie. So I had the feeling that it wasn't going to suck.
But, to appease the middle part of the food pyramid that mentions something about vegetables and leafy greens, we started with a salad. Annie's sells an amazing Buttermilk Ranch Dressing (available at Whole Foods) which not only puts all other Ranch Dressings to shame, but locks them in the bathroom and steals their clothing just to make a point. Toss some lettuce, cucumbers, feta cheese, hard-boiled eggs, oh...and that crispy pancetta in the picture that your cursor keeps accidentally grazing, and the end result is a salad that is not so much a healthy prelude to a meal but a salty, creamy homage to green stuff drizzled in delicious stuff that hits every note of perfection and sticks it's tongue out at those commercials where stick-thin models spray their salads with what appears to be zero calorie sunscreen.
This dinner was partially about the fact that Aaron is a freaking amazing cook, and partially about the fact that the availability of really great gluten free products has hit a level of epic proportion. Whole Foods now carries RP's, a brand of fresh-made gluten free pasta made with brown rice flour, potato starch and egg. It can be served al dente, and instead of that mushy texture that a lot of packaged gf pasta has, it has a toothy, chewy mouth feel that is reminiscent of semolina or durham flour. Aaron browned some beef and stewed it in his big pot of red sauce concoction, and the result was a gluten free pasta that I would swear tasted like it stepped off the boat, registered at Ellis Island, and set up shop in the Italian Market. I was actually surprised that it didn't smack my hand with a wooden spoon and yell at me in a foreign language.
The fine people at Grandma's Grotto (see posting below) sent me home with a goodie bag of frozen foods, which included a loaf of garlic bread which we took great pleasure in heating up and sopping up tasty morsels of ground beef popping with acidic, tangy, tomato sauce in a crispy blanket of melted butter and garlic.
And then Aaron, in his infinite wisdom and knowledge of all things glorious, pounded out two top round steaks until they were thin and layered ricotta cheese, gf bread crumbs, shallots, basil and Parmesan cheese on top, and rolled it up like a cannoli, tying it with butcher twine (see photo above). He seared the outside of the meat and then placed it in a small oval pan and covered it with red sauce and let the inside of the meat cook through. The braciole came out of the oven, ricotta cheese bubbling and browning like a little ode to lasagna, topped with fresh picked basil leaves and cracked crystals of sea salt. He sliced the meat down, and it perched on my plate, amid melty gooey ricotta cheese, next to the pasta, a silent watchdog keeping guard over pasta and delicately crafted sauce.
All in all, it was a wildly successful dinner. I'm going to need a little more "G" (as in GTL) in my life after eating two plates of pasta and almost an entire loaf of bread. But most importantly, Aaron brought a little taste of Naples, sans the heaping piles of glutenous pastas and breads to our kitchen. Which does not include a washing machine.
There are certain things that I have resigned myself that I will never be able to go out to a restaurant and order. Onion rings. Mozzarella sticks. Chicken fingers. Garlic bread.
I thought maybe I could bribe Aaron with a bottle of Makers 46 into coming up with some recipes, but I'm afraid to mention it for fear that we will end up with a top of the line deep fryer in our already-crowded kitchen next to the remote-controlled rice cooker or the voice-activated salad spinner.
Now, I don't have to. I found Grandma's.
Grandma's Grotto is a little New York-style Italian restaurant in Horsham, PA, located off of Easton Road. It's the kind of place I would normally drive right by, with a sigh and a wayward glance back in my rear-view mirror as I lament the myriad of fried foods and Italiany goodness that I will never enjoy again.
Or so I thought. Turns out, Grandma has gone gluten free.
They are doing their entire menu gf. And when I say entire, I mean entire. I walked in to find this:
If you are wondering if that is a giant display case entirely filled with shelves upon shelves of gluten free pastries, the answer is a resounding, sugar-fueled yes.
It's not just the pastries, though. Grandma's Grotto is committed to providing a full menu of items that have traditionally been off-limits. And we will start with the most delicious, melty, cheesy, deep fried food of all: mozzarella sticks.
That's right. I love mozzarella sticks. I'm not ashamed to admit it. I mean, who thinks about dredging creamy mozzarella cheese in eggwash and breadcrumbs and then deep frying the whole damn thing? Someone with my disregard for the health of their arteries. As a teenager, I lived on deep-fried fast food. Ciara and I spent hours after school at the local pizza place taking advantage of our not-yet-crapped-out metabolisms by enjoying oil soaked complex carbohydrates and greasy goodness. It's been nine years since I've had one though, and I was beginning to worry I wouldn't remember how delicious they were. Or worse: what if my taste buds had changed and would somehow not recognize the inherent greatness of fried cheese. But, when I took my first bite into the hot, crunchy crust and felt it cave in and melt with gooey, warm, stringy cheese, I knew that it was love. Again.
Next up, chicken fingers. It's been kind of a while since I've had chicken tenders that weren't shaped like dinosaurs (not a sophisticated first-date food), so I was happy to experience a more, shall we say, adult version of this crowd-favorite
And then, in an instant, my life changed. I ate my first onion ring.
Most people probably don't remember where they were when they ate their first onion ring. They probably don't remember the way the sweet, slightly soft onion slid out of it's crispy, crunchy, salty casing and created a feeling of deep fried joy and love. Then again, most people probably aren't in their mid twenties the first time they had an onion ring. I was officially in my happy place.
Those were just the appetizers.
For lunch (yes, all of this food was consumed over the course of one, very delicious lunch followed by one, not at all productive rest of the day spent wishing my pants had an elastic waist band) the main courses were ravioli and penne with vodka sauce.
The ravioli was delicious- smooth ricotta cheese snugly nestled into beautiful little pockets of pasta and smothered with huge chunks of tomato sauce. The vodka sauce was creamy, and the perfect compliment to another delicious side dish: buttery, crispy, toasted garlic bread.
This is how Italians designed bread to be eaten. Smothered in love and dragged through marinara sauce. God bless them for that.
More than that, though, the staff was friendly and helpful and clearly knew their shit. It's always nice to know that you are in the company of those who won't accidentally kill you. These guys are seriously dedicated to making sure that their menu stays completely gluten free. All of their products are made in-house, so that they are fresh, delicious, and constantly changing and developing.They work with some great vendors like Mr. Ritts and Katz and and sell flour mixes, breads, frozen pizzas, cinnamon buns, and pretty much everything else you could ever want out of their store as well.
But before we were done, there was still one more thing to take care of. There was still that tiny matter of the pastry display case in the beginning....
Gluten free cannoli?
Cheese? Check. Cream? Check. Chocolate? Check. All rolled together in a delicious flaky pasty dough and topped with powdered sugar?
Dear God, yes.
The cannoli is a thing of freaking beauty. It might surpass The Birth of Venus or the Mona Lisa on the scale of Italian masterpieces. It is a delicious slice of heavenly pastry that would have been lost of my palate if not for the fine people at Grandma's.
We had yet another amazing dinner last night at Monsú.
I am telling you, these people know what's up.
The tiny Sicilian restaurant on the corner of 9th and Christian is the third instillation in Peter McAndrews' (yes, I've spoken highly of him before, and I will continue to for ever and ever and ever) Philadelphia restaurant series.
As with all of his restaurants, the people at Monsú cater amazingly to gluten allergies. Several of the Chef's children have Celiac, and so he, and all of his employees, understand the importance of creating delicious gf dishes. And they know that it all starts with the bread.
Tote, the new gluten free bakery, provides the baguette (which is quite tasty as is- see post below for details) and the phenomenal kitchen staff does the rest. A house-made whipped ricotta with honey and orange, drizzled with olive oil and cracked with tasty grains of sea salt and black pepper arrives at the table in the most unassuming little white dish. It looks so innocent, just sitting there in the middle of the table like "Oh hey guys, what's up? Welcome to Monsú. You should probably dunk a little warm piece of bread in me and see how that tastes." Brilliant. That's how.
The Panelle arrived at the table first, and let me tell you, it is the dish that made me fall in love with eggplant. I never really thought eggplant could be all that sexy, but paired with a crispy chickpea fritter, dolloped with a creamy mozzarella burrata, and drizzled with pesto and it becomes the Kim Kardashian's ass of garden vegetables.
Up next was a giant pan-seared scallop served over sauteed artichokes hit with a splash of a creamy, spicy harissa mayo that cut like butter and melted in your mouth, heat hitting every taste bud. Aaron got a half-order of crab pasta as an appetizer with a rich, smooth, creamy tomato-lemon sauce (and yes, they do have gluten-free pasta) and giant chunks of shave pecorino romano. A green salad- simple, but perfectly seasoned and balanced consists of mixed greens, shaved almonds, golden raisins, and a light and crisp lemon and olive oil dressing.
My entree was a gluten-free pasta tossed with sweet onions, pancetta, and juicy, plump Roma tomatoes, and black pepper, with shaved Parmesan cooked so perfectly that I would have sworn someones Italian grandmother was back in the kitchen slaving over a hot stove.
For dessert, a strawberry and goat cheese panna cotta drizzled with a balsamic sauce so perfectly aged that it had become a syrup, delicately balancing the fluffy pink custard.
But the best part about Monsú is the incredible staff. Like all of McAndrews' restaurants, they are extremely nice and helpful and go above and beyond to make you feel at home. I know this is odd for someone who writes a blog about being gluten-free and proud, but I still get uncomfortable when I have to make a big deal about it at a restaurant. I feel bad because I know I'm that annoying person at the table with the food handicap (thanks, Ben Fileccia). I hate having the spotlight on me- having to explain what it is and ask "Can I have this? How about that?" At both Modo Mio and Monsú, they take care of everything, from the bread service to dessert- you only have to tell them once. I continue to go there because they make me feel, well, normal. And normal is amazing. It is possibly the most wonderful bit of hospitality I have ever experienced.
The fine people at Grandma's Grotto (see posting below) sent me home with a goodie bag of frozen foods, which included a loaf of garlic bread which we took great pleasure in heating up and sopping up tasty morsels of ground beef popping with acidic, tangy, tomato sauce in a crispy blanket of melted butter and garlic.
