THE PIZZELLE REVISITED

Hard at work in the shop office

Christmas Cookie Madness

Dammit Womman, Mrs. Peperium, Headmistress SondraK, MiTX and others have all expressed interest in Pizzelles.

I promised recipes....and recipes you shall have!

I ran a Dogpile search and found the following page, which is replete with basic goody recipes:

http://www.post-gazette.com/food/20010524mailbo.asp

The recipe by Paul Sciullo of Bloomfield is the closest to what my Mom used to make...without the whiskey.

Now I am well constrained to resurrect one of her prized Pizzelle Irons, much like the crenelated snowflake, #2 in the pic below.

Out of my culinary memories, one in particular was brought back with eidetic clarity by "MCPO Airdale" in a thread over at http://www.sondrak.com/ He spoke of rolling the warm pizzelle, fresh from the iron into a tube....thereby creating a foundation for canoli.

~ A San Francisco Tangent

On the southern-most end of the Marin County headlands, near the base of Mt. Tamalipas, there is an old roadhouse which has been in continuous operation since the 1930's. The Buckeye Roadhouse is nothing like what most folk picture a roadhouse. It is a fine, understated, high quality restaurant featuring fantastic Northern California Wine Country cuisine.

My brother and I were taken their by one of our clients while we worked on building and installing custom mill work.

Long story short ~ DINNER:

24 yr. old Glenmorangie and a splash of water followed by a full dozen fresh bay oysters on the half-shell, washed down with an Anchor Steam Porter...T

Then a dinner of pan seared steelhead fillet on a bed of wild rice and fresh serrano chile and corn with angel hair onion rings and a crisp "Stag's Leap" Chardonnay that was spectacular.

Desert was a chocolate pizzelle canoli filled with dark chocolate whipped cream and ricotta cheese drizzled over with hot dark chocolate/pine nut sauce, a glass of 50 year old Spanish Port.....almost as good as making love.....almost! And a cup of the cleanest tasting coffee I have ever had the pleasure to drink, strong but no bitterness at all.

Which in turn reminded me of the pizzelle canoli we had in Mexico:

They were stuffed with fresh whipped cream and mexican vanilla (VERY pungent!) and their version of ricotta and drizzled over with a hot hard sauce with crushed pistachios....a good snifter of Pedro Domeque VSOP and dark, rich michoacan coffee. *SIGH!*

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If any of y'all wish to try your hand at making pizzelles, you can purchase irons like this one here:

at: http://www.kasbahouse.com/villawareonline/pizelle.asp

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The Advent Season is nigh over and preparations well in hand to celebrate a Christmas eve Mass at St. James.

There will be Pizzelles!