This is the House Dressing of the Copper Hills Motel in Miami, Arizona

My Dad got his house dressing from Navarre’s in Phoenix. It became Danko’s Salad Dressing in Globe-Miami, and was quite famous in the area.  This popularity was carried up and down Highway 60 by the travelers that stopped at his Best Western Restaurant and Hotel over the 35 years from the time my Dad built it, until he sold it in 1990.  The dressing disappeared after this; Navarre’s was long gone by then and the new owners changed the entire menu.

This salad dressing is Atomic Age stuff.  1950′s/1960′s Steak House Salad Dressing. Red flocked wall paper, dark woods and antique mirrors, with burly middle-aged male waiters. Men with coats and ties, ladies in cocktail dresses, stoles and alligator clutch-purses.  Ashtrays on the table.  Rumaki appetizers. This is no-BS salad dressing that “Mad Men” ordered, followed by “I’ll have a bourbon and water and the lady will have a Vodka Martini, up”.  This dressing has been pretty much a family secret (except I think I’m the only one in the family that’s ever made it besides my Dad, who passed in 2000).  I had friends, girlfriends, girlfriend’s moms and others ask me for this recipe for years.

The Copper Hills burnt down in early 2001, and they hadn’t served the dressing for 11 years before that. And since just about anyone that knew how to make it is long gone to the four winds, I’m releasing it for general consumption.  But.**

**You’re on your honor here — give the Devil (my dad) his due and call it what it is — Danko’s Dressing.  Trust me, the guy is a ghost and he will come and get his haunt on up in your house or restaurant; he had a wicked and expensive sense of humor — you’ve been warned.

So here’s the recipe:

Makes 1 gallon.

• 1/2 cup Black Pepper (heavy, coarse grind)
• 2.5 teaspoons Sugar
• 2.5 tablespoons Salt
• 1 1/2+ cups Wine Vinegar (1.6 to be exact, which is 2.5 teaspoons over 1.5 cups)
• 6 1/2 tablespoons Dry Mustard
• 1/2 bottle of Lee & Perrins Worchester Sauce (regular size, not something from Costco)
• 2 Finely minced onions
• 2 1/2 tablespoons brown gravy flavoring
• juice of 4 lemons
• 3/4+ cup of finely crushed fresh garlic
• 9 1/2 cups corn oil

This is basically an oil/vinegar emulsion dressing.  Start with a really good mixer and put the vinegar, onions, 1/4 of lemon juice and the pepper with the mixer whirling around at a good clip. S-l-o-w-l-y add the oil, drop by drop, bit by bit at first until it starts to emulsify. Remember that the oil must be added extremely sparingly at first until it comes together, then poured in a small but steady stream.  As the oil is finished, add the rest of the ingredients, tasting  from time to time.  Once all the ingredients are together, add more mustard if necessary.  Store refrigerated but not too cold, because the whole thing will break the closer to freezing it is.  Some persons have used egg yolks but you gotta use it fast if you do and I wouldn’t serve raw eggs in a restaurant setting.  Your mileage may vary.

To make sure this thing stays stable when you make it and you don’t waste a gallon of ingredients, you can cut these ingredients down to make a quart or less.

Key points to prevent your dressing from breaking:

1. DO NOT add all the vinegar and lemon juice at the beginning, Keep 3/4 of the lemon juice for the end
2. DO NOT over-agitate it in the food processor, (which is why traditional chefs favor whisking it by hand)
3. DO NOT place it in a fridge that is too cold.

if you are troubled by emulsions and you want to review a good article in getting it right, here’s a link. Have fun, serve it with half Ice Berg, Half Romaine and add some other weeds like endive for a little extra texture. Croutons are mandatory.  Serve it with a New York covered in peppercorns, Pittsburgh-style.  You’re eating like Don Draper (Mad Men) now, baby.

On the way over, a Chicken Cacciatore was served and Dad really thought is was the cat’s pajamas. He had the habit of getting up at the crack of dawn, and he loved talking to cooks and kitchens, and had a way of just getting along with everyone, everywhere and could completely relate at a level that I just don’t have the talent for.

So he talked the chef out of the his personal Cacciatore Recipe, promising never to publish it and only use it in his restaurant in Miami, Arizona.

Which he did. Dad’s been gone since Halloween in 2000, the Cristoforo Colombo has been shredded into razor blades, file cabinets and other metal parts. I don’t know if the chef is still alive, and if he is, I’m sorry in advance, but this is such a good recipe, I want to share.

Ingredients

• 6-8 Chicken Thighs
• 2 cups of Crimini Mushrooms, chopped into wedges
• At least one cup of chopped parsley
• 1 cup of Marsala wine
• 1 stick of butter (I’m not kidding!)
• 1/2 cup of olive oil, but you’ll probably use more.
• spaghetti, the thick stuff works best
• Salt and pepper
• 1/4 tsp of corn starch to deglaze.

Preparation

• Melt the stick of butter in a pan until it begins to brown.  Salt and Pepper the chicken thighs and stick them in to slowly saute.  When they start to brown, add enough olive oil until it starts to get deep in the pan; about halfway up the meat.
• Add the mushrooms and chopped parsley.
• Bring down to a low simmer, then cover and let the thighs cook.
• Boil water for spaghetti.
• When the thighs are cooked, bring the heat up and add the marsala wine.  Flame it if you like.
• Deglaze with 1/4 tsp of cornstarch.
• Put the thighs on low and cook the Spaghetti
• When everything’s done, serve the dish with the Spaghetti, thighs on top, then the butter/olive oil/marsala wine sauce with mushrooms and parsley on top.
• Lotsa Parmesano Reggiano.
• Serve with a good Tuscan White.

This is the way it was passed down. I’ve made this dish a ton of times, and through my experience, I prefer:

Variations on a theme.

• White Vermouth for the Marsala wine. The White Vermouth has lotsa herbs and tastes great.
• I like Shallots, but don’t overpower the light flavors.
• I also like Cayenne with the salt on the thighs, but not too much.
• Forest mushrooms for the Crimini Mushrooms.  If they’re small enough, don’t chop them.
• Oregano vs Parsley — you decide.   Tarragon’s too strong in my opinion.
• Pasta switch — go find some Strozzapreti
• Or go with some Fava Beans or Risotto!

Have fun with the recipe.  It’s a lucky one for me, and it came from a lucky ship.  The Cristoforo Columbo was the sister ship to the Andrea Doria and served for decades on the Italian Line with little or no mishaps until airlines finally did them all in.  Dad wanted me to have made a “crossing” in the old-school way, and I hope that sharing this recipe will pay my gratitude forward.

This is mom’s FAMOUS (at least around Miami, Arizona in the 60′s and 70′s) “slav” macaroni recipe. She would have this at parties and except for the shrimp cocktail, It was always the first to be eaten. Up until now it was only available to the family. Now, if you’re here, well, you get to enjoy it too.
The important thing to note is this is a “baked” dish. You layer your pasta (I like Buccatini, but Mom used Perciatelle. Any long, tubular pasta is required here.

ingredients

• 1 small can of tomato sauce (or homemade is good!)
• 1 cup of water
• 7 cloves of garlic
• 1 package of long tubular pasta
• 1/2 bunch of parsley, chopped coarse
• 1 stick of butter
• 1 cup of fresh grated parmesan cheese

Cook the pasta until “Al dente”. Empty the sauce in a saucepan with the water and heat. Melt the butter in another pan. When the pasta is ready, mix in the butter, then lay it out lengthwise in a casserole dish until the bottom is covered. Cover the pasta evenly with a light layer of sauce.
Add some of the parsley on top. Sprinkle a bunch of cheese evenly on top of the layer. Make another layer and do the same.
When you’re finished with the layers, add any cheese you have left on top and bake at high heat until the cheese is melted. Serve and enjoy.

It’s nothing like what you get at most run-of-the-mill restaurants, and even some so-called authentic establishments just fix you a plate of spaghetti and slather their “Alfredo Sauce” with some peas and quickly fried ham pieces in it. It’s going to take serious therapy to get out of my head what these authentic Italian Restaurants in my San Fernando Valley have prostituted themselves into . But, in our story, we were in Italy, were we not?

Sheila (my darling, patient wife) and I adore Carbonara, one of the simplest pasta dishes. Simple, but when made well, will blow the winter out of your system like a Breva in the Alps, fill your stomach with childhood memories and your eyes with adoring love for humanity. Spaghetti Carbonara is Italian Heroin — A really good portion will just make you feel so good that absolutely nothing else matters, and your craving for it will never end.

During last winter’s trip to Italy, we had sampled Carbonara in multiple locations in Rome, Siena, a small family diner in Montefiascone, and now Firenze.It was a tie between the Antica Trattoria Tritone in Rome near the Bernini Fountain (see link for address), and the nameless restaurant on the southern end of Montefiascone. Both were amazing but completely different. Tritone’s pasta was light and perfect, with amazingly delicate pieces of Prosciutto and tiny Porcini slivers. The pasta’s freshness and taste demonstrated years of training and dedication to getting it right.

Our “Casa l’Autostrada” came about it from a different place entirely. The saffron-colored, fresh pasta obviously contained ingredients collected from a at most a few kilometers away, made the same way for decades, with slow, evolutionary changes by mothers in a familial line stretching back into antiquity. It was served straight and honest — a nice big portion, hot, with thick slivers of local ham, fresh, local, sharp cheese and mushrooms from the market around the corner. By eating this incredibly honest meal, you knew you were in a small, working-class town halfway from Rome to Siena. Where Tritone’s Carbonara represented what exactly could be done to perfect this dish, our Truck Stop defined its foundations and represented a pure, barrel-strength shot of honest-to-goodness UR carbonara. Different, but a tie for who’s best.

Christmas Dinner

We had taken a few days off from our Carbonara Quest in Florence, sampling the Cinghiale at Il Latini with a cute and well-behaved Whippet never letting his eyes off my daughter lest she drop something, and various other restaurants that were as forgettable as Latini is memorable (Especially “Riviera” — I think that’s what is is called, in front of the Palazzo Vecchio – horrible, touristy and over-priced). Christmas dinner was coming up, and Sheila was putting no small pressure upon me to deliver something special or find alternate lodging; I found “La Giostra” on Borgo Pinti.

My usual Modus Operandi is to make reservations at the last minute, and they were the only ones that would take us after a seriously nice tip to our hotel concierge, saving my life. We arrived after a few-minute cab ride to find a small store-front restaurant run by the happiest and hippest father-son team I’ve ever seen. Christmas Dinner was prix-fixe at € 100. Even better, my daughter who hasn’t finished a meal since she started walking only wanted the Tortelini Soup (DELICIOUS), and they didn’t charge us. We scoured the options for our meal:

I had:

• Bruschetta
• Prociutto Plate with local cheese
• Carbonara
• Bistecca Fiorentina

Sheila had

• Bruschetta with me.
• Crustini Fontina
• Tortellini Soup
• Bistecca Fiorentina

And so dinner begins. We chew on the Bread with incredibly perfect tomatoes in our appetizer, and my Prosciutto comes, so perfect that I don’t pay any attention to my wife’s Crustini, that is, until our chef came out and announced “MOLTO TARTUFO!” and proceeded to shave an entire node of incredibly fresh white Alba truffle all over her Fontina Cheese-covered crustini. You could barely see the plate when he finished.

All men are pigs, and when it comes to truffles, I’m the king of the Pigs. Sheila looked up at me with her eyes as big as manhole covers, unable to speak. I shot a look over at her, my best, most romantic GIVEMESOMEOFTHATNOW that I could possibly muster. She dutifully cut off a slice that turned out to be smaller than my thumbnail, stuck it on my plate with the tip of her knife, and then started laughing. Kira, my daughter, sensed that something cruel had just happened to me and joined in with my wife, pointing and nearly knocking over her hot chocolate. Traumatized, I offered up a few slices of my delicious Prociutto. More laughter as if I was trying to trade turds for gold bars. This was damned good Prosciutto, but I had the equivalent of the very best Popsicle Stand in Antarctica next to a Starbucks. In winter.

But that was only the First Round. Out came the Tortellini Soup for Sheila and Kira, and then my Carbonara. Oooh. This looks like a good one — it even had some of the Truffle shavings that they had managed to throw, I thought, in sympathy for the drubbing I took from the “Crustini Incident“. Giggles from my wife ensued as her completely-cleared crustini plate was picked up. I proceeded to get on with my life and this meal…

Out comes our owner-chef, and like the Grinch coming back to Whoville, a light shone down upon me from some unknown spot behind his head, back-lighting him like God bearing gifts… Another node of black sumptuousness and his trusty shaver. I thought for a second that he was going to slather to Tortellini soup in truffles and scar me for life. I decided to just ignore him as he yelled happily, “MOLTO TARTUFO!”.

Shavings slowly dropped in front of me, onto my Carbonara. Slowly at first, but accelerating, and I looked up to see his smile as he quickly covered my entire plate with shavings – I could no longer see the pasta that I was sampling, it was pure shavings on top. He smiled down at me. I never loved someone so much in that instant.

Sheila’s favorite dish is Carbonara. She looked over at me. I had just pulled four deuces to her aces/kings full house. This was about to be a BAD beat, one of Homeric proportions. I could feel her eyes drilling into the top of my head as I proceeded to eat this pasta as if i were the only one in the room.

It was delicious. By delicious, I mean it defined delicious. I didn’t know what delicious meant before. the pasta had the sophistication of the better restaurants, but the honesty of the countryside. Every strand of spaghetti was perfectly coated with egg. Finely, finely ground Parmesan/Pecorino clung to it, and slightly thick Prosciutto that had obviously been sliced specifically for this plate was mixed randomly throughout. No ingredient overpowered any other. Even the abundance of black truffle just enhanced it perfectly.

I shared. It’s Christmas. I had to. But I REALLY REALLY DIDN’T want to!

Truffle Rain

The pasta was almost cold when I finished the last bite. I knew that I was never going to cross a threshold like this again, and I truly wanted to savor it, and share it with my wife. Just unbelievable, period. It was almost anticlimactic when the Bistecca arrived, yet it too, was covered in these shavings of fungal-goodness, albeit without the preceding drama from the chef. Possibly the best meal I’ve ever had; definitely in the top three.

La Giostra’s Carbonara Recipe.

Giostra publishes their recipes, and for October 2007 they published their Carbonara:

It’s more fun in their mangled English here on their site, but if you’re in a hurry:

Carbonara of Alba’s white truffles

Arrange the hand made taglierini* very slim and cook in a way to keep it particularly “aldente” like we say in Italian. After that put it in a pan with a French walnut butter for a short while and dish up on the plate whisked with an egg’s yolk and a touch of water from the pasta’s cooking pot.

Then… strew with white truffle of Alba.

For the wine with, the old red wines from Piedmont are the best and the latest vintage were fantastic. According with Wine Spectator, the 2000 of Barolo is 100/100 vintage, and Barbaresco 1998 or 1999 are not below. From the wine list of the restaurant: Barolo “Ornato”, Pio Cesare 1999 or Barbaresco 1998 of Angelo Gaja.