The search for a fashionable drink has led some to the Negroni, one part each of gin, vermouth, and Campari. I capitalize the “N”  here because the drink is the invention of one Count Camillo Negroni, who, in 1919, was bright enough to fortify the limp and then well-known Americano by replacing the soda-water with gin.  An orange slice was added to distinguish it visually from the Americano.

The OED sites Orson Welles comment on the drink in 1947: “The bitters are excellent for your liver, the gin is bad for you. They balance each other.”

The Negroni Sbagliato (“spal-yacht-oh”  translates as “wrong”, “mistaken”, or “misbehaving” ) has become so popular in Europe the drink is sometimes just called a “Sbagliato” for short. This latest twist is another substitution, prosecco instead of gin (maybe not as bad for you).

This time they have it right. The prosecco sweetens up the too-bitter Negroni traditionale, and lowers the total alcohol level so you can enjoy more of them.

Usually in a rocks glass, occasionally served in a wine glass:

The Negroni Sbagliato
1 ounce vermouth
1 ounce Campari
2 ounces prosecco
→ Stir over ice and garnish with the traditional orange slice.

Here, a Campari-produced ad recommends sparkling Pinot Chardonnay. I recommend a good dry prosecco.  For the vermouth, the barman here is using Cinzano Bianco, an Italian mid-sweet vermouth made by Gruppo Campari.

With wild, local cod now around $15/pound in Boston, I want to do something more interesting than just fry it up in a pan.

My friend Sheryl brought me some fabulously fresh ground sumac from her vacation in Jordan. (I’ve since found sumac to be great on boiled yuca — a very underrated starch. Added to the requisite mojo de ajo it yields a zesty, citrus-like flavor, and a a nice speckling of color.)

In this dish, the sumac is playing a more subordinate role, but it adds a pleasant complexity to the overall taste.

Baked Cod with Cannelini Beans and Roasted Tomato

1 pound fresh cod, cut into 6-inch filets
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp high quality extra virgin olive oil (good for you if you use your best olive oil for all 4 tbsps)
1 large onion, halved then sliced
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 large can whole plum tomatoes
3 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp lemon rind, grated
1 tbsp orange or tangerine rind, grated
1/4 cup fresh basil, finely chopped
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1 tsp ground sumac
2 bay (laurel) leaves
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup chopped flat-leaf Italian parsley
1 can (16 oz.) Italian cannelini beans, drained and rinsed
sea salt (to taste)

Preheat the oven to 375º F.

Drain the tomatoes — and retain the juice for Bloody Marys or vegetable stock or some such thing.  You”ll find the juice tastier than canned tomato juice (so heavily salted and often reconstituted).  Cut each tomato in half, just once, and set aside in a bowl.

Heat a large sauté pan with the 3 tbsps of olive oil, and cook the onions until just soft.  Then add all the ingredients except the cannelini beans and parsley.  Yes, really, all of them all at once.  Cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, for  about 20 minutes — until the tomatoes are soft but not falling apart.

While the mixture is cooking, take the drained, rinsed cannelini beans and stir in a bowl with the one tbsp high of quality extra virgin olive oil.  Add a bit of fresh-ground pepper  to the beans if you like, and set aside.

Salt and pepper the cod, and arrange  in a 3 quart (on similar-sized) glass baking pan so that there is a bit of space in the center for the cannelini beans.  A bit of olive oil under the fish will keep it from sticking to the pan.  When the contents of the sauté pan are done, turn off the heat, mix in the chopped parsley, and pour the contents of the sauté pan on the fish.  Then pour the cannelini beans on the small space you left in the center of the baking pan.

Bake for 15 minutes, at 375º F.  Do not overcook.  Remember the glass stays hot, and will continue to cook the fish a bit even after you remove it from the oven.

Serve with good, crusty Italian bread and a dry white (a white Beaujolais, Vermentino,  or Chardonnay, would work well).

Each year, for Christmas, my mother makes rosettes. Rosettes have only 5 ingredients, yet they are nearly impossible to make. The recipe (if there were a standard one) is different for each particular oven. Timing when combining and mixing the ingredients is so critical that a single minute in either direction before cooking can result in collapsed, inedible discs after cooking.

Even if you manage them to bake the rosettes correctly (congratulations), frosting the cookies is another gauntlet. Frost too early, and the hot cookie will ruinously liquify the frosting. Frost too late, and the cold, hardened frosting will rip the cookie apart as you spread. About 30 seconds separates these two states, so make sure to frost each cookie as it comes out of the oven individually. What fun!

Additionally, the process often fails, partially or completely, for no discernible reason. Witness my 10-year-old niece (the assistant cook) crying over a suddenly and inexplicably gluified mass that cannot be extracted from the mixing bowl.

In short, rosettes are the perfect holiday cookie.

Growing up in our small Italian-immigrant community, I had always believed the traditional set of holiday cookies (wand, pizzelle, dischi, rosettes, taralle …) were the pinnacle of taste and artistry in Italian baking. It seemed that, as such, these marvels of taste-as-pleasure should be enjoyed at most once a year (imagine you are Catholic and this might make sense).

Now I know the truth. The rosettes, for example, are good but are simply one cookie-type. There are certainly many easier-to-make, better-tasting, and festive Italian cookies that come out wonderfully for the first-time maker. Why make rosettes, wand, dischi, and the other half-dozen Italian-American Christmas traditionals?

Making rosettes is a yearly trial for even the most experienced cook. It took my mother (a rosette expert) two discarded batches this Christmas to produce an acceptable third batch of rosettes. The first was destroyed by the Northeastern ice storm that cut her electricity in mid-bake. A few days later, the second batch was flattened by a forced substitution of butter for margarine due to closed roads between her and the supermarket. (butter can collapse the rosettes)

Ok. Why even try? Isn’t there a toll house recipe somewhere on the Food Network web site?

Each Italian woman in my family (or naturalized-Italian wife) has a specific cookie she makes every year. In most cases the same cookie her mother (or mother-in-law) made. The arcane subtlety of preparation that results in an acceptable cookie is passed down from mother to daughter through years of pre-adolescent cookie-bonding in the kitchen.

The tradition is the desired result, the cookie is a side-effect.

With this in mind, I give you a full year to try to master the rosette. My mother’s recipe is below, with her quite valuable but certainly incomplete advice unedited in parentheses.

Ironically, the most colossal failures provide the best memories. Who can forget the 2001 rosettes when she accidentally added salt instead of sugar. Miraculously the right shape, a few rosettes were grabbed by 6-year-old Sarah before anyone else could taste them. Every year, we do an impressions of little Sarah’s shocked face: “Aaack! They don’t taste right!”

Brave readers, let us know how you do.

Rosettes

3 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tbsp vanilla (some people use anise)
2 cups flour
1 1/2 tbsp baking powder
1/2 cup (1 stick) margarine (don’t use butter)

mix to medium softness
shape into balls (use a spoon and flour your hands)
place on a greased sheet pan
bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes

frosting
mix confectioners sugar and milk. keep a fairly stiff consistency. dip or spread (and add sprinkles immediately or frosting will harden).