Court Street Christmas

One of the best Christmas presents my Dad ever gave me was my very own subscription to Gourmet Magazine.

Dad was a talented self-taught chef himself, storing stacks of Gourmets on the shelves that held his cookbooks. He was proud that I had shown a knack with a knife as a fairly young child. Because I hung around the kitchen, getting underfoot while he prepared holiday dinners and party fare, I was given an oversized, striped apron and told to make myself useful. Over the years, I progressed from scraping carrots and mooshing the Swedish meatball mixture to chopping onions and sauteing the compact round balls I’d formed with wet, parsley-flecked palms.

It was 1979, and I’d just graduated college and set up apartment-keeping in a railroad flat above a dry-cleaning business, opposite St Mary Star of the Sea Catholic church. St Mary was the southwestern anchor of Carroll Gardens, then a quiet backwater of Brooklyn. It was far cheaper than its eastern neighbor, Cobble Hill. It was not as run-down as Red Hook (then a no-go zone of dilapidated streets and fading warehouses). Perfect for indigent college students and recent grads, in other words.

In the 1920s, my flighty, socialite great-grandmother, Olivia, lived in tony Brooklyn Heights. I doubt she would have approved of her great-granddaughter living among the paisanos who found Carroll Gardens convenient for the docks and Brooklyn Navy Yard where they worked.

But I found the location — despite the tinny, broadcast bells of St Mary and frequent whiff of dry-cleaning chemicals — perfect for an aspiring cook.

Shopping for a feast

On shopping nights, I walked up to Court Street from the Carroll Gardens stop of the F train. There, a few compact blocks offered everything necessary to prepare a delicious dinner from Gourmet‘s seasonal recipes. There was a small supermarket for staples. Esposito’s butcher shop with loops of sausages and veal trimmed for scallopini. An old-school fishmonger, and two competitive vegetable markets. (Someday, I’ll tell you about the shoot-out among the cauliflower…)

Even though my Swedish-descended boyfriend and I lived in the very heart of this deeply traditional Italian neighborhood, we didn’t mingle much with our neighbors. The kids were fake-tough Vinnies and Tonys who thought venturing into Manhattan was the height of danger and exotica. Their grandmammas leaned out from their second-floor vantage points, their elbows cushioned on embroidered pillows. I remember them peering suspiciously at Rick’s blond curls and my flowing black cape. Thus, I learned of the Italian Christmas Eve custom of feasting on fish and seafood from Gourmet and not grandmamma’s kitchen lore.

The Carroll Gardens fishmonger stocked eel and flounder, shrimp and clams — everything needed to make cioppino or red sauce for spaghetti. If we were feeling flush, I put lobster fra diavolo on the Christmas Eve menu. For this, I would stop after work at one of the dozen or more Chinese seafood dealers on Canal Street to select a couple of lobsters. Believe me or believe me not, in those days and times (1980 or so), you could buy two small lobsters (barely squeaking in at legal size) for $10.

Bringing them home after dark on Christmas Eve, wriggling indignantly in their plastic shopping bag, usually ensured people kept their distance on the crowded F train.

Remembering those delicious days

Timothy and I maintained the custom of an Italian seafood Christmas Eve when we moved to England.

Once at Piccadilly, I threaded the narrow, gaudy streets to the foodie’s paradise of Soho: Lina Stores on Brewer Street. Everything looked and smelled so wonderful… Parmesan cheeses cuddled on the counter next to Napoli salami. Silky nests of fresh pasta curled up next to trays of glistening olives and marinated mushrooms. Shoppers carefully skirted neatly stacked pyramids of pyramidal-shaped boxes containing panettone and — my favorite — the golden, star-shaped pandoro.

Once home, I would center the pandoro on a glass platter patterned with the Metropolitan Museum of Art unicorn. After dusting it with powdered sugar, I sliced it horizontally, so carefully, to preserve the star in each slice. I marinated whatever red fruit I could get my hands on in a British December — imported strawberries or frozen raspberries — in Grand Marnier, as my Dad taught me. Then, carefully, spooned some over every slice.

It’s all a little different now

In these pandemic days, I lack access to a horde of hungry, enthusiastic guest eaters on Christmas Eve. (To say nothing of lacking whole lobsters, whose tails alone now cost the earth.) Instead of raw ingredients, I’ll treat myself to two stuffed clams in real shells, plus a handful of shrimp and flat-leaf parsley. The latter, coaxed along with a tin of chopped clams, will make a small batch of red sauce to pour over a handful of rigatoni. All that’s missing is St Mary’s clanging of pre-recorded bells to signify the end of midnight mass and the start of Christmas feasting…

Every year, I remember Dad’s pile of cookbooks as much as my own avid devouring of every edition of Gourmet. Tonight, I’ll put up my feet by the tree and read, just for fun, a recipe for homemade clams casino. This is a much loved New York seafood dish I ate only in deep winter, when clams needed cooking to plump up tender and sweet.

It’ll be almost as good as walking down Court Street or Brewer Street once more.

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