This 2022 holiday season I introduced a couple of new items to my kitchen tool box which is important as we grow as chefs.
The paella pan is made by Garcima from Valencia, Spain and is a traditional polished steel paella pan that I plan to use to prepare risotto. The pan seems well made and carries a 2 year guarantee. I look forward to cooking with it.
The Dutch Oven is called Pure Intentions ‘Ecolution’ by Epoca Int’l in Florida. This pan is also stainless steel with a tempered glass top. This item has a Limited Lifetime Warranty.
The wooden roller is an Everyday Living item distributed by Inter-American Products and was made in Taiwan. It has held up pretty well so far for helping to thin out homemade pasta for my noodle cutting machine. This item has a quality guarantee or receive a full refund. How can you go wrong?
Whatever your budget or skill level remember that joy comes from sharing and cooking is to be shared, so bring joy to the world and keep cooking. Happy holidays.
The Dude of Food grew up an only child with a working mom who disliked cooking. Her 3 motto’s in life to me were:
‘where there’s smoke, there’s dinner’
‘you can never be too rich or too thin’
‘go play on the freeway’
The refrigerator to me was something to go look in at someone else’s house. That is how I learned about food, by looking in other peoples fridges and lunch boxes to see what they ate like. It took me years to get over just casually opening and looking inside of someones fridge.
On special Saturday mornings as a kid I used to make a can of Spaghettios or Franco American Macaroni with cheese sauce as a treat.
One of the places I would wander over to visit was the house of the Italian family down the street. They had 3 older girls and a boy my age and they always had food. Their kitchen was the best. Something was always out on the table or on the stove top, warmed and ready to be eaten. Homemade pastas, sauces, pizzas, rapini and as we got older everything with onions in it so our lungs would stay healthier. This Italian mother even made liver taste good with thin slices and loads of onions.
When we would go back east to visit their Italian relatives I would be blown away that every Italian kitchen was the same, warm and full of food. We couldn’t go anywhere without eating a plate of food and sipping some homemade wine. By the third or fourth visit you’d be pretty full but the hosts would get offended if you didn’t eat their food and thought you liked the other family better so you had to eat, drink and be merry. It was great.
When I went to visit the youthful home of my buddies father in Italy I was blown away at the genuine love, hospitality and meals shared with me.
This love of family and food has never left me and recently I began preparing homemade pasta noodles after a lesson from my friends father’s sister, Aunt Mary, whom I’ve known since I was in 5th grade. I’m now 56 years old. In researching how to make a better noodle I was directed to Youtube and discovered the next best thing since beer was created. The name of this Angel is Grandma Gina Petitti. She has a food channel that you must see.
Grandma Gina is precious and I instantly fell in love with her. She speaks just like everyone in my buddies family and reminds me of the best of my childhood. If you are still reading this then you must go to visit Gina https://www.youtube.com/c/BuonAPetitti/videos and see for yourself.
Grandma Gina Petitti
Learn to make noodles, ravioli or whatever else you might be interested in preparing but be ready to get sucked in. You will learn to cook and have your heart warmed at the same time.
You can also purchase Gina’s cookbook online as well. It’s titled, ‘Cooking With Grandma Gina’.
