These are a few to start with. They are not intended to be The way to make these recipes; just the way I happen to make them.

• Cheesecake
• Caesar salad
• General Tso's chicken.
• Chili
• Sunday Gravy
• Hummus
• Satay saurce

Mo. Gino's New Jersey Style Cheesecake

• 1 cup sifted all purpose flour (viz., sift before measuring)
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg yolk
• 1/4 cup softened butter

• 5 packages (8 oz) of softened cream cheese (that's 40 oz in all)
• 1 3/4 cups sugar
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 2 teaspoons grated lemon peel
• 1 1/2  teaspoons grated orange peel
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 5 eggs
• 2 egg yolks
• 1/4 cup heavy cream

Preheat oven to 400F. Grease inside of 9"x3" spring form pan

Crust: Combine flour, sugar, lemon and vanilla. Make a well and blend in yolk and butter with a fork. Mix with fingertips until smooth. On the bottom of the pan (no sides) put half of the dough in a ball with waxed paper on top. Roll to edges of pan then bake ~8 minutes until golden. Cool. Divide the rest of the dough in 3 parts. Cut 6 strips of waxed paper 3"" wide. For each 1/3 of the dough place it between 2 strips of waxed paper and roll each 9" by a bit less than 3". Put the pan together and line the edges with these strips. ( take off the paper!). Preheat oven to 500f.

Filling: In your mixer bowl blend cheese, sugar, flour, peels and vanilla at high speed. (I use a KitchenAid mixer;the flat paddle at 6 or 7 is pretty good). Beat in eggs and yolks one at a time until smooth then the cream. Pour into the pan and bake 10 minutes. Lower to 250F and bake another hour. Cool 2 hours on a rack. Be careful when you remove the sides. You can make a glaze (I like raspberries or strawberries) to spread on top at this point but the cake is pretty good as is.

• 2 eggs at room temperature
• teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce
• small lemon
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 3 anchovy fillets
• grated parmigiano reggiano cheese (don't buy that junk in green tubes; its probably sawdust)
• 1 cup extra virgin olive oil. Nothing else!

Boil about 2 inches of water. Turn off the heat. Put the eggs in for exactly one minute. By coddling them like this first you kill any possible bugs.

Mash or chop finely the anchovies and the garlic. I use a food processor to make a paste. Yes I know you hate anchovies; put them in anyway -- you'll find out you do like them!

If you like it "creamy" break the eggs into a mixer bowl along with the juice of the lemon. With the machine on high drizzle in the olive oil a little at a time. If you don't want it creamy just dump it all into a bowl and mix.

Add the anchovy/garlic paste and Worcestershire sauce. I put a bit of the cheese in the dressing and mix well. Caesar Cardini just put it on top. (I do that too but I like it also in the dressing) So I guess that makes this a "Caesar style" salad rather than the real thing. (everything else is close to the real thing; Caesar didn't put the garlic in the dressing but rubbed the bowl with it and the only anchovy was in the Worcestershire). If you're not going to assemble the salad yet then refrigerate the dressing.

Lettuce:
Get 2 heads of romaine; nothing else. Caesar just served the individual ribs. I actually take out the ribs and break the leaves into bit size pieces. The birds get the ribs (they have to eat too!).
Soak in very cold water for about a half hour. Drain (or use a spinner) and refrigerate until ready to eat.

Croutons:
A few days in advance soak a few cloves of smashed garlic in olive oil. If you can get Italian bread where you live (not always possible west of 75w deg) cut it into cubes. Mix with the oil and toast them in the oven until brown. If you cannot get decent bread at least buy a decent brand of packaged croutons.

Assemble everything right before eating. The lettuce should be cold. Sprinkle a bit of the cheese on top.

I like some recipes for general tso's chicken so I tried a bunch out. I found one I liked but changed it so it's not really the general's chicken. It's not deep fried and the sauce is not gluey and treacly. I make this a lot.

• boneless skinless chicken breasts (at least one per person)
• a head of fresh broccoli
• 1 tb. sesame oil
• 2 tb. rice vinegar
• 2 tb. dark soy sauce
• dried red (Chinese) peppers
• diced garlic
• 1 tb. peanut oil
• sherry
• 1 tsp cornstarch dissolved in a bit of water

Cut the chicken into cubes of equal size. marinate the cubes in the sherry for at least 20 min. Meanwhile cut the tops of the broccoli off. You can use the stalks for soup some other time. Put the broccoli into boiling water for a minute. Remove and place into cold water to stop the cooking.

Heat about a tbs of peanut oil in a wok and put in the dried red peppers. I break them in half and take out a lot of the seeds first. You can just put them in whole if you'd like. Make sure the exhaust fan is on! remove the peppers when dark. Add a few cloves of diced garlic (to taste. I use 4) to the oil. After about 30 seconds add the chicken and stir fry until done. Remove the contents of the wok.

Make the sauce in the empty wok by adding the sesame oil, dark soy, vinegar, a bit of sugar (originally 1/4 cup but I just put in about a tbs now) and a half a cup of water. Heat to almost boiling and add the cornstarch a bit at a time. When thickened put the chicken and broccoli into the sauce to reheat (about 30 seconds).
serve with jasmine rice. (long grain will do)

NJ Style Chili

I lived in Texas for 11 years. (I survived it and left as soon as I could). I never had a decent bowl of chili there although I did have one passable one in Langtry once I drained off an inch of grease off the top. Chili fanatics will tell you exactly what goes in "real" chili and in exactly what quantities. That's pretty silly. (If you put in an ounce too much it will be ruined!)

A couple pounds of Ground meat.
I usually buy a london broil, trim off the "oogaly" bits (Julia Child's term) and grind with my KitchenAid attachment with the coarse disk.. I know the grinder is clean and I know what's in the meat. If you don't have a grinder, buy the best ground meat from a butcher. Never buy cheap ground meat (or hot dogs). A couple pounds means approximately. This is chili, not music composition or rocket science.

Dried Peppers
If you buy "chili powder" you never know what is in it. Usually it's not ground chilis but some kind of filler. I use a combination of dried peppers. By using several types you can get a depth of flavor besides just in-you-face heat.
This is the combination I like best. The quantity of each pepper is approximate.

• 3 New Mexican Red peppers (the state NM "vegetable" [sic])
• 2 Ancho
• 2 Pasilla
• 6 Chili de Arbol
• 2 Mulato
• 1 Habanero

Tear them apart, get rid of the seeds and membranes (it will be hot enough without them. really) and place them in very hot water for about 20 minutes. Use just enough water to cover them. When they are soft put them in a blender and make a paste. Wash your hands with hot soap and water right after this step.

Tomatoes
If you're lucky enough to be in NJ between June and October and have access to fresh NJ tomatoes, slice them and eat with fresh basil and forget about the chili!
Otherwise get a 28 oz can of whole tomatoes. "Crushed tomatoes" or "Tomato puree" usually means tomato juice and a few bits of tomato. You may be lucky enough to find a brand from Vineland, NJ (Progresso and Cento around here). Chop them up yourself. (Half of Texas would say there are no tomatoes in chili. LBJ liked it with them.)

• 1 Tb of cumin
• 1 Tb oregano
• 1 Tsp cinnamon (never in Texas)

to taste at the very end:

• fresh ground black pepper.
• salt

Procedure
Get a big pot. Cast iron is nice. Heat it up, and place enough oil in the bottom to cover. Any oil is ok for chili so save the olive oil for something else. Sauté a roughly chopped onion and a few cloves of garlic. When the onions are translucent, add the meat and brown. When the meat is browned (actually gray) add the chili paste and tomatoes. Put a little bit of water in the blender a couple times to get the rest of the chili paste out. The chili should be a little soupy right now - it will reduce as it cooks. Add the seasonings. Bring to a boil and simmer for at least an hour. If you can get masa harina where you live make a paste from a tablespoon of it and some water and add it to the chili at the end. Add the salt and pepper at the end. Actually this is better the next day.

My father would make this every Sunday morning. Actually I know a lot of American families of Italian descent that do the same thing. (I avoid hyphenated loyalties like Italian-American. I'm American. My ancestors were Italian; not me). This recipe more American than Italian so it is likely to offend food nazis like Hazan and Battali. The gravy is not hard to make but it takes time to cook. After it has simmered a couple hours he'd put in the meat. That varied but could include meatballs, chicken, pork chops, bracciole, or sausage. This is actually only half the recipe. Double it if you have a big family.

L'Artusi wrote this about Polpette (meatballs): "Questo è un piatto che tutti lo sanno fare cominciando dal ciuco, il quale fu forse il primo a darne il modello al genere umano." I think it applies to gravy also but I hope I don't fall into the ciuco category.

Do not skip frying the paste! Really.

This is the stuff that is known to regions west of the Delaware as "tomater or spugeddy sos". (As if there is only one sauce for spaghetti or the sauce is only for spaghetti. Put it on ziti and watch the world explode!). This is not the overly sweet red sewage that places like the "olive garden" drown their cheap overcooked pasta in. (did you know that the Olive Garden delivers vacuum packed precooked food to their franchises which are just heated up by the kitchen droids?)

Why call it gravy? My WASP friends seem to think that the word only applies to that brown stuff (that they buy in jars). Somehow that wallpaper paste they drown "chicken fried steak" down in texas is gravy but it's white. I'm not going to worry about it. We call it gravy; if you want to call it 'sos' then go ahead.

• 8 oz can of Tomato paste
• 28 oz can of whole Tomatoes (San Marzano or NJ)
• 2 cloves fresh garlic
• Small onion finely chopped (optional)
• palmful Basil
• 1 bay leaf
• small palmful Oregano
• palmful Parsley

Halfway through:
Tsp sugar only if needed. Taste it for bitterness.

At the end;
salt and pepper

Optional:
Dried hot pepper flakes sautéed with the garlic

This is the meatless version. (To be honest, that's a Marinara and not gravy. Gravy requires meat). The whole production would involve lot's of different kinds of meat. For sure there would be Italian sausage - both hot and sweet - and meatballs. Sometimes chicken, "country style" spareribs, beef short ribs, pork chops or bracciole (top sirloin pounded thin, coated with spices and rolled). Brown the meats first. Then add the tomato paste. Don't pour off the drippings. Do that when everything is done or the next day when cold.

Heat up a stainless steel or ceramic pot. Don't use aluminum. (There is some tomato acid/aluminum chemistry that I don't understand fully.) Cover the bottom with olive oil. No other oil will do. I had a roommate put canola oil in my container once and I almost barfed on the gravy that resulted. Fry the garlic and onion until translucent then add the tomato paste. Make sure the garlic doesn't burn. Fry the paste until it caramelizes (parts of it look sort of black). Add the chopped tomatoes with their juice, 28 oz of water and spices. Bring to a boil and simmer for at least 4 hours. That's why it's Sunday morning gravy.

Choose a decent macaroni! De Cecco is great. Ronzoni has cratered since being bought out by Hershey. Slippery nasty stuff now. Remember to use a lot (6 qts per pound) of boiling water for the whole cooking time. If you don't you get sticky pasty stuff.

Barilla's "always al dente, never sticky". Um, well if you boil it too long it won't be al dente and if you don't use enough water it will be sticky. DO NOT put oil in the water. Use enough water and it won't be sticky!

Tip: Do not cook the pasta until it feels right when you bite it. It will be too soft since it will keep cooking. I stop boiling when it is still undercooked. Since it will take time to drain, it will be perfect by the time all the water is gone. Another tip: put the drained pasta back in the pot you boiled it in along with enough gravy to turn it pink (about a cup), and stir over high heat for several seconds. This will make the pasta draw the gravy into it. Some chefs call this il segreto

Top with freshly grated Romano or Parmigiano Reggiano. Yuppies like Parmigiano Reggiano better since it has snob appeal now so it is likely to be overpriced. Romano has a stronger flavor but not the subtlety of Reggiano.

I love Thai food. I could eat it every day. I've tried to make the peanut sauce that comes with satay or Na pla ram but could never get it right. Some recipes use peanut butter. I've tried all kinds - natural, chunky, smooth, etc. and they all were disappointing. Use peanuts instead! When you put them in the processor you wont get peanut butter but finely chopped peanuts. They other change I've made is mussamun curry paste instead of red curry paste. That's probably a matter of taste. Fish sauce varies. The best I've tasted has three crabs on the label.

• A cup of shelled, skinned roasted peanuts
• Can of coconut milk
• Tablespoon of mussamun curry paste
• Teaspoon of fish sauce.
• A little oil

Chop the peanuts in a food processor. Fry the curry paste in a bit of oil until fragrant. Adjust the heat according to your taste. I think a tablespoon is just fine. Take the saucepan off the heat and add the coconut milk and then the peanuts. Let it cook under a boil for a few minutes. Do not cover; the milk will curdle. At the end add the fish sauce.

I put my hummus recipe on a separate page.