Category Archives: de rebus familiaribus

Di mamme ce n’è una sola…

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You only have one mother… One of my favorite expressions in Italian…

Grandson Oscar poured milk into mama Judy’s coffee for an early family breakfast.

There were eleven of us for eggs in all kinds of styles and lox and Bloody Marys at Nine Ten, the restaurant in the hotel where Tracie P and I got married in La Jolla, the Grand Colonial, home of the Parzen family’s official Sunday brunch.

Next came some clothes shopping with mama Judy and Tracie P and a visit to our favorite Chinese restaurant in San Diego, Spicy City in Kearny Mesa (and yes, California Chinese is also better than anywhere else in the U.S. imho). The rice noodles were DELICIOUS!

Happy mother’s day, yall! Buona festa della mamma!

Parzen Family Passover

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Seder plate.

Wow, what a trip to celebrate the Passover and read the story of the Exodus and think about all the folks who are fighting for their freedom in the Middle East???!!!

Gefilte fish from Ziggy’s in Houston.

Tracie P and I had eight persons at our dining room table for a seder, which I led using this haggadah posted for all to use by the Jewish Federations of North America.

I roasted a leg of lamb for the main course.

Mama Judy taught me how to make her matzoh balls and her charoset. And I made my own horseradish sauce to serve with the gefilte fish and the lamb.

We drank three orphaned bottles from the Hippie Six-Pack — a gently sparkling Cortese and a still Barbera by Valli Unite and Tony Coturri’s Sandocino.

The Barbera by Valli Unite is one of the best wines I’ve tasted in 2011 and it is simply SINGING right now. Cannot drink enough of it. All of the wines were made using native, ambient yeasts… definitely not kosher for Passover (and we obviously don’t keep a kosher kitchen) but it was interesting to contemplate the role of yeast in the religion of Natural wine and Passover. If humankind’s use of yeast is the rational distortion of nature (as Lévi-Strauss interpreted it), Passover is the festival that removes yeast from our lives, instructing us to banish yeast from our homes. A rational distortion of a rational distortion? Of course, the Passover seder could not be complete or completed without wine. And so yeast is inevitably and invariably part of the ritual. (The best source for kosher for Passover wines, btw imho, is our favorite wine writer and one of our favorite people in the world, Alice Feiring.)

Three generations sat at our dining room table for our first Passover seder. As I led the seder and read the words, “It is because of what G-d did for me when I came out of Egypt,” I thought about the generation of my family who fled Eastern Europe at the turn of the last century, before the Russian revolution, to make a better life for their children in the U.S. For all the headaches and troubles we deal with on a day-to-day basis, we sure have a good life and we sure are lucky to have each other.

Hag sameach, ya’ll!

Fernet Branca shakerato, the only way I drink it

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Above: Fernet Branca shakerato at Tony’s in Houston.

Mama Judy flew into Houston yesterday and we’ll be celebrating the Passover tomorrow evening in Austin. And last night, the Branch, Levy, Kelly, and Parzen families gathered at Tony’s for una cena da leoni — an epic meal.

And after such a sumptuous and rich meal (see below), I must have a Fernet Branca — shakerato (chilled, shakered, and strained), the only way I drink it.

My relationship with the storied and celebrated digestivo stretches back to my earliest days as a copywriter in the early aughts back in NYC. My first gig was as editor of the Fernet Branca monthly newsletter.

At the time (before the tragedy of September 11, 2001), Fernet Branca had just reopened its bottling facility in TriBeCa. It was an amazing space: until the 1980s, when the US FDA blocked the import of Fernet Branca because it was still being sold as a drug (!), it was so popular in this country that the company continued to operate its 1930s-era bottling facility in lower Manhattan. When the US government blocked its sale, Fernet Branca hastily abandoned and boarded up the place, leaving the entire operation in place. In the late 90s, they decided to reopen it as the headquarters for a relaunch of the brand (which, by that time, was coming into the country legally, classified and regulated as a spirit).

The most amazing part of the facility was the counterfeit detection laboratory. The brand was so popular — before, during, and after Prohibition, when it was marketed as a “tonic” and regulated as a drug — that the company devoted significant resources to its anti-counterfeit operation. The laboratory — like a set from Young Frankenstein — was a museum of Fernet Branca imitators and pirates. Cobwebs and a patina of nearly two decades of dust. An amazing sight…

During my tenure as the editor of the Fernet Branca newsletter (which ended when the tragedy of 2001 reshaped the landscape of that neighborhood), I traveled twice to the Fernet Branca distillery in Milan and it was fascinating experience to learn the secrets and study the history of this brandy infused with mushrooms and herbs — the restaurant and bartending professional’s digestif of choice in this country (just ask any bartender).

Highlights from dinner…

Tony’s famous “Greenberg” salad. (I must confess that besides writing a hit song, I also aspire to having a salad named after me.)

Gnocchi “Primavera” with fiddlehead greens and Washington state ramps. Delicious…

Whole, salt-encrusted Gulf of Mexico red snapper, filleted tableside…

And then dressed in a reduction of guineafowl jus and Barolo… This dish wowed our table of ten…

Tracie P was truly aglow last night… more beautiful than ever… Mrs. and Rev. B drove in from Orange just to see everyone and break bread together (photo by cousin Dana).

Cousin Marty is now more than halfway through his treatment (very tough, as you can imagine, but he’s soldiering through it). He rallied to be with us last night. It just wouldn’t be a dinner at Tony’s without Marty: “If I’m going out to eat,” he exclaimed the day before with the panache that I love him for, “it’s going to be at Tony’s!”

A wonderful, wonderful, unforgettable night… a table of ten, celebrating the lives of our families, remembering how lucky we are to be here and to be together, and dreaming of the future… at the table of a great friend…

Strangers in the Night: slowdancing with Tracie P

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Thinking back to that first email, that first date, that first dance, and that first kiss, it’s hard not to marvel at how two “strangers in the night, two lonely people” managed to find each other — the one in Austin, Texas, the other in San Diego, California — in this world and in this lifetime. Thankfully, we did find each other. And now, on this early Sunday morning, as Tracie P slumbers peacefully and the thrill of what our future holds fills me with so much excitement that I cannot sleep, my heart and mind are filled with joy and wonder.

The night we finished recording the rhythm tracks for the band’s new album week before last, we went to hear our producer and friend David Garza perform at the Continental Club (those are David’s paintings on the walls, btw).

With Tracie P as my muse, my songs had begun to come to life that day, just one of the great miracles borne out of a glance exchanged by two lonely bloggers back in the summer of 2008…

Strangers in the night exchanging glances
Wondering in the night
What were the chances we’d be sharing love
Before the night was through.

Something in your eyes was so inviting,
Something in your smile was so exciting,
Something in my heart,
Told me I must have you.

Strangers in the night, two lonely people
We were strangers in the night
Up to the moment
When we said our first hello.
Little did we know
Love was just a glance away,
A warm embracing dance away and –

Ever since that night we’ve been together.
Lovers at first sight, in love forever.
It turned out so right,
For strangers in the night.

Love was just a glance away,
A warm embracing dance away

Ever since that night we’ve been together.
Lovers at first sight, in love forever.
It turned out so right,
For strangers in the night.

I love you, Tracie P. I love you more than words can say. And I will spend the rest of my days trying to find a way to let you know just how much I love and adore you… “It turned out so right for strangers in the night.”

01 Barbaresco Pora and the best friend of my brother who died

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Every five years or so, I get an email from Professor Wilkins (above) and before email, I’d get a letter or a phone call. “I want to know how you’re doing and what’s going on in your life,” he’d say. A million happy questions would follow, with him wanting to know every detail of the vicissitudes of my life, studies, work, etc.

You see Professor Wilkins — David — was the best friend of my eldest brother, ten years my senior, Aaron Louis Parzen, who died in 1972 when he was fifteen in a car accident not long after my family moved to San Diego from Chicago, where he and Aaron both attended middle school at the University of Chicago Laboratory School. Today, David — Professor Wilkins (here’s the Wiki entry devoted to him) — is one of the leading law scholars in the country, with a chair at Harvard, and he moves and works within some of the most rarefied circles of our country (“the first lady was a student of mine,” he told me last night). A celebrity in his field, he was in San Diego last night to give a private lecture to a law firm.

I hadn’t traded messages with David for some time and although I began writing about wine more than 13 years ago, he and I never made the connection to his interest in wine until he stumbled upon my blog. As it turns out, David began collecting wine in the mid-1980s, before the crush of wine culture seethed in the U.S. in the mid-1990s. “I read [Robert Parker’s] Wine Advocate when it was still a photocopied report,” he joked.

Wanting to share a special bottle with him, I reached deep into my San Diego wine locker yesterday and grabbed a bottle of 2001 Pora by Produttori del Barbaresco (above). The wine was remarkably tight for this regularly more generous cru but as it opened up and began to reveal its fruit, it sang stupendously in the glass. As much as I oppose the fetishization of old wine (and those who cry “infanticide!” when you open “young” Nebbiolo), I have to say that the wines of Produttori del Barbaresco only get better over time and this wine was still extremely youthful — like a teenager full of energy and promise and brilliance and power — however cut short by life’s vicissitudes.

My memories of Aaron are fleeting and distant. I was five when he died. I believe that I see Aaron in David the same way that David sees Aaron in me. Not that I’m as brilliant or handsome or athletic as Aaron was (and he was): we see Aaron in each other because that’s where he lives — in our memories, in our hearts, and in our dreams. When he died, I became the “middle child” and as cliché as it sounds, I have followed the path of the middle child, pursuing music and writing, while my brothers have enjoyed immensely successful careers as lawyers and now in public service. However unlikely our bond, Aaron’s memory links me to David and as it turns out, the vicissitudes of life have formed an unexpected and equally happy bond between us — through wine.

As we chatted last night over dinner and ten-year-old Nebbiolo, David told me the same stories about Aaron that he tells me every time we connect. And like every time, they brought tears to my eyes and laughter to my heart as the bitterness of the tannin and the sweetness of the fruit danced in our glasses.

SP68, pizza, and cousin Marty is doing good…

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You can only imagine my thrill at seeing Cousins Joanne and Marty — front and center — last night at my wine seminar at Caffè Bello in Houston. That’s Marty in the foreground at dinner, together with friends Mary Ellen and Dr. Don, FoodPrincess, Delia and VintageTexas, and Tamara and Houston Foodie (Houston Foodie has just relaunched his excellent food blog with a superb post on Neapolitan pizza, btw).

The pizza at Caffè Bello was delicious and I am always geeked to drink Arianna Occhipinti’s SP68 — “Strada Proviniciale 68,” an impeccably Natural, reclassified Cerasuolo di Vittoria (Nero d’Avola and Frappato), named after provincial road 68 where it is raised in the province of Ragusa, Sicily.

Marty’s still got a ways to go before he turns the corner on this mean ol’ cancer… but it’s looking good and, man, this dude still runs circles around me… Me and Tracie P love him a lot…

Cancer awareness day

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Cousin Marty, whom we love very much, is beginning his cancer treatment today. (Donna Vallone baked him that cake on Saturday, when Marty went to Tony’s for one of his “pre-chemo me” dinners, as he likes to call them.)

In his honor, I’m devoting today’s post to cancer awareness by asking you to check out the “Blue Cure” campaign authored by my colleague and friend Gabe Canales (below).

Gabe, one of the top publicists and marketers in the country, was diagnosed with prostate cancer in his mid-thirties and he’s now leading a campaign to raise awareness of the disease among young men. Check out his site here.

Today’s post is also devoted to the victims of the recent tragedy in Japan (I’m currently working on a benefit concert to be held later this month in Austin at Vino Vino — more on that later this week).

@Marty Tracie P and I and the whole family are thinking of you and sending you lots of love today.

Tracie P’s amazing pot stickers

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Anyone who has had the good fortune to dine in the home of Michele and Charles Scicolone has heard the ritornello before.

“I am truly blessed,” says Charles when asked what it is like to live with one of the first ladies of Italian cuisine in the U.S. today, author and Italian food authority, the lovely Michele, one of the best cooks I’ve ever met.

I couldn’t help but borrow Charles’s mantra last night at dinner, when I tasted Tracie P’s pot stickers, stuffed with minced pork, scallions, garlic, ginger, sesame oil, and Napa cabbage.

They were unbelievably delicious… The dough was light in body but rich in flavor (imparted from the filling) and the filling maintained its integrity and cohesive texture when you bit into the dumplings after dunking in the soy sauce, rice vinegar, and sugar dipping sauce.

It’s been so great to relax at home with my beloved Tracie P… sitting around in our PJs until noon, cooking, and eating… and just hanging out… I love her so much and she’s SO good to me…

Lot’s more to say about the last Italy trip, with many more posts to follow… but for the time being, I just want to relive those pot stickers and a bottle of Taittinger NV La Francaise one more time… aaaaaaa…

I can’t smile without her

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Photo by Riccardo Zanotto.

I’ve been weepy all day since Alfonso and I took her to the airport this morning and she departed for Texas.

We had such an amazing “second honeymoon” in Italy. The sun has never shone so bright, the colors have never been so brilliant, the flavors and aromas have never been so satisfying and rewarding… Just yesterday I gazed upon her by the clear, fresh, and sweet waters and today I have only my salty tears to console me in the emptiness she leaves behind…

I just can’t smile without her…