Victor Hazan Lives

			From: leslie.borden@comcast.net Subject: Victor Hazan Lives Date: September 28, 2004 4:22:56 PM EDT To: aroundthekitchen@aroundthekitchen.info Reply-To: aroundthekitchen@aroundthekitchen.info Victor Hazan is in fact still with us: Check out: https://www.sarasotaopera.org/events.htm. The Sarasota Opera is having a fundraiser dinner in late October which will also feature him and Marcella on the occasion of the release of Marcella’s latest book. So they all think he’ll be alive and kicking. I remember reading an article in some food mag while ago (I think it was Bon Appetit, the magazine of pretty people having parties), which described how the Hazan’s had left Venice to retire in Sarasota and the fabulous apartment/condo they were going to live in. Among the things I remember (my mind is like Velcro for these tidbits) is Marcella’s statement that she was going to have the garbage disposal removed from the kitchen sink, because “a kitchen sink is for rinsing and cleaning things, not for putting garbage in,” or words to that effect. It must be Victor’s job to take out the trash. As to Victor writing a lot of her stuff, first, I understand (but, oddly, can’t remember where from) that she writes in Italian, and he translates it to English. The end papers of Marcella Cucina, her last book (1997) are reproductions of her notes for recipes. Those of you who know me well will be astonished, if not totally disbelieving, to learn that her handwriting is even worse than mine. Second, I have heard that Victor kind of holds everything together. In an article in Food and Wine a few years ago, she said that she drinks Jack Daniels and was described as a heavy smoker. I guess after a certain point, it doesn’t matter if you can actually taste anything. Whatever her story is, she has been the entry point to Italian cooking for our whole generation. Her first book, Classic Italian Cooking, is the one that presents the classic Italian repertoire: how to make pasta; the basic pasta dishes (pasta carbonara, linguine with white clam sauce, fettuccine with gorgonzola sauce, tortellini, lasagna), three variations on tomato sauce; the other classics such as vitello tonnato, fried stuffed zucchini flowers, red mussel soup, veal chops fried in bread crumbs, fritto misto grande, the rice salads, insalata di frutti di mare (seafood salad, and I remember a particularly well-executed one that Tom did for us some years ago). I still remember the very palpable thrill I experienced when I went to Italy and had many of those dishes prepared by actual Italians. It was like meeting a penpal. In an illustration of the injustices of the world, that book is out of print, but I return to it often, notwithstanding the 15 or 20 other Italian cookbooks I own. See you around the (Italian) kitchen, lb p.s Victor and Marcella’s son Giuliano is now a cooking teacher and cookbook writer. Check him out at www.giulianohazan.com.