Wax-covered Chianti Bottles

...and red-checkered tablecloths.

Do those two things bring anything to mind?

Those are the images of Italian restaurants starting from the 1950s and going at least until the late 70s. How times and menus have changed in America's ristorante Italiani.

That being said, I went back in time with this week's dish and made the good old standard, "Eggplant Parmesan."

This dish requires four separate stages or processes, which is a bit unusual for any of my recipes, for as you know, I favor simplicity in pursuit of accessibility.

Nevertheless, it's important to liberally salt the eggplant slices in order to leech out the bitter liquid, as it is equally important to rinse off the salt and dry the slices. Then the slices must be dredged and fried. You have to make a sauce (well, you could actually use something from a jar, but why would you?); and then you have to bake a casserole.

But if you follow the steps, you'll end up with a succulent dish that gets even better as a leftover. Here's the video, followed by the recipe:

2 large eggplants

kosher salt

1 28 oz. can whole peeled tomatoes

1 large garlic clove, minced

1 1/2 cups olive oil for sauce and frying

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup fine dry bread crumbs

6 large eggs, beaten

1 1/2 lbs. Mozzarella cheese sliced into 1/4-inch rounds

1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 cup basil leaves, packed tightly

Cut eggplants lengthwise into 1/4-inch thick slices. Arrange one layer in the bottom of a large colander and sprinkle evenly and generously with salt. Repeat with remaining eggplant slices. Let drain for 2 hours.

While eggplant is draining, prepare the tomato sauce by combining the tomatoes, garlic and 1/3 cup of olive oil in a food processor. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.

When the eggplant has drained, press down on it to remove any excess liquid, then rinse with cold water and pat dry. Lay the slices out to dry further on paper towels.

Set up a three station dredge with flour in the first, beaten eggs in the second and breadcrumbs in the third.

Heat the rest of the oil in a deep skillet and fry the dredged eggplant slices until golden brown on each side. Drain again on paper towels.

Preheat the oven to 350. In the bottom of a glass casserole dish spread a cup of the tomato sauce. Top with one third of the eggplant slices. Top the eggplant with half the Mozzarella slices. Top with a third of the Parmesan cheese and half of the basil.

Repeat wit another layer of eggplant, cheeses and basil. Top with remaining tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese.

Bake for about 40 to 45 minutes until cheese is bubbly and just beginning to brown.

The Starbucking of New York

The city I've called home twice in my career has changed -- and not for the better, in my opinion. I just returned from a business/pleasure trip to New York and I didn't care much for what I saw.

Midtown Manhattan has been overtaken -- conquered might be a better word -- by Starbucks. There's one on every block. Sometimes two. And New Yorkers are famously so blase about most everything, I think that maybe they haven't even noticed.

The last time I lived in New York (paying more in rent for my one-bedroom apartment than my wife and I paid for the mortgage on our three-bedroom home), there was a sense of community in each neighborhood in Manhattan. Yes, despite the massive skyscrapers and never-ending traffic, the luxury retailers and department stores, Manhattan is actually a conglomeration of neighborhoods. And each has its own character.

Even Midtown used to have locally-owned coffee shops, diners, groceries and the like. They're still there, but not in the numbers they used to be. Companies like Starbucks have squeezed out most of the independent coffee shops and diners, not unlike Wal-Mart decimating downtown retail everywhere it builds one of its massive boxes.

I was actually on a mission to bring back a piece of New York that I truly miss: full sour kosher dill pickles. These are not available anywhere else in the world except in New York delis. And the delis that I used to patronize for lunch are long gone. Even the 800-pound gorillas -- the Carnegie Deli and the Stage Delicatessen -- are out of business. A piece of New York that's gone forever.

Now that doesn't mean that New York doesn't have good places to eat. It's still the center of the American culinary universe. Happily, I did eat some excellent meals and not once did I ever have to tell a bartender that a martini without vermouth is not a martini.

Here are a few of the dishes we had at Cellini, a well-known and long-established Italian restaurant in midtown Manhattan: From top to bottom: Caprese salad with roasted red peppers, capers, yellow tomato slice, fresh mozzarella, basil and balsamic syrup; Tuna carpaccio; Seafood Rissotto; and Rack of Veal.

Coincidentally, this week's Kitchen Guy episode is also an Italian dish: Flank Steak Tagliata. Here's the video and the recipe:

2 lbs. flank steak
Coarse salt and black peppercorns
Several sprigs of rosemary
6 garlic cloves, sliced thin
Extra virgin olive oil
Arugula or Radicchio
Parmesan or Pecorino Roman wedge
Lemon wedges for garnish

Lay flank steak on a baking sheet and season well on both sides with coarse salt and ground black peppercorns. Strip the rosemary sprigs and press leaves and garlic slices into the meat. Then coat the flank steak with a thin film of olive oil and "massage" the meat. Leave the meat at room temperature for about an hour.

While the meat is marinating, heat the oven to 450 and place a cast iron pan or grill pan on the bottom rack and let it heat up with the oven.

Carefully remove the pan from the oven and place the flank steak in the pan and return it to the oven to cook for about 5 minutes. Then flip the meat (make sure the bottom is well-seared) and cook for an additional 4 minutes for medium rare, longer for medium.

Remove the pan and place the steak on a cutting board to rest for about 10 minutes.

Cut the meat against the grain, on the diagonal. Arrange on a platter on top of arugula or radicchio and garnish with lemon wedges. Shave Parmesan or Pecorino from the wedge with a vegetable peeler.

Sint Maarten/Saint Martin "Food Coma"

PORT LA ROYALE, Marigot, French West Indies — This is a story about family as much as it is about food.

Cugini is the Italian word for cousins. It’s also the name of the best new restaurant we found in our annual visit to Saint Martin. The name is eponymous because two cousins own this restaurant. It’s actually one of those reunion stories that you might see on TV. Sam and Tony were each born in Sicily. When Sam was a young boy, his family emigrated to Toronto. Tony’s family stayed in Sicily. They never really knew each other. But in a chance meeting just a couple of years while Sam and his wife, Francesca, were visiting Saint Martin, brought these two cousins together. Tony is a well-known restaurateur on the island and when they discovered each other and learned of one anothers’ love of food, it was a natural that they should open up a restaurant together.

I am so glad they did!

My friend Topper Daboul, the restaurateur whom I wrote about last week, invited my wife and me, along with his wife Melanie, and a few others, to take a boat ride across Simpson Bay into Marigot’s Port La Royale, on the French side of the island. Topper being half Sicilian told us we were about to have one of the best Italian meals ever.

He didn’t exaggerate.

I brought my camera and so I could illustrate as well as describe this incredible lunch, starting with a gorgeous antipasto with antipastoProsciutto sliced so thin you could see through it; Capiccola so flavorful; Genoa salami with just the right bite; and a beautiful Caprese, consisting of sweet cherry tomatoes, fresh basil and freshly made mozzarella cheese. The fruitiness of the extra virgin olive oil made it all absolutely perfect. I could have been happy eating this antipasto all afternoon, but our “cugino” Sam kept bringing more and more food to the table.

Next came house-made pasta in a meat sauce similar to the Bolognese style, but distinctly Sicilian in pastaflavor and seasoning. At the same time, he brought gnocchi in the same sauce, so we ate them together. These gnocchi were so light and delicate, they melted in your mouth. “Mangia, mangia! (Eat, eat!),” Sam urged. Not one of us at the table had to be told twice, as we scarfed up every last one of those gnocchi.

Pasta-making is an art in itself and the best Italian cooks make it by feel. Humidity changes affect the texture of the dough. You have to get your hands in it and at Cugini, it’s clear that these are very skilled hands.
Just when we thought the last gnoccho was gone, Sam brought to the table a whole platter of more, this time in a tangy and creamy Gorgonzola sauce. And he wasn’t finished. Because at the same time, he also brought two varieties of cugini lasagna, one with a meat sauce and the second with spinach. I told Topper that I was about to lapse into a food coma, because here it was midday and we had already eaten the equivalent of four meals — plus unending glasses of Sancerre Blanc.

Surely, you didn’t think we were finished, did you?! Sam insisted that we try one of each of his desserts:
Tiramisu, Tarte Tatin, and Chocolate Cake with a liquid center. I’ve made my own version of tiramisu and I’ve eaten it at countless restaurants. But I’ve never had one with the mascarpone cheese incorporated with whipped cream that was so light and airy. I also make Tarte Tatin. I think mine’s pretty good, but Sam’s had a quality that I have been unable to duplicate in the way the caramel developed around the apples. The chocolate cake also had a quality to it that spoke to me of some very high quality and high percentage of cacao content.

If we would have allowed it, Sam would have kept bringing food and wine to the table. As hearty as my appetite is, I was stuffed. But we weren’t finished! My wife and I decided we had to pay a second visit, but this time for dinner. I didn’t bring my camera and I regret that I cannot show you the beautiful food we ate, but we started with a glass of champagne (I thought it might have been Prosecco, the Italian sparkling wine, but I wasn’t complaining!). Sam didn’t even have to ask. He just knew instinctively that we had to have that antipasto again. This time, instead of the Caprese component, he served marinated mushrooms and artichokes with sun-dried tomatoes. Delicious. We then had the Cugini Sicilian Salad, with the freshest tomatoes, onions and herbs, along with capers and beautifully ripened Sicilian olives.

For her entree, my wife chose Sicilian Scampi, a succulent shrimp dish with a tangy and spicy red sauce, interspersed with sautéed slices of fresh garlic. I had a grilled veal chop, perfectly cooked to medium rare with some of that house-made pasta on the side. We complimented our meal with a bottle of a moderately priced Tuscan red wine. (And I couldn’t say no to another tiramisu.)

I was impressed with the care Sam and his staff took to make sure that everything they served was to the highest standard. The restaurant is not fancy by any means. Like the food, it’s very simple. But make no mistake: Simple food, expertly made as it is at Cugini, is a gift. Furthermore, while we had only two encounters with Sam, he treated us as if we were family. How can you not love a place like that?

Cugini is open only four months of the year. I am so happy that my annual time in Sint Maarten/Saint Martin coincides with one of those months!

* * * * *

SIMPSON BAY, Sint Maarten, Dutch West Indies – This will be this season’s final column about restaurants in Sint Maarten/Saint Martin. And in this one, you’ll get two-for-one because they are owned and operated by the same person.

And these two are as different as night and day and, though the cuisine is Italian, neither resembles the Italian food I wrote about at Cugini.

Let’s begin with IZI (pronounced, “easy”). Located in a new shopping plaza on the always busy Welfare Road just past Simpson Bay, it is a starkly modern building with cascading water on the front windows. They call themselves an “Italian Pasta Lounge,” and it’s an absolutely perfect name.

I must tell you that we visited IZI last year not long after it opened and, while the food was very good, it was so incredibly noisy we decided that we probably wouldn’t return. Fortunately for us, we heard that sound baffles had been installed. What a difference. You could actually carry on a conversation with the person or people at your table. Last year, you had to yell your order to the waiter and he was standing right next to you.
That’s one of things that I really like – not just about IZI – but its owner, David Foini, who also owns the best fine dining Italian establishment on Sint Maarten, La Gondola, listens to his customers and he responds.
At this point you may be saying to yourself that pasta is pasta. But pasta at IZI is quite different, and you’d see that right away as soon as you open the innovative menu.

You have a choice of three groups of pastas – special pastas such as filled pastas or gnocchi; regular styles such as spaghetti, rigatoni, bowtie or linguine; and finally, a choice of two pastas made with whole wheat.
The IZI menu then gives you additional choices for sauces and toppings which they group as “colors,” such as Red Sauces (pomodoro, Arrabbiata, Bolognese, Campagnola, and Amatriciana); “Blue” toppings – a reference to seafood such as mussels, shrimp, salmon or fuitti di mare; the White Sauces containing cream of cheese or both, including Carbonara, Alfredo, Quattro Formaggi, and Mushroom; and finally, the Green, which includes oil and garlic, basil pesto or sautéed vegetables including zucchini, eggplant and peppers in marinara.

You can make a nearly endless variety of combinations and each is priced from a low of $10.95 to a high of $22.95. I think the concept is unique and borders on genius, and it’s ripe for franchising – a concept not lost on Signore Foini.

There were eight of us in our group and with cocktails beforehand and wine with dinner, each tab ran right around $80 per couple. And even though it was pasta, it felt fairly close to a fine dining experience. That was due in part to the presence of an expert and personable chef and a friendly and knowledgeable wait staff.

Just a few nights beforehand, we had the pleasure of dining with Davide Foini along with friends and he and his brilliant Chef Matteo put on a seven-course tasting menu dinner for us that was extraordinary.

But here’s the thing: The dog ate my homework. I have torn my luggage and briefcase apart looking for my notes on this beautiful dinner and the wines Davide chose to accompany it. I can’t find them, so I cannot give you the detail.

But let me advise this: If you have the good fortune to be in Sint Maarten and you want a fine dining Italian experience, make your way to La Gondola in the Atlantis Casino complex in Cupecoy.

Here’s the way I think you should do Italian in Sint Maarten/Saint Martin. Begin with the trattoria/wine bar I wrote about last week, Cugini, in the French part; then go to IZI on the Dutch side; and lastly, go to La Gondola, located almost directly in between.

For a French and Dutch island, they sure know how to do Italian.

That’s it for this year’s Caribbean Gastronomic Vacation. Back to “normal subjects” next time. Ciao!