I noticed the other day that the oak trees are full of baby acorns, one of the first signs of fall here. (Technically, the Halloween decorations at Michaels in July herald the start of fall.)
The acorns also signal the start of football season. It’s no secret that football is big in Texas. I didn’t used to pay much attention to high school football, but now my daughter plays the clarinet in her high school’s marching band, and it’s fun to go watch the football games. Being a band mom, I especially enjoy the pageantry of the half-time shows.
Can you see my kid? There she is, 3rd row, 2nd from the left. No wait, 4th row, 3rd from the left. Or is that her in the second row? Got to remember to bring binoculars to the next game!
Both my husband and I went to the University of Texas. Although we don’t get to a game very often, we enjoy watching the games on TV (him, more than me). Occasionally I’ll get inspired and try to make something football-themed to serve while we watch the game. I think football-shaped food tends to look kind of gross (for example, football-shaped meatloaf), so I generally prefer to make dishes using team colors instead. Longhorn Snack Mix is a colorful and oddly addictive salty/sweet snack mix that I have been making in some fashion since my kids’ earliest birthday parties. It’s really good with Corn Pops, but they don’t hold up to our Gulf Coast humidity for long, so we use Honey Nut Cheerios instead, which are equally tasty.
I found these Italian fashion sketches on ebay, and they hang in my daughter’s room. According to the seller, Paolo, also known as ebay seller ranger335, his aunt owned a fashion house in the 1960s. Eva’s Fashion House employed six agents, who traveled throughout Italy and the south of France showing sketches of his aunt’s collections to dressmakers. The dressmakers would order designs, and Eva’s Fashion House would provide them with whatever was necessary to make each garment.
Each sketch is a handmade original, using watercolors and airbrushing. Paolo inherited his aunt’s design sketches, and I believe he must have thousands of drawings. You can still find them on ebay from time to time. The colors are bright, and the drawings are detailed and whimsical. If you’re looking for something fun for a young girl’s room or a powder room, these are perfect.
A stunning outfit to wear to the next PTO meeting
I confess, I am not a fashionista. When it comes to my wardrobe, “Italian style” means a blouse with spaghetti sauce splattered on it. And if you’re a woman who wears anything larger than an A-cup bra, you know exactly where those spaghetti sauce splatters are. Yep, sitting right there on the old Continental Shelf.
Even though I lack Italian fashion sense, I have a great appreciation for Italian food. I grew up in New York, in a town that had a lot of Italian families. My friends’ moms were incredible Italian home cooks. I used to love walking into their homes and smelling gravy simmering on the stove. If we were lucky, we’d be invited to roll meatballs to add to the gravy.
There was one Italian mom I remember particularly well, not for her style or cooking, but for her vocal chords. This was back in the days before cell phones (back before pretty much everything, now that I think about it), when it was much more challenging to pin down your kid’s whereabouts. When dinnertime rolled around, if her son hadn’t made it home, instead of phoning all over the neighborhood, she’d just fling the door open, and at the top of her lungs would yell, “ANT-NY, DINNER!” To this day, every Anthony I meet is secretly an Ant-ny to me.
One of my family’s current favorite Italian foods is carpaccio, a dish from the Piedmont region of Italy, invented at Harry’s Bar in Venice. The original dish was comprised of thin slices of raw beef with a dijon mustard sauce. Today, carpaccio is used more generically, to mean thinly sliced raw meat, fish, or even vegetables. It took me a long time to come around to carpaccio, as I’m not a fan of raw beef. I think I can trace it back to my time working in New York. The law firm I worked at in Manhattan was in the Pan Am (now the MetLife) Building. We occasionally had receptions at the Sky Club at the top of the building, and steak tartare was one of the club’s signature dishes. It was my running joke — a waiter would stick the tray in front of me and ask, “Steak tartare?” and I’d ask him if he wouldn’t mind running it under the broiler for a minute or two. Yeah, I know, the waiters hated me.
Inspired by the vintage Italian fashion sketches, I tried my hand at making carpaccio, using rare roast beef from the deli counter, instead of raw beef. Maybe it wasn’t authentic, but there wasn’t a caper, arugula stem, or sliver of parmesan cheese left on the plate when my family got through with it. The next day, I still had carpaccio “fixins,” so I surprised my daughter with a carpaccio sandwich on pretzel bread for her school lunch. I got a text from her in the middle of the day — “My sandwich was awesome!!!” My husband and I laughed that she was probably the only kid in her school, in Houston, maybe even in the U.S., that brought a carpaccio sandwich to school for lunch that day. Lucky girl!
For each sandwich, arrange roast beef slices on cut side of pretzel roll bottom. In a small bowl, whisk together olive oil and lemon juice. Add arugula and toss to combine. Season arugula with salt and pepper, to taste. Mound arugula on top of roast beef, and top with capers and parmesan shavings. Add pretzel roll top, slice in half, and serve.
