St Joseph's Day 2023

 

There are two food related holidays celebrated at Studio Arrabbiata.  One of those is Mardi Gras, which can be a lot of things, but I think of it as a food holiday, since part of my annual celebration includes cajun food, even if it means making a batch of jambalaya myself.  The other day is St. Joseph's Day, always on March 19th.  St Joseph is the patron saint of carpenters and woodworkers, and for this alone I should mark his day.  However he is also the patron saint of Italy and all Italians, and this studio has an Italian name.  But the way this day is celebrated is with an Italian pastry, as Joseph is also the patron saint of bakers of desserts.  This is a good holiday.

Many years ago, when the Southern Graphics annual convention was being held at Rutgers, I made the drive up each day to hang with my printmaking friends and go to interesting panels.  On that Friday, which was on a March 19th, I decided to bring some St Joseph pastries up to New Brunswick for everyone to enjoy, including some disposable plastic utensils to cut them up.  Unfortunately, most of my friends were gone, up to the city to make final arrangements for our group show in New York City, which was the first official function of the Outlaw Printmakers.  So I did benefit from this, and it's at the opening of this show that I met Molly, who I share this studio space with.  But it did leave me with a box full of pastries.  No problem- all the college students were still there, so I shared these delights with them, who of course had no idea who St Joseph was or why I was celebrating it, but they did enjoy some sugary delights.  They also thought it was a good holiday.   I made some friends that day, and probably got some shows out of that.  My professor friends missed out on what I brought.

Yesterday, not knowing for sure if I was going to get a St Joseph pastry or not, I decided to make another Italian delight, pappardelle bolognese.  The noodles (wide, flat) were store bought and dried (purchased for my mother who kept complaining that my nephew hadn't selected this dish for his family organized First Communion party) while the sauce was made at home adapted from a recipe we got from relatives in Tuscany.  There are many recipes for a bolognese sauce on the internet and television, and all are a little different, but it seems to be the closest thing to this recipe.  The relatives called it sugo, which is just Italian for sauce.  Years ago I adapted it for American availability and everyday eating, and I have probably made it hundreds of times, so I can easily do it from memory. Just needed some beef, and got that yesterday.  Made the sauce yesterday, the pasta last night, and had a feast.   Below is what it looked like:

But as it turned out, my mother did go out this morning and get some St Joseph pastries, in this case large zeppeli, filled with some kind of cream.  I favor cannoli cream, but some prefer custard, and I've seen whipped cream. But why would I want one of those others when I can have cannoli cream?     

As it turned out, I decided to eat only half, and save the other half for tomorrow.  (did have a cream filled donut this morning, and I shouldn't be eating two of those in one day) And we did have ravioli for dinner, so there was some Italian food there as well.  Plenty of sauce for this coming week, and I'll probably freeze a little as well.