Breaking Bread with Tom Papa - Episode 34 - It's the End of the Year!

Episode Date: December 29, 2020

Let's talk about the Feast of Seven Fishes, making a BIG dish during this final week and a Quick Bite with Mr. New Year's Eve himself, Dave Hill.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hey, don't you know? Hey, it's also a show. Hey, everybody, welcome to another edition of Breaking Bread with Tom Papa. I am Tom Papa. Happy, happy, happy, holidays, happy end of the year. We made it. We're here. We've done it. Man, we've done it. We've done so much. We made it through Fourth of July. We made it through Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Kwanza, Christmas. We've got New Year's Eve to knock out. Come on, we can do it. We're so close. Whenever I hear people talk about whether or not we're going to go back to the way things were, I'm almost shocked by the ignorance of that question. I almost think like it's almost somebody just trying to come up with small talk and what ifs and what have yous.

Are you insane? Do you think for one moment that we're going to hang in this state when we were all vaccinated up and the virus has become as small as any other virus that's out? Are you drunk? We will be going crazy. We will be eating in restaurants. We will be hugging strangers. We will be at live music events and comedy events. And it is going to be like nothing we've seen before.

What do you mean? Are we going to go back? Are we going to have shows again? Are we going to sit and rest? Are we going to fly? Yes. Yes, you nincom poop you. You confused, frightened person hiding under an Afghan in your living room. Depressed, no, we are going to go completely insane. I have been doing my best to celebrate in any way that I can.

We have dressed the house up. We have put the lights around. We have done all the things that, make it look a little different. We have had no, no family, no travel, none of that stuff. And like everything that we've done, you go through it, you do it, and it's not exactly the same, but it's this good Frankenstein version of what you like to do. And that's enough. And you are grateful and thankful and move forward and all that good stuff. But you know in your heart of hearts, that if allowed to do otherwise, you will do it. Thank you all for a wonderful year. We started this podcast up halfway through the year,

and it has been great. It has been great. It has been fun, and I know that we're going to continue doing this for a long, long time. I like the contact that we've made. I thank you for subscribing, and I thank you for giving your comments and showing up online and sharing all.

of your dishes and your inspiration and your breads and your things. And this is the whole comedy, food, enjoying your life community that we're building is great. And I hope you're enjoying it as much as I am. I am broadcasting to you today from a cold and rainy Los Angeles, California, which is so delightful. It's nice with the sun and all that good stuff. But around the holidays when you just, you want to cut down the options of what you can do. I was very jealous of all of you back east who had a beautiful snowstorm. And it made me think that maybe I need some younger friends because there was a lot of friends that I contacted who when I said, I can't believe it's snowing. You're so lucky. And they said, yeah, what a pain in the ass. Really? Pain in the

ass. How old are you? We're going to have a quick bite with Dave Hill today. because he is who I celebrated last New Year's Eve with, and I want to check in with him. He is in Cleveland, where he has been hiding out this entire time, and I want to touch base with him. He was hammered last New Year's Eve in a way that I've not only not seen Dave hammer before, but I've not seen many people hammered that way before. It was so great, but, you know, take Dave Hill and make him sloppy drum.

it's going to be delightful. And he was. I was a little worried that he wouldn't get home, but he made it and he lived and he will be hopping on the phone with us for a quick bite in a little bit. We have a great bunch of shows coming in the beginning of next year, first of which is Apollonia, Poulon, who is the heir and creator, not creator, owner of the Poulon Bakeries in Paris and London, and they sent me these beautiful breads, and we've already had the conversation. She's a delight. You're going to love her. And also going to be talking with Jim Gaffigan and a bunch of other great comedians. And we're going to keep the whole thing of just joy-filled fun. Coming your way, kids, coming your way. What have I been eating? What have I been eating, you ask? What have I not been

eating. I have been on a tear. But I have to say, uh, on a tear with good things is, uh, not, it doesn't do that much damage. The desserts, the desserts are breaking me. When you brush your teeth at night and then for some reason, forget something, walk through the kitchen and eat two more cookies, you know you're in the holidays. And you know, you've got to be. You know, you've got to to get this stuff out of your house. Right now I am drinking a black verve coffee, which is so delicious. It was a pourover, dripped while I was creating the elements that are going to go into a Stolen. A Stolen is a German holiday bread started in the 1300s. It is not something that anyone in my family is going to enjoy. I know that already because it's very close to a

fruitcake. It is going to have chunks of citrus and raisins and nuts. And I just listed three things that no one in my house enjoys. But I can't use that as the barometer for what I make because I just want to make it. I want to make something that people were making. during the holidays in Germany in the 1300s. I mean, those smells, those tastes, those textures that I'm creating now, I think that is, there's, could you celebrate any better? I mean, look, we're not running around and going to places. So these are the things, these are the little joys that you find. And I am going to make the Stolen. And I have taken the candied citrus, which I did myself. I learned how to,

take citrus peels and slice them off of the orange and lemons and limes and take off the white rind and boil them down and then end up having them um soaked in sugar water for about an hour and then thrown into a plastic Ziploc bag filled with sugar and coated and then sat for two days to dry and then chopped up into small, small, fine pieces. Look, I've had awful fruit cakes before. I know the jokes. The person online who is telling me how to make the Stolen, they are telling me that this is a game changer

and that making them yourselves, candying these citrus peels yourself, is going to make all the difference in the world and you're going to enjoy it so much. And I'm going to trust this stranger. and then when the bread is finally done, it is coated with a crazy amount of confectionary sugar. It looks like snow. I mean, you got to think back in the 1300s what a treat this would be.

Imagine you're in Germany and you get oranges and limes and lemons and candied and sugar and throw in some raisins. These are like riches and put them all into one thing. There's a little German boy running it through the fields and coming home and smelling the bread and seeing this white icing over the top of the bread that's going to be heaven. And like I said, my family will bite it and be like, ugh, not for me. But I don't care. I'm going to make it and enjoy making it.

And who knows, maybe I won't even like it. There's rum in it. Right now all those things are in a bowl being soaked in rum. And then when we're done with this podcast, I will be rolling into the kitchen and getting into the dough portion of it, and I will make Stollen. I also took a run at Carbonara. I had my good friend Mateo Lane on the program, and he, not on the program, I just called him. He has been on my shows before.

He's wonderful, and he is a great cook, and his favorite dish in the world is Carbonara. and I gave my first attempt at that and it did not go well. But you have guanchale, which is a, it's a richer pancetta. Pinchetta is pork, it's like the bacon. The guanchale is actually the pork cheek and it is a, it's a little saltier, a little lighter, a little more vibrant. And you use that. with egg yolks and it's it's kind of like caccio pepe in that you are creating this pasta and then

you have the creating this little sauce on the side and the whole the real the real of it is if you have the right ingredients it's the going to be the technique and how you're going to spin these together once the pasta is done so that you actually get a creamy sauce and don't cock it up so I gave it my best shot and made some mistakes and then called Mateo and got his advice. So I have a little guanchale left. So I think I'm going to make that as well. On Christmas Eve, I made the feast of the seven fishes, which is an old Italian thing where you make a giant Christmas Eve feast and you include seven different fish dishes. And it's really fun. It's a fun thing to do. And I, kind of cheated a little. I have a crab dip that has crab and oyster in it. I'm counting that as

two. We had my friend John came over and he brought a, what was it? It wasn't sea bass. Some other kind of fish with the face on it. And those were delicious. And then we had shrimp. We had, I made a calamari salad, which is amazing. You boil down calamari and you chop up celery including the leaves, oil, vinegar, fresh garlic, parsley, and black olives. Chop, chop, chop, mix, mix, mix, mix, mix. Easy, peasy, delicious dish. I love it. It's been hanging around the house for a long time.

And so let's count it out. So we had crab, we had oyster, we had shrimp, we had the fish with the face on it, we had calamari, we had, ooh, anchovy toast. This was really nice. I got anchovy toast. I found a recipe that called for what? Sourdough bread. Yes, sourdough bread. That's right. That's right, kids. Just happened to have some. So I sliced that up, put some oil on it, toasted it up on a baking sheet, brought it out, coated with anchovies, parsley. butter, garlic. Oh, man, oh man. I could eat that every day. I am anchovy crazy. There's actually some leftover linguine in the fridge and I was, every time I look at it, I'm like, I should just try and make that anchovy sauce. Again, something my family won't enjoy. The big thing that I made, oh, wait, okay, so that's six. And then the last one, the last fish, oh, was linguine with clam sauce.

That's where the leftover linguine. came from. Clam sauce. Got some small little neck clams and again another little sourdough kismith came in. Take garlic oil and the sourdough bread without the crust throw it into a food processor, mush it all up into this bread crummy mixture. Put that on the side. No, put that into the Dutch. Put that into the Dutch Ops. oven, cook it down with some oil, get it crunchy, put that on the side. Make your linguine and clam sauce. Make you boil up the clams in some white wine and some water and salt, have them open up, become nice and healthy and cooked. Then you throw your cooked linguine on top, you mix that

all together, and then when you're about to serve it, you take your sourdough, garlic, oil, mixture and sprinkle it on top. Delicioso. I have to say, though, for the amount of people that I made it for, I had to make a big bulk of it. Not that we had a huge party, but we had our two pod families come and sit outside with us. And the quantity kind of swallowed up the breadcrumbs. It's almost, the breadcrumbs, like if you were making it at home alone, small like four people, you put each dish out and then put the breadcrumbs on top so you can appreciate it and get them all in there. These just kind of got devoured and mixed up. The biggest thing I made was the lasagnas, which is a Christmas Eve tradition of mine,

and I make a meat lasagna and a veggie lasagna. Both were exceptional. And I think the reason it was exceptional was because this year I made my own sauce. I've been trying to perfect sauces all year, trying to come up with really solid, consistent tomato sauce. And I was like, I'm just going to make a big, giant tub of it. And tub's an awful word. Let's not use tub. Let's say pot.

A giant pot of it. And the sauce, I think, made all of the difference. A lasagna, man, that is a lot of work. I started at nine in the morning. and I was cruising till about two in the afternoon assembling these delicious, great, but it's a lot of work. And I bring this up not as a negative. I bring this up as a positive and as a little suggestion for you. You're coming into New Year's Eve, New Year's Day. You have this kind of limbo in between where you were all kind of hanging out. I recommend making something big, making something a little bigger than you know.

normally make. Make something a little special, a little something that you don't normally do that will take some time and some extra steps, an eggplant parmesan, perhaps, a chicken parmesan, perhaps. Make your own sauce. Make a lasagna. Get in there. Make some kind of my, my nephew made a goose the other night. It's never done that before. Found a goose, hopefully in a supermarket. And, uh, and, and, spent a little extra time and made that. And that is what you should be doing right now. I highly recommend it. Just have it, not that you're going to rush into the kitchen and bang something out, but the kitchen will probably be the place where you're going to spend most of your day. That is a good way to celebrate. And it takes your mind off things. It makes you richer in body

and soul. And then you get to eat it at the end. And what is wrong with that? I would say, nothing, nothing's wrong with that is actually is my little recommendation for you. I made the meat lasagna in a new way where I actually made meatballs, sausage and chopped beef meatballs, which I've been, I've talked about this before. I'm totally into making. Just enjoy getting really good at that with the old homemade sauce and then slice the meatballs and put that in as the lasagna. I got it from, I actually saw it with the sound off John Favreau's chef show, which is amazing. You should definitely watch it on Netflix.

It's so good. And they were making it that way. I didn't hear any of their ingredients. I just was watching it. It was in the background. Music was on. And the kids were doing their thing. And I just saw him making those.

And I was like, oh, that looks good because then I get to make meatball. balls. It came out perfecto. And the veggie one was great too. Chopped up peppers, carrots, celery, and spinach. Use that as the filling. And then of course, the key, finding really good mozzarella and putting the whole thing together. But man, by the end of it, you've used a lot of bowls, a lot of cheese craters, a lot of pots, a lot of pans. It's big. It's big. And, And, but man, satisfying. I still have a little left over. I think it might be too late to eat it now. But to just throw it away is kind of weird. I'll probably eat it. I used, I had a joke about about how gross we are that were really just garbage cans. Have you ever stood in front of the

garbage can scraping food into the garbage and taking bites at the same time? It's like you in the garbage can pretty much the same. Not far off at all. Okay, so we have a great year coming up. I want to thank you all again. I love doing this and I love hearing from all of you, like I've said before. And I just want to read something. I know Italian food was a big part of our journey so far. We talked with Jonathan Waxman at the Barbudo cookbook from Barbudo fame. And we talked with Donna Leonard from Il Bucco. and a lot of other great people. And the sauce that I was perfecting was, of course, came from Marcella Hazan, which is the essentials of classic Italian cooking, which has quickly become one of my favorites. And this cookbook is getting now a lot of stains on it. It's a little sticky.

It has been well used. So I just want to, before we check in with our good friend, Dave Hill, I want to quickly read you the end of the introduction of Marcella Hazan's essentials of classic Italian cooking and why Italian food is so great. This is Marcella Hazan. It is not the created, not to speak of creative cooking of restaurant chefs. It is the cooking that spans remembered history that has evolved during the whole course of transmitted skills. and intuitions in homes throughout the Italian peninsula and the islands, in its hamlets, on its farms, in its great cities. It is cooking from the home kitchen. Of course, there have been,

and there still are, aristocrats' homes, merchants' homes, peasants' homes. But however disparate the amenities, they have one vital thing in common. Food, whether simple or elaborate, is cooked in the style of the family. There is no such thing as Italian hate cuisine because there are no high or low roads in Italian cooking. All roads lead to the home to La Cucina de Casa, the only one that deserves to be called Italian cooking. That is pretty nice.

Okay, we're going to check in with our good friend Dave Hill, see what he's been eating, see what he's going to be doing for New Year's Eve without. me. And again, do something big. Make something big. And look, I'm going to make the Stolen. You can do quick breads. Go online. Look up something quick bread, a quick gingerbread bread. I saw a chocolate candy cane bread. These are easy because you taste all these ingredients, you mush them into one thing, like a banana bread, that kind of thing. But look up online because they're pretty remarkable and easy to make and we'll fill your house with good smells and a happy

holiday and now let's check in with our good pal Dave hell Dave hey Dave how are you doing great I just went to the grocery store um I'm out of the grocery store now and I'm feeling back on top that's my most stressful thing uh ever is going grocery shopping Why? Because I think I've, whatever the most worked up you can be about COVID, that's about where I am. And the bigger, well, because I live with an 80-year-old lady temporarily. I'm taking care of an 80-year-old lady. So I feel like the stakes, I mean, you know me. I would throw caution to the wind normally. Yeah, I wouldn't see you be fearing anything. No, no. Personally, I fear nothing. But, no, I'm just concerned. So, and also, this will hit a lot closer to home.

Almost, they're almost always out of garlic stuffed olives. That's really the biggest issue. So you don't go that often. If you're running out of a jar of garlic stuffed olives, how often do you go to the grocery store? I go about once a month. Once a month, yeah. Okay.

And they were out? They were out. I mean, we're in, we're in, we're in, country right now. So I'm guessing, you know, I'm not the only one. Plus, I'll admit that, I don't know if I was too inside baseball, Tom, but you know, you and I are both fans of martinis. And because I dumped the liquid, I guess the vinegar or whatever from the garlic stuffed olive jar, creates a scenario where there's not enough liquid to submerge the olives, the last jar that I got. Why are you dumping the liquid?

Because I dumped it into my martini. Oh, because you're dirtying up the martini. I'm making it dirty. I like dirty. Got it. Got it, got it, got it. So did you shift gears and just go with those straight-up martini olive? No, I got a bunch of jalapeno stuff to olives back home.

So I'll be fine. It's just not an ideal situation. No. No, not at all. I still have some, a couple left of the garlic. I'm not worried, though. My supermarket is loaded with them. But last night, I texted you a picture of my Manhattan, left Martini Bill and made a nice little Manhattan.

That's a nice little holiday treat, a little Italian vermouth and some whiskey and a little Comericino Cherry. Oh, yeah. I got to get, I, uh, I've been staying away from those for a few years now due to an incident that occurred, but I think I'm ready. Yeah, I was really, unlike the martini, it was really easy for me to stop at one Manhattan. I was like, I was sitting by the fire. I had it.

I was like, you know, okay, I've got the fire of, uh, of wanting to drink more. but I just downshifted, stay to my seat, let it pass, and I didn't go on the tear of, now I'm going to have six of these. Well, I've learned that from you, and it's been very helpful, but almost with every form of alcohol, I've at least once veered into, you know, a dangerous 14-year-old at a bar mitzvah or something, and I've just overdone it.

You know, I've just done, I've gotten to a job. excited. Too swept up in the pleasures. Whatever the drink is at the moment. And then I have to back off for a few years if I fly too close to the sun.

So that's happened with Manhattan's and it's happened with straight up bourbon. I'm just kind of giving my toes in with both of those. I always feel like the brown liquors cause a lot of that trouble. For me personally.

They hold them. most romance, you know? Yeah, they do. They just think like, oh, this is it. I've worked for this my whole life. Kicking back. I'm a grown man, kicking back with the ground liquor. Yeah, it's been fun.

I've been definitely been, I haven't been getting really drunk, but I've been definitely on a every day during the holiday pace where I wake up and I think, What's it going to be tonight? Oh, I know. Yeah, yeah, I worry about it. Yeah, I'll, I'll maybe have one too many, which is not even that many. I'm, you know, I've lost my touch. So one too many is like three or four.

Right. And, and but by 11 o'clock that morning, I'm like, I wonder what I'll get up to tonight. What's going on tonight? I feel fine. Right. Yeah, exactly. And I know people will hear that. say, well, David sounds like you have a problem, but it's really, I don't have a lot going on.

No, none of us do. So I, normally, if I'm in my regular life in New York, I'm not thinking about, I'm not thinking about having anything to drink until long after the sun has gone down. Yeah, no, these are different times. And I have to say, it's been bringing up my memories of us celebrating New Year's Eve together last year. Oh, boy. This is, yeah, this is, this is, this is not.

me in a good light. Everything about this conversation really doesn't paint me in a good light. It does. You're getting things done. I don't see it as a problem. You're just festive and you're a gentleman, but I, you, you, you did show up last New Year's Eve in a state that I'd never seen you in before. I was in that was, I was in a, I was in such a state. I feared for, until I saw you next after that, I feared I may have damaged our friendship with my, level of drunkeness. No, it was so funny. I was only concerned that you survived the walk home.

Yeah, the two blocks. I totally did. You were a very relaxed fun drunk, and you do have the descriptor whenever I'm like, you know, and Dave and my daughter will be like, which one's Dave? I'm like, remember New Year's Eve? if he celebrated the ball dropping by taking his pants off. They're like, oh, yeah, babe. That guy.

You're really fun, friend. So funny. I'm wondering if we're even going to be up at midnight on this New Year's Eve. You know, I was just thinking about this last night. As I trudged to bed last night, my last thought, like, oh, my God, that was last year. Yeah. And then I remember talking with you sometime during this plague when we were speculating over whether we would have New Year's together this year.

And I tried to say it looks like it's not happening. I know. I know. We were all so hopeful and so excited. And this one's going to be, maybe it bodes well for us, because the parties, the celebrations, rather, will be so subdued. Or last year the parties were big,

and it ended up for a cruddy year. Maybe the subdued level of the, of the, provality will make for a better year. Yes, I concur. I think that's exactly what it's going to be. Yeah. So I look forward to. I'm going to, you know, I'll control myself.

New Year's Eve next year. I'll be nothing less than it, gentlemen. I won't upset your children. I will be, we will. will be home. I think it might just be the three of us. My other daughter won't be around. And I'm thinking... No, they're going to go enough to Joshua Tree with a couple of her friends who came back from college and already had COVID so they can hang out. Oh, wow. Okay. And I think they're going to go

and just have like a nice little overnight. And so we'll be solo. But I will still maybe put on a tie, maybe a jacket, cocktail by the fire, keep it mellow, but I'm definitely going to, I'm going to branch out a little bit and drink something maybe a little special. Oh, do you have anything in mind? No, I've been looking at some different cocktail-y things.

I have to say, I always get like the idea in my head that I'm going to go for one of those like mulled cider, hot potty kind of a thing with cloves and oranges and I can never really pull the trigger on it I'll probably just come back to the bikini There's a reason for that Tom Yeah I mean have you ever had one of those drinks You're out of your at someone's house and they're like

Help yourself to some clog or whatever it is Right and you're like oh wow this is festive And then you're just looking like where's a flat surface I can set this down And then and then get myself something else. Yeah,

they don't really, they don't really do it. No. Oh, wow, this is great. Where's the bathroom? Yeah,

maybe a nice scotch just to top off the night or something like that. But it's going to be, it's definitely going to be mellow. I don't, I truly don't know if I'll be up at midnight. I,

I have adjusted my, I wake up and in panic at least a couple times in the middle of the night, and then I wake up for good around 6.30 in the morning. By 9 o'clock anymore, I'm fighting to stay awake. I know. Like, I'm wondering when this is over, I'm like, am I going to have to do like 7 p.m. Like, when this is over, like. Yeah, this is like we're living, like, in retirement. This is what you would do in a retirement.

That's why those people go so early and have dinners at five. I know we mock them, but it makes perfect sense. I know. Everything we've all makes perfect sense because it's everything we've talked about it. It's like you wake up and you're like, well, what is, you finish coffee and then you're like, well, coffee's done. And I guess I better start drinking, I guess. By like while the sun is still out. And then, yeah, you're having dinner.

430. Right. Well, I will definitely get in touch with you during the evening. We'll raise a glass remotely. Excellent. I lost track. It's only a few days away. I know.

I realize that's why we're talking about it. I know. But I'm like, when is that? Oh, coming fast and hard. I know. It'll be here before we know it. All right, Dave. We'll get home safely.

Take care of that 80-year-old woman you look with. Oh, she's going to be excited. I got nillaway first. Things are about to heat up in that house. All right, buddy. Take care of yourself. All right. Thanks, Tom.

Okay, everybody, that's the big show. Again, happy, happy, happy holidays. Happy, happy new year. You did it. You got through a whole big slog. You got through a whole big rigmarole, a mess, ups and downs, ins and outs. But you survived. And hopefully, you're celebrating in all the best.

ways with some laughs and with some good food and some good friends. You are my friend and I thank you for listening and we will be in touch next week when we start a whole new year of new shows. Wow, that's exciting. You're the best. Take care of yourself. Enjoy your life.