It's finished.

It's stunning.

Yes.

It's great.

It's also ready.

So just let it all begin.

Hi, I'm Chris Fenimore, and it's so nice to have you with us in the QED cook's kitchen.

Our theme today is about how the wisdom of the kitchen is passe from generation to generation.

We grow up in my grandmother's house in Brooklyn, New York.

Mom did all the everyday cooking and all the baking.

But Grama was the head che when it came to Sunday dinner.

And all other sort of seasonal specialties.

I think she liked the idea of passing along her food traditions, but at the same time she could be very strict.

When I finally graduate to the rank of meatball roller, she put a bowl of chopped meat or the mixture of the of the meatballs in front of me, and she had a tray for the finished meatball and I was very excited to have.

This was a sort of a prestigious job in our kitchen.

So when I was done, she came over and she looked at the the array of these mismatched little spheres.

She pointed to one of the smallest and she said, who's going to get that one?

I had no answer.

And she said, what if one of our guests get this one and sees that other people have larger meatballs?

They might think we're being stingy with them.

She dumped all the meatballs back in the bowl an I set to work again, this time making sure that they were all exactly the same size.

I learned my lesson.

Now, our first recipe today is also for meatballs, but they come fro a totally different tradition.

As Nancy Polinsky explains.

My memories of my grandmothers are not so much in the kitchen with them because, I did not grow up with my grandmothers in the same city, so it wasn't a really regular even to be in the kitchen with them.

I was started out in Saint Louis and I lived in Saint Louis through second grade.

Now, I did have my father' family in Saint Louis with me, and I do have some very, very distant memories of some regular times that my grandmother Gorgui dining room table, where we would have some Shabbat.

That's Friday night Sabbath dinners because we're Jewish and, sometimes baking with her.

Oh, look, there's a picture.

That's the Saint Louis clan.

Before I was born I was actually, I believe I was the little seed in my mummy's belly at that time, but that's my Gorgui in the middle.

Helen Redmon Polinsky, with her husband, Simon Polinsky.

And, she actually, she they came over, from the old country.

She actually came from a small village just north of Kiev.

It's now in, in the Ukraine.

And she came over as a young, single woman.

I don't know how old she was.

And she came over.

She married my grandfather in 1914.

So she came over, you know, somewhere just past the turn of the century.

I would assume she met him here.

He was from Lithuania.

They married, they settled in.

She came over with siblings and settled in Saint Louis.

And, he opened a small littl market called Polanski's Market.

And she worked there on Saturdays helping out.

She was busy raising kids.

Yeah.

And my father worked a Polanski's market on Saturdays.

Growing up.

He would help out as a butcher meat cutter.

And so he's always the one who, There's my father.

The little one is my daddy.

That's at his brother's bar mitzvah.

And that's my grandparents, Helen and Simon Polanski.

And I brought one little prop I've got to show you.

My oldest son, Michael, is named Michael Simon for Simon Polinsky.

And this is a bottle of liquor that my grandfather used to sell liquor in his shop, in his, in Polnsky's market.

And he had an arrangement with the liquor distributor that they bottled some of it specifically for him.

And it says here, you know, bottle exclusively for Simon Polinsky.

And my parents were kind enough to give this to my son, Michael Simon Johnson, as a gift when, he turned 21 and was able to drink liquor.

Wow.

So I thought I'd share that with, with viewers because, as you said, it's all about.

It's all about memories.

All about memories.

So, yeah, these are meatballs that Gorgui used to make.

They're nothing special.

I'm telling you, they're nothing special.

I don't know that you would serve them for company or anything, but when we would go to her house, this was the smell that was permeating.

And, so when you said, you know, grandma's wisdom, I said, oh, well, it's got to be Gorguis meatballs.

So.

So, here we are.

Okay with this frying pan, because I want to get it cranked up a little bit.

All right.

First we've got to get some onions browning because they have to be really, you know, Brown.

Can I chop those for you?

Absolutely.

That would be two onions.

We're making sort of.

She calls it the gravy or the juice or whatever you want to call it to.

Two onions have to be chopped up.

I need a third onion.

Here it is.

And, you want to just brown them in a little bit and really jus a little bit of, of shortening.

Because if you do too much, then the, the meatballs are sort of swimming in too much grease later on.

So just a little bit of shortening.

In a pan I don't know what kind of shortening she used to you know, God they used all kinds of stuff then.

Could have been schmaltz or something.

Yeah.

It could have been chicken fat or schmaltz or whatever.

So we're going t if the gravy is going to be two.

Oh, look how nicely you chop up those onions.

Two onions.

A little bit of one says one tablespoon of shortening.

Just a smidgen of baking soda.

Two tablespoons of water.

Well, first are we do the instructions.

Brown the onions in the shortening, add two tablespoons of water and a pinch of baking soda and simmer until they're brown and really, really brown.

So, you do that.

Well, I start on the meatballs, which begin with 1 pound of ground beef.

Now, Nana, I mean, my other grandma was Nana.

I forgive me, Gorgui kept kosher, so it was always kosher meat that was in here.

And, I'm going to chop up an onion because we have to put an onion, chopped up onion.

And it' gonna to be a really fine onion.

You don't want big chunks of onion.

In your meatballs.

You know these onions happen to be big.

I think we're going to be good with that amount of onion.

You think so?

I don't need to start another one for this.

Not.

I'll chop this one for that.

Okay.

All right.

That's fine.

And you want it really fine, right?

I do, because I don't wan to bite into a chunk of onion.

Although, you know, by the tim these are cooked and simmered, they're not they're not, yo know, really strong onion taste.

They've they've softened a bit.

Okay.

So you're going to simmer these onions until they're brown.

We're going to add, that little pinch of baking soda in here.

I'm sort of accelerating things.

So I don't know why.

I've no idea why you add a pinch of baking soda that I've never done that.

I know, and I kind of did a little research just to find out why you might do that.

And I didn't turn up anything.

But, you know, grandma's wisdom.

She always did a pinch of baking soda, a pinch of baking soda.

It is the onions.

Go right in.

Go right into here.

Yeah.

Now back to the gravy.

We're going to add two tablespoons of water to this.

Well maybe we should let the brown a little bit more.

Yeah.

Let me yea I'll stir this down just a bit okay.

We just get my little spatula.

So this is, a pound of ground beef and on medium onion that's, you know, chopped up nice and fine and two tablespoons of ketchup, but you get a spoon.

And, you know, when we talk about the memories, Chris.

Yeah, it is as much about the pots.

I'm telling you I can see her Dutch oven.

I can see that that they have a certain utensils.

Yes, yes.

And I can see her spatula.

And then she always served it and she kept kosher.

So these were on her, her meat plates.

And she.

It was a rose China pattern that my mother now has.

And she had this little rose patterned casserole dish with a cover on it that th meatballs were always served in.

And I'm I'm missing that little bowl right now.

I kind of feel like I need it a little serving dishes, little pans, the just the right pot.

It's it's so much about the memories.

All right.

We're going to cut up a clove of garlic to put into the meatballs.

Now you make these now right.

I don't, Chris.

Who are we talking about.

No no no I don't I had to my sister I've told you before my mother and my sister cook I'm the one who always volunteers to clean up afterwards.

You guys do the cooking I'll do the cleaning.

So I contacte both the mother and my sister.

I said, you know send me Gorguis meatball recipe And, you know, it came in and, I actually made it for the first time the other day, which I, you know, I should b embarrassed about, but I can't.

But I' just one of those people, okay?

I wasn't born with a love of cooking.

Although certainl all these years in this kitchen, I have learned so much, and I've developed such an appreciation for what the people who stand here do.

And I have learned a thing or two and gone home and made a couple of recipes over the years that have become staples in my kitchen.

Yeah, but as long as my mother and sister are willing to make the family recipe and bring them to holiday meals.

Really?

Why should I do it?

Yeah, well, what else do I hav to add to these onions?

Nancy?

Yeah.

The baking soda.

Two tablespoons of water.

Okay.

A half cup of brown sugar.

That's that's okay.

Okay.

And then salt and pepper to taste.

And then a cup of water okay.

Here is a cup of water.

And I actually usually put I made this in a saucer because she made it in a Dutch oven.

All right.

But we started in a frying pan.

So we're going to finish in a frying pan, I guess.

You're right.

All right.

So this is chopped garlic, which is going in with the meatballs.

So this is sort of a sweet and oniony, gravy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's though that's all it is.

Sweet and oniony.

That's a good description for it.

Salt and pepper to taste.

Okay, now back to the meatballs.

We've got a pound of ground beef.

We've got an onion in here.

We've got two tablespoons of ketchup.

We now have a clove of garlic.

And I'm going to put an egg.

That's how I cook this.

This will, thicken up I'm taking.

Oh yeah it does, it does.

Yeah.

Before I made it the other night, thought, oh, my God, this is so watery, I'm missing something.

But no, it does definitely thicken up.

Okay, okay.

And I did wash my hands before I came in the studio because this is how Gorgui, you know, this is how you do it is how you make meatballs got done by hand.

Oh all right.

And that's it.

Now, Chris noted before we started cooking, said, you know, you're going to be breadcrumbs in your meatballs.

No, she didn't.

And they were always, you know, really soft.

They weren't firm like a meatloaf.

They were just soft.

And I loved them.

And shall we serve them with noodles?

You know, I everybody has different, you know, ways of serving them.

But look, you don' have to watch me roll these up.

You roll them.

She would make good sized meatballs and then just put them in.

Put them in there.

And we she put them in a sauce pan and covered them up.

And they got to cook for like 45 minutes to an hour or so.

They really just sit there and simmer and cook.

And fortunately we happened to have some how about that?

All right.

I wish I had a little rose colored ceramic, China serving platter to put them in, but I don't put those aside.

And let's see what they dirty.

Dirty.

We got.

We have that towel for a second.

Oh, yeah.

Because, okay, our fingers are a mess.

Okay, okay.

Okay.

Already.

Oh, so we have heated up.

Yeah, I think Chris made some.

And I made some because I didn't quite remember that.

He makes me.

Well, but the thing is, I knew that the crew is going to staring at these things on the sideboard, so I had to make sure that they were going to be plenty.

So I know we'll use all of these, I think, an we can do a taste test between.

But I think they should taste the same.

Yours look really darker or something.

So.

Oh, you know what I added you can add and it says optional a little bit of ketchup into the sauc before you put the meatballs in.

Okay.

And I did that.

And maybe that's wh mine looks a little bit redder.

It was really only like that's yours right?

Yes.

And this is yours I'm eating yours.

I'm going to eat yours.

Oh, I like yours.

Yours tastes just like Gorguis.

I was channeling Gorgui.

What can I say?

Nancy, those are delicious.

Yours are hotter than mine.

Mine just came out from refriger We probably could have calle that segment Dueling Meatballs, but I have to say, the crew enjoyed them all without discrimination.

It amazes me sometimes that Nancy and I have such different backgrounds, but share so many similar traditions like goji or graham meatballs.

Our next segment features sister Sue Fazzini.

She is a Benedictine sister and a great friend of QED Cooks.

She sent in a recipe for stuffed olives that, like so many other seasonal specialties in the Italian tradition, are incredibly time consumin and well-suited to what I call an all hands on deck cooking marathon.

The making is just as important as the eating, maybe more so in this case.

Here they are, stuffed olives and it all begin.

Now.

You call these Christmas Christmas olives, olives, stuffed olives.

I remember my grandmother making them for Christmas and they were an incredibly special treat.

Yeah.

Yes, because they'r a little labor intensive.

Yes.

A little bit labor intensive, but well worth it.

Yeah.

Worth it.

And you would only have them at Christmas time.

That's what I remember now.

My brother says we also had them at Easter.

So I think the holidays, whenever she was able to, to make them, she would make them.

That's one of the things that I'd love to learn more about.

And that is why certain foods were associated with certain times.

You know, everybody's heard o the feast of the Seven Fishes.

There are some people who only have corned beef and cabbage o Saint Patrick's Day, you know, hot cross buns.

Yes.

And why we only have them during lent and all those things.

I find it all fascinating, but it's very fast.

Part of it is cultural.

Part of is just family.

Yes.

You know, I believe so, so.

So let's get started.

Because I think, first of all, you got to make some you got to make some meatball.

Meatball.

Now we use my grandmother's recipe of course.

But any meatball recipe that you have would would work with this.

Also, everybody has their ow little nuance.

They put on the, on their meatball recipe.

Right.

We have a half, half poun of ground meat and ground veal.

We're going to add an egg.

This is measured out.

Yes.

Well I said it's measuring.

You don't need a measure anyway.

The bread crumbs.

Yeah.

Put them in and then we're going to put some parmesan and some parmesan cheese.

Parmesan and Romano in I have a little Italy Romano about two two tablespoons.

Yeah I always prefer to grate mine as I go I don't know.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Fresher the better.

Fresh you have a better.

It's you know, that's what our grandparents used.

And then, the grind, the rind of a lemo my grandmother cooked with lemon all the time, and it just.

So where was she from?

That was a Sant'Egidio alla Vibrata.

And she came here when she was 26.

Now, where is that?

In Italy.

It's about three hours to the east of Rome.

Oh, okay.

The Adriatic Sea.

Oh, so she's on that side?

Yeah, she's on that side lot.

Lots of lemons.

And whenever, you know whenever I'm grading this lemon, it always takes me back right to her basement where she cooked.

Like most, most of the Italians cooked.

You know, I always wondered, wh did she have a stove upstairs?

Because she never used it.

I never saw it to two stoves, downstairs.

Two stoves three refrigerator.

I have to tell you, I just put a stove in the basement.

You too, that's great.

That' great memory of my grandmother, who had a beautiful, calori two oven range in the basement.

Oh, nice.

So that's where she preferred to cook as well.

You know, she had a great big glas top table and a sink, and it was a full kitchen downstairs.

And that's where she would do a lot of her cooking to, you know, I think, probably every Italian watching this has those same memories of the, of the, basement kitchens.

This just happens to be my grandmother.

So it's but but I'm sure on any grandmother.

Yeah.

All right, then you can put a little bit of salt and pepper to taste, if you like, but not not too much salt, because they always bring out the salt.

Right.

All right So we're going to mix this up.

It's it this is the pepper.

Oh okay.

All right.

You want to do you want to put some time.

Well it's a it's a little peculiar.

It just goes back and forth instead of around the house I like it.

Oh yeah.

That's nice.

Is that enough?

That's good.

Okay.

Yep.

Salt and pepper to taste.

All right.

Mix it up.

Good.

And and we'll let it sit and let all those flavors get together.

And you like every coo I have ever, appreciated, mixes your you mix your meatballs and your all that by hand.

Oh yeah.

Oh my goodness.

Oh bread bread my hand to know bread machine here.

Yeah.

No I can't do that.

Has to all be by hand.

Now do you all eat communally.

Oh yeah.

And you're.

Oh.

Oh yes.

Well, right now, Sister Audre and I, there are only two of us.

Oh, okay.

Stationed in Waynesburg.

Yes, but otherwise the sisters at the monastery.

Yeah.

Everybody eats together.

Yeah.

Do you have somebody who's sort of designated cook, or do you split the.

Oh, we're split the duties at our place.

It's whoever has energy, whoever has, you know, the desire here.

You can.

Okay, use a towel.

But I like we both like to cook.

Yeah.

And so then it's not such a big deal, right?

It's like, okay, now, with this aside, this i starting to smoke a little bit, so I'm going to lower it down.

All right.

Now we're going to this is, like you said, a little labor intensive.

Right.

So these are these are, just green olives, right.

And I quarter them now, my grandmother, what she did, she would buy the olives on a stone and she would peel them with a knife all the way around in a corkscrew.

Peel the olive off of the stone.

Oh, my.

Can you imagine how much time that took?

The very first time I made them?

That's what I did.

And then I said, I can't.

I have to find an easier way to do this.

So, she, she would probably not appreciate this, so.

Sorry.

Nang.

But I had to find an easier way to do it.

Yeah, they the were tireless, in the kitchen.

Thats the truth?

I don't know how they did it, because everything that they made was so labor intensive.

Everything was done one at a time.

Like one ravioli that would make it burp.

And then.Or my mother used to make manicotti.

Got the one at a time.

All the meatballs hand formed.

You know, so you.

If they made 100 meatballs, they had to sit there and make 100 rolls.

It's.

There's no shortcut to even the meat.

She butchered a lot of her.

But you do.

The chickens, a lamb for Easter.

You know anybody?

If they went hunting and brought her game, she could cook it and make it taste.

So now where did she learn all of this?

I, I guess from her mother.

Just from.

So she had she came from a large family.

There were, ten in her family.

She was the second youngest of ten children.

And I guess she learned it.

It just passed on all th secrets and perfected her trait.

Yeah.

Wow.

They grew all of their food.

I never remember a canned good in her house.

No, they grew everything.

Canned everything themselves.

Yeah yeah yeah.

All right.

So let's let' put a couple of these together.

Now again you know I'll use a scooper just to try and keep things uniform.

But, you never do that at home.

Do you know, sometimes I do, sometimes I don't, but here, here's the trick.

Here's the fun part.

Can I do one with you?

Sure.

Oh.

Please do.

Yes.

I like to learn as I go.

Here.

All right, so now we pu the olives around the outside.

And you want to be generous with the olives.

You don't want to.

Don't skimp on skimp on the olives.

Don't skimp on the olives.

I could just hear your grandma.

Yeah, just don't skimp on that.

Now, can you imagine?

She had all these little corkscrews of olives that she would wrap around, wrap it around you put.

Make sure you put it on the top and on the bottom and give it in there nice and tight.

Right.

So this there's a lot of olive on here.

Yes.

But that's o when you bite into it and taste the olive in the ground and nothing like it.

All righ I'm going to get mine up here.

This up a little bit more.

So you have a little beaten egg and and breadcrumbs.

So we're going to give it a nice little bath in the egg if you want to.

Do you want to do yours.

Yeah.

Yeah yeah.

Is this is this good.

That's good.

Yeah.

Good.

Up to speed and some.

Yeah.

That'll pass.

That's good.

Good for the first time.

And you also want to give it a good coating of breadcrumbs okay.

There you go I got it.

Yeah.

Got to get this turned around.

And if you're going to make them you might as well make a lot of the because it is labor intensive.

So I'll make a couple doze for 4 or 5, 6 dozen at a time.

Well let' put them out there for a minute.

Let's do a couple more.

Yeah, let's do a couple more.

Grab heck with the cookie cutter.

Heck with the scooper.

Well, I don't want to make them too big because we got a lot of people here who want to have a taste here.

So you can make them smaller or bigger, depending upon my memory, is that they were as big as hand grenades, but I'm sure they weren't.

Yeah, well, you were smaller.

Yeah, I was smaller.

That's right.

Oh, and we came from a family of ten also.

So can you imagine.

So can you imagin when my grandmother made these, it was like a mad dash to the bowl.

Oh I'll bet.

And she used to cook for us every Sunday.

Every Sunday we had ten children.

My uncle had seven so she was cooking for 22 people every week.

Oh yes.

Can you imagin that didn't seem to phase them.

No, no.

Because my grandmother did the same thing.

She cooked for everybody on Sunday, and and, I don't know that she ever missed a Sunday.

No, I don't remember.

No, we certainly didn't go ou to eat at anybody else's house.

There were too many of us Yeah, that's the same with us.

And, and and she just didn't miss.

No.

So it was her life.

She loved it.

She just loved it.

And she loved the satisfaction of seeing everyone enjoy her cooking.

Yeah.

And I have to say, I feel the same way.

And I like to cook for people.

I love to cook for people.

Yes.

Well, if you had al those foster children, you know.

Yeah.

You know what it means to cook for people to have that.

And then we would have my family at our house.

So, you know, it was nothing to have 30 40 people come in for a holiday.

All right.

So I put these, now we're going to fry and give them a nice.

Yeah, we want them crunchy.

So we want to have a nice fried coating on them.

Okay.

I'm going to get a little, Get these.

Oh, alright.

Yeah, yeah.

So, so then this is just a little bit of, vegetable oil, and the we seasoned with some olive oil.

Right.

But you could use any kind of oil that you used to for frying.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

It's just the olives o the outside are kind of unique.

Yeah.

And it's like I said, it makes it gives it a real nice salty taste.

And they stay on there and they'll stay some sometimes a couple fall off.

But if you make them at home for the first tim don't worry about that.

Right.

Just, you know, a couple will fall off.

But it's not a big deal.

I will tur oh, look at that.

That's nice.

Oh my goodness.

So this is perfect.

Yes.

You know, every onc when we when we do these shows, I can tell when the crew really gets into it.

You're at home, you're watching.

Okay, there's a little bit of camera shake, you'll notice.

And it's that anticipation that they that they have of o of what they're going to taste.

Yeah.

Now they're going to have to wait a little bit longer because then we're going to cook them.

Right.

He's going to have to bake right afterwards.

Right.

All the way through.

But, but this is jus to get the crunch on them right.

Yes.

Yes, yes.

Okay.

Yeah.

And then we would eat them just like this.

We would eat them hot.

We would eat them cold.

You could eat them.

You know, you could put a little side of sauce if you want to dip them in.

Whatever.

However, whatever your little.

Yeah.

Okay.

So these bake now for how long?

How about 30 minute and then get them out and we eat Yeah.

Well, you you happen to have a few that I thought you might want to bring out here.

All right, I'll put them over here.

It's the walla moment.

No no no that's right, that's right.

That, you might as they say that the, the the, the magic of television.

Yes, yes, yes.

So now do you watch the show on TV?

You watch this show.

Yes.

Okay.

I just I love to find the new ideas.

We even have a couple of your cookbooks.

Good.

Yes.

We'll definitely get the grandmas kitchen widsom, Well, you know, in the interest of of safety, mostly I have to, I have to try this.

I'm going to cut this in.

All right?

And you can share it with you.

Yeah.

We'll break all of together.

There you go.

All right.

Thank you.

What you got?

You got a lot of olives on them?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, it's a winner.

Yeah.

I like it.

I eat something like that, and I got.

What did I think of that?

You know, but I never though to put olives on the outside of, a meatball.

Isnt it amazing.

Even if our grandmothers ar no longer with us here on earth, they stay with us through these memorie and the stories and the flavors.

So many thanks to sister Su for sharing this special recipe and her precious remembrances with us.

And I guess that's it for today.

And remember, we do it for you but we can't do it without you.

So keep watching and keep cooking.