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Post by Deleted on Sept 14, 2019 15:12:48 GMT -5
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Post by Clipper on Sept 14, 2019 18:37:03 GMT -5
Is that where the little grocery store used to be? The guy that had the store retired and sold the store didn't he?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 14, 2019 19:39:02 GMT -5
Two stores in that little piazza. Kit would know.  |
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Post by Clipper on Sept 15, 2019 11:37:26 GMT -5
That is the little strip center that I was speaking about .There used to be a store in there that sold great deli sandwiches and was one of the largest customers for the Sunday OD. He would often run out of papers and call for a special delivery of another bundle or two.
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Post by BHU on Sept 15, 2019 13:04:58 GMT -5
It may be in that plaza I'm not sure. But from what I've heard about Marie's the food is fantastic.
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Post by Clipper on Sept 15, 2019 17:38:05 GMT -5
We have never had freshly made pasta. I bought Buitoni fettucini a couple of times but was not impressed a whole lot by much difference between that and boxed pasta. I have tried talking Kathy into a pasta machine so we could make our own pasta but she says if she has to make the pasta we will simply go out to dinner. She says she isn't about to fool around half a day to make a pound or two of linguini, haha.
I would love to have a place where I could buy freshly made pasta. I will have to check Maria's out sometime while we are in town. I should have been born an Italian. I truly love all things Italian, and when we come North, I eat my fill every chance I get. I bet there is a huge difference in taste and texture when you cook pasta that is soft and right fresh from the pasta machine. I want to buy the attachment for the Kitchen Aid stand mixer, but she says no to the pasta machine. It costs around 80 bucks. She nixed my plan to buy the ice cream making attachment for her mixer also.
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Post by kit on Sept 16, 2019 11:23:56 GMT -5
Maria's is 1 block away from me. Their stuff is wonderful authentic Utica Italian food like you can't get anywhere else (except maybe in Philadelphia or New York). It's on the left in the Ridgewood Plaza on the corner of Oneida St. and Eastwood Ave. right across the street from the Calvary Cemetery. The place in the middle is the Ridgewood Food Market which is now under new management but they still make delicious deli sandwiches. The place on the right is my mechanic, Jim Quinn and naturally his place is called Ridgewood Auto Service. When they're going to plow our parking lot in the wintertime we have to get all 60+ cars out of there. Many people fight for a space on adjacent Marlboro Rd., but I just go one more block to Jim's place and he lets me park there for as long as I need... maybe because I've given him several thousand dollars worth of business over the past 35 years. Here's another photo of the strip mall.  |
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Post by kit on Sept 16, 2019 11:25:20 GMT -5
Darn... I don't know how to make the photo bigger in this site.
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Post by clarencebunsen on Sept 16, 2019 17:24:30 GMT -5
That's OK. I clicked on the photo and it opened full sized.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 16, 2019 19:53:53 GMT -5
We have never had freshly made pasta. I bought Buitoni fettucini a couple of times but was not impressed a whole lot by much difference between that and boxed pasta. I have tried talking Kathy into a pasta machine so we could make our own pasta but she says if she has to make the pasta we will simply go out to dinner. She says she isn't about to fool around half a day to make a pound or two of linguini, haha. I would love to have a place where I could buy freshly made pasta. I will have to check Maria's out sometime while we are in town. I should have been born an Italian. I truly love all things Italian, and when we come North, I eat my fill every chance I get. I bet there is a huge difference in taste and texture when you cook pasta that is soft and right fresh from the pasta machine. I want to buy the attachment for the Kitchen Aid stand mixer, but she says no to the pasta machine. It costs around 80 bucks. She nixed my plan to buy the ice cream making attachment for her mixer also. Clipper you should have tried my Grandmothers and Mom's homemade pasta done the original way without a pasta machine. When they would make homemade ravioli they would roll the dough out till you could see through it which made the ravioli melt in your mouth. I once suggested I buy my Mom a pasta machine and she hit me with one of the three different size rolling pins.The one she used for ravioli was as long as a broom stick. She would roll until she covered the entire kitchen table then slice the widths of dough she needed to form the ravioli. Her linguine danced on your tongue making the taste buds scream in joy. Her cavatelli were so soft yet to the tooth as each one made love to her pasta sauce. She also made a pasta that she forced through a mandolin I forgot the name and also a Perciatelli. I always enjoyed her Strozzapreti which are an elongated form of cavatelli, or hand-rolled pasta. My Grandma would make a pasta called Trofie which I so enjoyed. Trofie is a short, thin, twisted pasta from Liguria, Northern Italy. She also made Testaroli which is a type of pasta or bread in Italian cuisine that is prepared using water, flour and salt, which is sliced into triangular shapes. So many that I wished I had the patience to make. |
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Post by Clipper on Sept 16, 2019 21:59:00 GMT -5
I wish there was a place around here to buy that sort of pasta. In college I went with a girl from the West Side of Syracuse ( Fairmount) whose mom used to make her own ravioli. I was a country kid. I had never eaten lobster. She made lobster ravioli, cheese ravioli, and meat ravioli. She made some wonderful lasagna and her sauce was to die for. I envy those like yourself that grew up in an Italian family. The girls name was Cavalieri and it was an old fashioned Italian family with grandma and grandpa coming for dinner on Sundays, and her mother simmering the sauce all day on Saturday. Her lasagna was literally 4 or 5 inches high and she made it in a big stainless steel pan like you see at a catered buffet. When we stopped dating I missed dinner at her parent's house more than I missed her, haha.
I had a neighbor in N Utica that made a pasta she called "rags." It was like a thin sheet of pasta just cut into wide strips or rectangles like rags.
You are making me jealous as well as hungry. Do you ever make your own pasta? There are so many different varieties. I have never even heard of some of the pastas that your mom made.
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Post by kit on Sept 17, 2019 10:26:16 GMT -5
I used to have a small part-time business called 'The Pasta Gourmet' and ran it in the building near Washington Mills that used to be Doug's Busy Bee on Oneida St. almost across from what used to be Obey's Restaurant. I made 8 different doughs which could be cut or extruded into several different shapes. Customers could mix-n-match to their own taste. I had 2 machines... one rolled the dough out flat and the dough could be cut into Capellini, Spaghetti, Lingine, Fettucine, Chittara, Lasagna, sheets, etc., and a machine that extruded the dough through any of several different dies to make bucatini, elbows, ditalini, penne, ziti, rigatoni, shells, gnocchi, etc. and also made cookies.
The main place was 'Foot-Loose Foods and Fancy Fare'. The gal who ran it was a professional chef from Johnson and Wales culinary school who discontinued the over-the-counter foods in favor of catering only. With the extra space that afforded, she let me use part of the building for my little sub-business. I also donned my tuxedo occasionally and was the official bartender for many of her catered affairs.
But my favorite dough is still the original white pasta made with semolina flour and cooked fresh. There's nothing like it. That being said, the best pasta is nothing if it isn't coated with a good sauce. Sadly, my traditional red tomato sauce (commonly referred to as 'spaghetti sauce') is okay, but nowhere as good as that made by a real Utica Italian grandmother, or Maria's. So instead I often make Aglio e Olio, Carbonara, or Alfredo sauces to go with pasta.
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Post by BHU on Sept 18, 2019 14:05:08 GMT -5
When I make a red sauce I let it simmer for a good six hours, sometimes longer. I use whole canned tomatoes that I run thru the blender for a couple seconds to break them up. I add fresh basil, pinch of oregano, & rosemary & a couple tablespoons of dried parsley & tomato paste which i fry in olive oil with the garlic. Pork such as spare ribs & Italian sausage is a must to flavor the sauce, I fry them in olive oil to brown then add to the sauce, I love onions but I dont use them in sauce, no thank you! Too overpowering imho. My Mother was half Italian & that's how she did it.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 18, 2019 15:46:39 GMT -5
I don't use onions in my red sauce either.
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