Slim Man Cooks Crab Soup

Crab Soup and Destiny

The day I turned fourteen, I got my worker’s permit.  I’ve been working ever since.I’ve worked myself up from nothing to a case of extreme poverty.Soon after I got my worker’s permit, I got a job at my grandmother’s office as an office boy.  At that time, she was Vice President of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union.Angela was an incredible woman, a poor Italian immigrant who worked in a garment sweatshop in New York City.  Disgusted with the working conditions, she became an organizer, was assigned to the Delaware, Maryland and Virginia region, and helped start the International Ladies Garment Workers Union - the ILGWU.  She went on to become the Vice President, the first woman vice president of a major union in the USA.  She had an incredibly positive impact on thousands of lives.The ILGWU offices were in Baltimore, Maryland, on the corner of Howard and Baltimore Streets - right across the street from the Civic Center, which was where I saw Hendrix, the Doors, Led Zeppelin and a ton of other bands.My Mom didn’t drive.  My Dad moved back to New York when they got divorced.  This meant when I needed to get around, I took the bus.In the morning, I’d walk to the bus stop and I’d take the bus to school.  Roland Park.  After school, I’d take the bus home and have lunch.  Then I’d catch a bus downtown, and work at Angela’s office until it closed.  Then I’d catch the bus back home, have some dinner, do my homework, and go to sleep.One cold winter day, I was waiting outside the Civic Center to catch the bus home from work.  It was downright frosty.  I noticed a kid about my age, no coat on, no winter clothes, standing there shivering.  I went over and asked him if he was OK.He told me he had run away from home, had just arrived from Florida; no money, no clothes, no job, no nothin’.  I invited him to the house for some dinner.We got on the bus and rode to my neighborhood.  The bus stop was about a half-mile from my house on Rosebank Avenue. When I walked in, I started to introduce this kid to my Mom - but I didn’t know his name.  When I asked him, he told us his name was -Destiny.He had long, blond, scraggly hair.  He was short and slight and skinny as could be.  He was shaking from the cold.  About the only thing he had to his name besides the clothes on his back was his harmonica.I asked my Mom if he could stay for dinner.  She said yes.  Destiny ended up staying with us for about a year.My Mom was the sweetest woman in the world.  She was so wonderful in so many ways that it could fill a whole book or two.  She brought out the best in people.  Everybody shined a little brighter in her presence.  And she took Destiny under her wing.Destiny immediately went to look for a job.  About the only thing he could find was a job at a car wash.  In the winter.  I gave him some of my clothes, but he was a lot shorter than I was, so he looked kinda funny.  We went to an Army surplus store, and got him a military coat, and some other things.Destiny would come home from the car wash, and he would be frozen, his shoes soaked with water.  My Mom would feed us dinner, and Destiny and I would go upstairs.  I’d do homework.  Then, I’d play guitar and Destiny would play his harmonica.He used to sing this song that he wrote…“The River of Love is soft and free.”Then he’d play a little harmonica riff.“The River of Love was meant to be.”Then he’d play another riff.What he lacked in talent, he made up for with enthusiasm.  It was a catchy little tune.  We became really good friends.  He also became pretty good on harmonica.My Mom loved him.Destiny was an incredibly polite and positive kid.  I never heard him say a bad word about anybody or anything.  I never heard him complain.  He had a funny laugh, like he was almost embarrassed for chuckling.My Mom was a great cook.  She cooked all kinds of different stuff — Italian, French, Indian, Mexican.Destiny had never eaten food like that.  He ate a lot of grilled cheese sandwiches and Campbell’s tomato soup out of a can. When my Mom would cook some exotic foods, Destiny would get this look of apprehension on his face.One time my Mom cooked crab soup.  Her recipe was amazing.  She would not only use crabmeat, she used other parts of the crab as well, mostly the claws.  When she served you a bowl, there would be a vicious looking crab claw peeking out at you.The first time my Mom served Destiny a bowl of crab soup, he saw that crab claw, and had no idea what to do.  We showed him how to crack it, and eat it.Destiny was clearly not used to anything like that.  He took one look at that crab claw, and you could see the trepidation in his eyes.  He was way too polite to do anything but try to figure out how to eat it.  After he finished, I could tell he was trying to say something sweet to my Mom.  He looked at her and said,“Thank you very much, Miss C.  It’s been a long time since I had a meal like that.”From that point on, that was our go-to line when we ate something we didn’t like.One Friday night, there was a knock at the front door.  I opened it up.  A young kid asked me if Destiny was around, and I showed him upstairs.  The two kids hugged.  Destiny introduced the other kid.  His name was -Joker.I’m not joking.Joker was Destiny’s younger brother.  The two of them left Rosebank shortly thereafter and I didn’t hear from Destiny for years and years.Then I got an email about forty years later.  It was from Destiny.  He told me how he’d moved to Florida, and then to Georgia, and had a kid.  He named his son –Timothy.Destiny was so incredibly grateful for what we’d done.  He told me that he had taken up painting.  Not houses, but artwork.  He asked me my address and I gave it to him.  He sent me one of his paintings.   It was really cool.  I was flattered.The painting was called –LOVE.It’s all about LOVE.CRAB SOUPMy Mom loved steamed crabs.  In Baltimore they use blue crabs; they catch them in the Chesapeake Bay and the surrounding rivers in the summer, and import them from the Gulf of Mexico in the winter. The fine people of B-Mo steam the crabs in beer, vinegar and Old Bay.Old Bay is a seasoning with salt, pepper, paprika and other spices. It was created in Baltimore; they used to make it at a factory on the water by the Inner Harbor. In the summertime, downtown Bawlmer smelled a bit…spicy.My Mom would get a couple dozen steamed crabs from a place called Bo Brooks, and bring them home.  We’d cover the table in newspapers, grab some wooden mallets, and have a little crab feast. It’s a Bawlmer tradition, Hon!When we were done, my Mom would pick through the leftover crabs, and use the meat and some of the claws to make crab soup. But unless you’re in Baltimore in the summertime, you’re going to most likely use a pound of crabmeat for crab soup rather than fresh-picked steamed crabs.Jumbo lump crabmeat comes from the top of the hind leg; it’s really good but expensive. You can also get lump crabmeat, which comes from the top of the other legs, and is less expensive but real good. You can also buy claw meat, which is the least expensive, and not as quite as moist or tasty as the others.  But still pretty good.  You can use a combination of these crabmeats; just make sure you end up with a pound.If you’re using a pound of unseasoned crabmeat, you’ll need to add Old Bay seasoning to the soup. I use 2 tablespoons. if you're not into spicy food, start off with 1 tablespoon, give the soup a taste halfway through. If it needs a little more spice, add another tablespoon of Old Bay.If you’re using leftover crabs, they’ll have some Old Bay on them, so you might not need any additional seasoning. Give the soup a taste halfway through the process, and if it needs more spice, add some Old Bay, a teaspoon at a time.You can use fresh corn--cut off the cob--or canned or frozen.Ingredients3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil½ cup each--chopped celery, carrot, and onion4 or 5 celery tops (the leaves at the top of the stalks)2 cups water2 cups beef broth (you can use vegetable, chicken or seafood – in Maryland we use beef)1 cup each lima beans, sweet corn, string beans – ends trimmed, broken into bite-size pieces1 twenty-eight ounce can of Italian tomatoes, smooshed by hand into small pieces1 pound of jumbo lump crab meat2 tablespoons Old Bay seasoningOPTIONAL: 8 steamed crab claws, don’t rinse off the Old Bay!Here we go…Get a large pot or Dutch oven.  Put the olive oil in the bottom over medium heat for 2 minutes.Add the celery, carrots, and onion. Add the celery leaves. Cook for 5-7 minutes, until soft. Stir, stir, stir.Add the water, the broth, the lima beans, corn, and string beans.Add the tomatoes.Add the Old Bay seasoning.Cover, turn the heat on high.When it comes to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook until the vegetables are tender, about 10 minutes.  Stir every couple of minutes.As the soup simmers, put the crabmeat in a bowl.Gently feel for any crab shell or cartilage.Be careful!  You don’t want to break up the lumps.Discard any shell or cartilage.After the soup has simmered for 10 minutes, and the vegetables are tender, add the crabmeat to the soup, along with any leftover steamed crab claws – if you got’em.Let the soup simmer--uncovered--for 10 minutes.  Keep in mind, the crab claws and the crabmeat are already cooked, you’re just heating them up — don’t overcook, and don’t stir too often.  You don’t want to break up the lumps of crab.Taste for Old Bay seasoning, and add another tablespoon if needed.Taste for salt, and add if needed.Dish it up!  Get a large soup bowl, ladle in some soup, place a claw on the side of the plate to give it that dangerous look, and…MANGIAMO!!!!!!!

Slim Man Cooks Grilled Vegetable Pasta Salad

Grilled Vegetable Pasta and My Dad’s GardenMost Italians I know have a garden. I don’t know why; it just seems to be the case. My grandmother Angela had a small garden. My uncle Oscar had a garden. Or rather, he had someone build him a garden and maintain it. Oscar wasn’t a dig-in-the-dirt kinda guy. I don’t think he ever mowed a lawn in his adult life. He had people who did that kinda thing. But My Dad? Oscar’s only brother? He loved getting down in the dirt.I remember one spring my Dad wanted to build a vegetable garden. He lived in an apartment above a big barn on a farm in Long Island, New York. I used to drive up from Baltimore, Maryland, and visit him in his little place on the top floor. My Dad had painted all the walls different bright colors; purple, yellow, orange. For his dining-room table, he had found a huge old wood spool that the phone company had used for wrapping telephone wire. He laid it on its side, and that’s what we ate on. His kitchen table was an antique foot-operated sewing machine.There was a dog kennel in the barn downstairs, which was a lot of fun when the volunteer fire department sirens would go off in the middle of the night, and the dozen or so dogs would start caterwauling.Along with the dogs, there were also horses residing in the barn below. Well, it wasn’t like Smarty Jones or Seattle Slew were living there. This was a working barn, with working horses. And when you have horses, you usually have horse flies. So in the upstairs apartment my Dad put fly strips on the ceiling.In case you’ve never lived above a barn with horses and horse flies; fly strips are basically rolls of sticky paper that unravel and hang from the ceiling. When flies would fly by, they’d get stuck to the paper. Since the ceiling at my Dad’s apartment was slanted and low, whenever you walked by, the paper would stick to your hair. This wasn’t a problem for My Dad, who had no hair. But for us long-haired teens, it was a big problem.I had a hairdo that resembled all three guys in the Jimi Hendrix Experience put together. Whenever I walked by these fly strips, my hair would get stuck, and I’d have to call for my Dad to cut me loose. So there were all these fly strips hanging from the ceiling, with dead flies and clumps of hair stuck to them.The other thing you have when you have horses downstairs? Fertilizer, to put it politely. The apartment had a certain aroma that they rarely use in aromatherapy. With all that free fertilizer, my Dad decided to create his garden. He wanted to border the garden with railroad ties; so one day he borrowed a pickup truck, and we drove to a deserted area of the Long Island Railroad.My Dad couldn’t just go to the Home Depot and buy wood borders. He had to go find old railroad ties. He couldn’t just go to a furniture store and buy a dining-room table, he had to go find a big old wood spool. He couldn’t buy a kitchen table at IKEA, he had to use an old sewing machine. He couldn’t just find a normal place to live, he had to find a place on top of a barn with a kennel and horses and ceilings that were so slanted that you had to walk around crouched over like Groucho Marx or Quasimodo.My Dad had it in his head to find railroad ties to border his garden. We found a stack by the side of some abandoned railroad tracks. The railroad ties smelled like creosote, and weighed what seemed like a ton. We put the back gate of the pickup truck down. We were able, the two of us, to get one railroad tie onto the bed of the pickup truck. The only problem was - the railroad tie was hanging off the back of the pickup.We drove off and when my Dad went over a bump, the end of the railroad tie closest to the cab of the truck would rise in the air, and the other end that was hanging off the back of the truck would hit the ground. It was like a see-saw. A dangerous see-saw. My Dad pulled the truck over.Then he had a brilliant idea. He wanted me to get out of the truck and stand on the end of the railroad tie that was close to the cab, using what little weight I had to keep the railroad tie from flying up in the air. He told me to hang on to the roof of the truck for stability. Brilliant.My Dad was a tough and gruff guy, an Italian who started off really poor, grew up on the streets of New York, and forged quite a life for himself. He was a lawyer. He worked for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He wrote speeches for Vice President Hubert Humphrey. He helped start the Peace Corps. He was a professor of philosophy and literature at the State University of New York in Old Westbury, which was about 15 miles from the barn.My Dad yelled a lot. He laughed a lot, too, but he had a temper. I found it hard to say “no” to to my Dad; so I got out of the truck and stood on the end of the railroad tie, facing forward, holding on to the roof of the cab for dear life. The first bump we hit, I shot into the air like a rocket. It seems kinda funny now. It wasn’t real funny to me back then. I was terrified.That’s when I thought it might be best to prop up one end of the railroad tie on top of the cab of the pickup, and close the back gate to hold the other end inside the bed. And that’s the way we rolled. We ended up getting four railroad ties, and made a huge square outside of the barn. We shoveled horseshit for hours from the barn into the garden.That garden was incredible. We had Brussel sprouts the size of cabbages. Everything grew to amazing proportions and tasted incredibly fresh and delightful. When I think of vegetables, I always think of that garden. And how I almost died to get it built.GRILLED VEGETABLE PASTA SALADI like to grill. I like pasta. I like vegetables. So - I thought - why not combine all three? That’s when I came up with this recipe. I put the “j” back in genius with this dish. You’ll want to serve it at room temperature, but add the mozzarella balls when the pasta is hot, so the balls get gooey, so to speak. Fusilli pasta works best.I cut the onion into large slices, and the orange bell peppers, too, because they’re easier to grill and flip that way. When they’re done, I chop ‘em up into smaller, bite-size pieces. Also, the cherry tomatoes only need about five minutes on the grill, just to heat ‘em up.Serves four; or one teenage kid who’s been shoveling horseshit in the sun for hours.IngredientsA bulb of garlic, the root end cut offExtra virgin olive oil1 small zucchini, scrubbed, ends snipped off, sliced in circular slices1 small yellow summer squash, prepared the same way1 small eggplant, prepared the same way2 orange bell peppers, stems and seeds removed, cut in large slices1 Vidalia onion (or any sweet onion except purple/Spanish), sliced into large circular slices2 dozen cherry tomatoesA dozen small balls of mozzarella½ cup pignoli (pine nuts), toasted to a golden brown in a dry pan over medium heat — you can also use sliced almonds, toasted the same wayBasil leaves, a large handful (a cup) – save a few whole leaves for garnish1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar1 pound of fusilli pastaFreshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheeseSalt and freshly ground pepperNon-stick cooking spray (optional)Here we go…Make sure your grill surface is clean. A little non-stick cooking spray on the grill surface will help keep your vegetables from sticking. Be careful! Don’t spray it into the fire.If you’re using a charcoal grill, light the coals, and let them burn for 20 to 30 minutes, or until the coals are ash-gray. You don’t want the fire to be too hot, or you just end up burning the vegetables. If you’re using a gas grill, put the heat on medium.Take the bulb of garlic. Slice the root end off. Put the whole garlic bulb on top of a piece of aluminum foil. Drizzle it with olive oil, about a teaspoon. Wrap it up, and put it on the outside part of the grill – the place with the least heat – and let it slow-roast for the whole time you’re grilling.For the pasta, get a large pot, fill it with water, and let it come to a boil.Now for the vegetables. Put them all on a large platter. Drizzle with olive oil, about a tablespoon, make sure they’re all lightly coated. Sprinkle with a little salt and fresh cracked black pepper. Then flip ‘em over and do the same on the other side – drizzle with a little olive oil, and sprinkle with a little salt and pepper.Put all the vegetables on the grill, except the tomatoes. Let everything grill for about 5 to 7 minutes, depending on the heat of your grill, then turn ‘em over.Put the tomatoes on the outside of the grill. Grill all your vegetables for another 5 to 7 minutes.Remove the vegetables from the grill, and place them on a large platter. Cut the onion and the orange bell peppers into bite size pieces.For the pasta, when the water is a-boiling, add a few tablespoons of kosher salt, and then add a pound of fusilli. Follow the directions on the box. Two minutes before the pasta is supposed to be done, start tasting. Bite through a piece of pasta, look at the center. If it is chalky, it is not done. Keep tasting every 2 minutes until it tastes right, not too chewy. When the fusilli is al dente (firm to the bite) drain, put it in a large bowl and drizzle with a tablespoon olive oil, and toss.Take your garlic bulb out of the aluminum foil, make sure it’s cool enough to touch, and grab the bulb by the top. Squeeze the cloves out through the bottom, right onto the pasta. Mick ‘em up.Add your grilled vegetables, give them a stir.Add your mozzarella balls and toss gently.Add the toasted pignoli – save some for sprinkling on to each plate.Take the basil leaves (save a few for each plate for garnish), and snip ‘em with scissors into small pieces right onto the pasta. Toss gently.Add a little more olive oil if you like and toss again - gently.Add the balsamic vinegar (about a tablespoon or so to taste) and toss once more.Dish it up! Make it look nice! On each plate, add a couple basil leaves, sprinkle a few toasted pignoli on top, and add a little freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese on top, if you like. And…MANGIAMO!!!