There's a reason why "scungilli" makes you think of your bathtub
My neighborhood has been host to the Feast of San Gennaro, being that my neighborhood is Little Italy, the hub of all things Italian in Manhattan. Seeing as it is a feast in that bastion of good old traditional Italian cooking, I became aware of a craving for fried calamari. It didn't help that all blocks leading to and from my apartment were lined with varied and sundry fried goodies, including, but not limited to: sausage and peppers, cheese steak, funnel cakes, and yes, even Snickers bars.
So one day earlier this week, when hunger had stricken and the pantry was bare, I knew it was the time. I had fared well Sunday night after the show (about which I will blog as soon as I have pix) with a choice of sausage & peppers from the corner of Mulberry & Houston that was ginormous (and also so yummy that I declined to share any with Gabe...that's right folks, I was like a mother bear with a cub...that I was eating...hmmm). Anyway, I felt that my chances were good at having a satisfactory rendezvous with that most culinarily capricious frutti di mare, the squid.
I. was. wrong.
What I purchased from the vendors at the San Gennaro was possibly the worst...no, it WAS the worst calamari I have ever had in my life. And I'm from Pittsburgh!!!
What I paid $8 for ($7 + $1 tip for the girl to scoop it into a paper bowl) was redolent of aged rubber bands, battered in the skin from the underside of Grandmama Giannini's arms and not so much fried as somehow dessicated, perhaps through some judicious use of silica gel (you know, the stuff they use to keep the insides of purses dry). I was so appalled, that were it not for my innate inability to deal with confrontation, I would've walked right back up to the stand, looked the girl straight in the eye and proclaimed,
"You should be ASHAMED to sell this."
As it was, I threw most of it away. And then I purchased a Chinese steamed chicken bun for 75 cents.
And, boy was it fucking good.
So one day earlier this week, when hunger had stricken and the pantry was bare, I knew it was the time. I had fared well Sunday night after the show (about which I will blog as soon as I have pix) with a choice of sausage & peppers from the corner of Mulberry & Houston that was ginormous (and also so yummy that I declined to share any with Gabe...that's right folks, I was like a mother bear with a cub...that I was eating...hmmm). Anyway, I felt that my chances were good at having a satisfactory rendezvous with that most culinarily capricious frutti di mare, the squid.
I. was. wrong.
What I purchased from the vendors at the San Gennaro was possibly the worst...no, it WAS the worst calamari I have ever had in my life. And I'm from Pittsburgh!!!
What I paid $8 for ($7 + $1 tip for the girl to scoop it into a paper bowl) was redolent of aged rubber bands, battered in the skin from the underside of Grandmama Giannini's arms and not so much fried as somehow dessicated, perhaps through some judicious use of silica gel (you know, the stuff they use to keep the insides of purses dry). I was so appalled, that were it not for my innate inability to deal with confrontation, I would've walked right back up to the stand, looked the girl straight in the eye and proclaimed,
"You should be ASHAMED to sell this."
As it was, I threw most of it away. And then I purchased a Chinese steamed chicken bun for 75 cents.
And, boy was it fucking good.
posted by Brenda at 1:28 AM
4 What'd you say?
that's the weird thing about your area (where you live, not "your area" you perv) is that some places have great food and others have midnight burgers that give you a case of the trots.
It's not the midnight burgers that gave you the trots...it's the 10 vodka & sodas followed by two beers that gave you the trots...the midnight burger just gave it material.
Ewwwwwwww.....
Aw -- get a room, you two!
I would've gone for some zeppole myself. Nothing like a sweet sweet dough-cloud, crunchy on the outside, puffy and floaty on the inside, edible for the 120 seconds after it leaves the fryer and thereafter akin to a powdered-sugar-covered doorstop. Wow, I wish I had some of that right now. But that's just me.
trots...with substance...ewwww is right. lol
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