Barricelli - The Seasonal Baker: Easy Recipes from My Home Kitchen to Make Year-Round

Copyright 2012 by John Barricelli
Photographs copyright 2011 by Ben Fink

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Clarkson Potter/Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.clarksonpotter.com

CLARKSON POTTER is a trademark and POTTER with colophon is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Barricelli, John.
The Seasonal Baker/John Barricelli. 1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Cooking (Fruit) 2. Cooking (Vegetables) 3. Baking. I. SoNo Baking Company & Caf (South Norwalk, Conn.) II. Title.
TX811.B36 2012
641.64dc23 2011027042

eISBN: 978-0-307-95188-5

Book design by Ashley Tucker based on an original design by Jennifer K. Beal Davis
Jacket design by Ashley Tucker
Jacket photography by Ben Fink

v3.1_r1

I have two great passions: baking and family. The first is probably genetic. My great-grandfather Giuseppe Barricelli was a baker from the Italian city of Nola, in the Campania region south of Naples. He settled with his family in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, at the turn of the twentieth century. He opened a panetteria there, making breads and desserts in a coal-fired brick oven to sell from his sidewalk cart. My grandfather Anthony worked in the bakery before giving up the business to become an electrician. My dad was an electrician like his father, but he knew his way around a kitchen, too.

I grew up in Valley Stream, Long Island, number six of eight brothers. It took me a while to find my way to baking, but I was always interested in food. There isnt anything I wont eat: anchovies, okra, you name it. I loved pizza as a kid. (I still do.) I used to sneak up the street to Marios, the neighborhood pizza place, to watch them make their doughs. And I have fond memories of stealing sacks of Marios flour for flour fights with the neighborhood kids.

My mom died the summer after third grade. My dad and my grandmother taught me to cook. I used to help my dad prepare dinners, prepping for him after school while he was working. And every Sunday, for as long as I can remember, we had dinner at my grandparents house.

My grandparents Anthony and Julia lived in Williamsburg in a four-story house stuffed with three generations of Barricellis. What a scene. The familys kitchen and dining room were in the basement. Sundays at one oclock, the whole clanaunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, and cousinswould descend into the basement for dinner. We didnt surface until six oclock in the evening. My dad always gave us the option of staying home, but I dont remember missing one Sunday dinner there. I used to look forward to it all week long.

The dining room table was probably about twenty feet long, but it seemed endless. It seated twenty to thirty family members and a rotating cast of characters. Side tables were set up for the kids. My grandmother and Aunt Ida were at the stove and they cooked and fed the never-ending stream of people all day long. There was always a pot of gravy (our term for tomato sauce) on the stove. Julia and Ida made everything: roasted chicken, eggplant dishes, lasagne, baked ziti, my grandmothers escarole pie. Aunt Idas fried chicken was incredible. One of the dishes I remember most clearly though was my grandmothers antipasto, a simple dish with great roasted peppers, dried meats, provolone cheese, and olives. She always finished it with a good olive oil. To this day, every time I have an antipasto at a restaurant, I think of her.

Squares of store-bought filo dough are brushed with butter for .

Desserts at Sunday dinner were seasonal. In the summer, we enjoyed my grandfather Tonys sliced peaches marinated in red wine. For Easter, he made a traditional Neapolitan pie filled with a sweetened ricottawheat berry mixture. And there was always a selection of biscotti.

After dinner, my grandmother would load up our car with trays of more food to get my dad through the week. She included sandwiches to get us through the thirty-minute ride homeyes, by the time we got in the car, we were already hungry again!

When my dad died during my senior year of high school, I took over the cooking for my brothers. I made the dishes Id learned to cook: the meatballs and gravy, the meatloaf, the tuna salad, and the mac-and-cheese.

I dont know whether my parents were watching out for me from above or Ive just been lucky. But people have always been there to offer help when I needed it. I got my start in restaurants with Rick Steffann, the chef at River Caf in Brooklyn. I got my first taste of baking there, too. I loved the kitchen so much that I applied and was accepted to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. From there, a friend of the family helped me get an externship at the Louis XVI restaurant in New Orleans, one of the most elegant restaurants in the French Quarter. I drove there alone from Long Island, with a life-size stuffed animal in the passenger seat for company. I was eighteen years old (and looked about twelve).

In New Orleans, I met a young French woman, Babette, who later introduced me to the delights of French pastry when I visited her in Paris. I explored the outdoor markets in the morning and spent my days shopping, cooking, and eating. Paris is where I tasted my first clair, raspberry tart, tarte Tatin, and apple charlotte.

I honed my pastry technique at some of the best places in New York, including the Helmsley Palace Hotel, the Pierre Hotel, the Four Seasons Hotel, and the restaurant Le Bernardin. I returned to Europe several times to expand my pastry skills and take classes at La Varenne and Le Cordon Bleu cooking schools. I studied Italian cuisine and bread-baking in Italy and fell in love with the street food of Bologna. Ive owned and operated several bakeries of my own since then, including my current bakery, SoNo Baking Company, in Norwalk, Connecticut.