Ex-Mob Boss Cooks Mafia Style Pasta Pomodoro (Old Family Recipe)

Now I'm being honest with you, I never thought I was going to be doing this, but week by week or whenever we do this, I'm sharing all my family secrets. I challenge Gordon Ramsay to make a pasta as good as this. I guarantee you can't. How's that? Man, you can do some damage with this, let me tell you. I like things hot. I like my wife hot, I like my food hot. People, delicious, I gotta tell you. You see how easy that was? No effort, easy recipe, the pasta's delicious, those tomatoes in the oil, it brings out the real taste in the tomatoes. This is a 20 minute to 25 minute deal, that's it. Hey everyone, Michael Franzese here, and I'm back in the kitchen, someplace 25 years ago I never thought I'd be, at least not on camera, but I gotta tell you, you love the meatballs so much that they're requesting now that I just come back and cook something else, but a lot of you said, Michael, what happened to the pasta? Spaghetti and meatballs, whatever, there was no spaghetti, there was no sauce, so what happened to it? So here I am back again. Now I wanna give you a little bit of a history here. When I first met my wife, this was almost 42 years ago, my wife is Mexican, and she had never really eaten Italian food. She lived out in Anaheim, California, her family, all Mexican, they never even, Mexican American by the way, but they never ate Italian food. So we met in Florida, and I bring her to an Italian restaurant, I'll never forget the name, Villa Desta, great restaurant, she didn't even know what to order. But I said, look, order some pasta, I ordered some pasta for her, and she just absolutely loved it. Well today, our favorite food is Italian, she loves it, she likes Mexican, but she loves Italian. And you know, here's the funny part of the story, when I met my wife, she was the first Mexican I ever met. We didn't have Mexicans back in New York, we didn't even have Mexican restaurants, I never even ate a burrito before I met my wife. Now I love Mexican food, and we're gonna get into that a little bit later too. But she's become a terrific cook, and she makes pasta like second to none, I have to admit that. Yes, I'm good with the meatballs and a few other things on Christmas Eve, which is something we're gonna be doing, we have the Night of the Seven Fishes, which we may be doing a little bit later on, that's kind of an Italian tradition, Italian heritage on Christmas Eve. But she's great now, she's a great cook, she really is. So when I come home and I wanna eat something, you know, and we don't eat fast food that much, honestly, maybe, you know, once in a while, but we don't eat that much, In-N-Out Burger, I mean, everybody loves In-N-Out Burger, wherever I travel, anywhere in the world, and I mentioned California, they talk about In-N-Out. You know, other than that, when I want her to whip up something fast, it's this pasta that I'm gonna show you today, it's delicious, you can do it in 20 minutes, and it's a great recipe. Now let me take you back a little bit. When I grew up, my grandmother, who made these terrific meatballs that I shared with you a couple of weeks ago, we used to make, it wasn't sauce, it was gravy, and it was heavy, and it was a meat gravy, like everything was in there, braggiole, which is an Italian beef wrapped up delicious, pork end, beef, and then of course the meatballs if she made them, but it was a thick, heavy sauce, and that's why they called it gravy. Well, as I got a little bit older, and my wife started to experiment cooking, I started to like little lighter sauces, something was light, so what I'm gonna cook up for you today is very light, it could be done in 20 minutes, absolutely delicious, it's a pomodoro sauce, I'm sure you've heard of it, you went to Italian restaurants, it's normally pretty popular, but nobody makes it like my wife, now I'm not just being biased, it's the truth. I eat Italian food all the time, I've been to the best restaurants in the world, you name it, New York, California, of course, also Italy, I've been all over Italy, I've eaten the best Italian food in the world, and I'm telling you, this recipe, you're gonna love it, 20 minutes, 25 minutes, cooked up really quick, and it's the best, don't order out, don't let them rob you with the delivery services, they charge you so much money, this you can make in a house, and you can make it for 30 bucks, maximum, maybe even less than that. All right, now I'm being honest with you, I never thought I was gonna be doing this, but week by week, or whenever we do this, I'm sharing all my family secrets, but I'm not going into the restaurant business, so I'm not losing anything, I am in the pizza business, you will learn about that, and of course, you know I'm in the wine business, and you know what, I like to pair my favorite wine with pasta, and we're gonna talk about that in a little bit. So this is a very simple dish, like I said, 20, 25 minutes, you got it made up, it's a pomodoro sauce, all right, two things we gotta do really quick, number one, of course, olive oil. Now listen, I'm not against other oils, some of the other oils that are light are good, but I happen to love olive oil with everything, I mean that's how I am, I eat bread, I dip it in olive oil, I love olive oil on everything, it's delicious, it's great, I'm Italian, and this is real olive oil, not that stuff, you know you gotta check the labels with olive oil, a lot of them they say that they're from Italy, but they're really not, you know you might have one little ingredient, one olive comes from Italy, the rest comes from everywhere else, but you gotta put a lot, because this is the base of the sauce now, remember this is a pomodoro sauce with fresh tomatoes, and let me tell you the great thing about this, I like things simple, I don't like chicken in my pasta, I don't like all these other things in pasta, I like it very simple, but in this dish you can be creative, you can add anything that you want, you can add fresh prosciutto if you want a little meat in the sauce, there's other things you can put in there, like I said meat, I like things very simple, so we're gonna use the whole bottle here, okay, put this on the grill, now my friends I will tell you this, for me it's just like with the meatballs if you remember you never really can overdo the garlic, people say oh come on Mike, you don't, no you can't overdo it, it's not gonna hurt the taste at all, it's only gonna enhance it, I like to use fresh garlic, I know in the meatballs if you recall I used a jarred garlic and that's pretty good, but with this gotta be fresh, you'll know why when you taste it, I wish I can bring you all here and have you taste it with me, chop up the garlic, doesn't have to be too fine, but fine enough, I wonder how many of you out there really enjoy cooking, you like to cook, you know if you remember I think it was in the Godfather, it was one of those movies where they always said the best cooks in the world were men, the best chefs were men, right, and how many celebrity chefs do we have, and they're mostly all men, and they are good, but you know what, I don't wanna take anything away from the women, you know the meatball recipe was my grandmother, my mother was a terrific cook, my wife is a terrific cook, so you really don't wanna take too much away from them, but I guess it's the men that are out there now, they're doing all the celebrity stuff, and you know they're doing a good job, my father, Sonny Francis, he would always brag that he was the best cook, I never really had him, you know, taste much of what he made, he'd rather my mother cook, but he always said that he was the best cook in the house, my grandfather loved to cook, I gotta be honest, my grandfather made the best salads, he was terrific, he loved salads, he was very creative, he made them, he was the best. So chop up the garlic, today we're only gonna use a pound of pasta, but you can make this as much as you want, you can make one pound, two pounds, three pounds, and of course you just add a little more accordingly, a lot of people are asking me when I made the meatballs, Michael, you didn't tell us how much, you know what, I do a lot by feel and by touch and by taste, I don't really use a measuring cup, you know, and I think when you do know how to cook, you kind of get a good feel for it, I never see my wife use really a measuring cup, she just, it's by feel, and so, you know, depending upon how many people you want to feed, that's how you kind of feel it out, if you want though, you know, I can give you, for those of you that are asking, I did tell people that asked about the meatballs about how much to use of each ingredient, so if that's helpful, that's okay, a few more here on the garlic, we'll be set to go, like I said, to me, very hard to overdo the garlic, if you're worried about your breath afterwards, don't worry about it, and you gotta enjoy your food, that's important, I have to tell you this, with all these celebrity chefs, I challenge Gordon Ramsay to make a pasta as good as this, I don't care how good, and he is good, don't get me wrong, he's good, obviously, he's got a huge following, and I've seen some of his recipes, good, I like the way he presents himself, but I challenge him to make a better pasta than this, I guarantee you he can't, how's that, and anybody else out there, same challenge, but Gordon, you seem to be just about number one, right up on the top, you're not gonna make a sauce better than this, guaranteed, okay, garlic's ready, turn on this pot here, alright, so now, very simple, we saute the garlic for a few minutes, until we brown, it gets brown, and then we know we're good, okay, just curious, how many of you really enjoy cooking, you guys out there, do you cook, or do you leave it all up to the women, honestly, when I first got married, I would cook a little bit more than I cook now, but my wife does such a good job that I had her take over, so we do this till it's nice and brown, few minutes, okay, at the same time now, we're gonna boil the pasta, just make it one pound today, now I'm sure that you know when you boil pasta, if you don't put either salt or a little oil in there, olive oil, the pasta'll stick together, but you know, I'm not one that uses a lot of salt, I'm not big on salt, and I don't know, maybe I have a, you know, a taste for it, an extra taste for it, but I'm not big on salt, but I'll use a little bit, it's appropriate at times, now some of you are gonna say, come on, Michael, salt is the best seasoning, okay, no argument with that, my wife agrees with you, so we're gonna do that, here's the key, fresh tomatoes, we got some basil, fresh basil, and Parmesan cheese, remember what I said with the meatballs, you can't put enough cheese in it, I don't use salt, I use cheese because the cheese has a little bit of salt in it, and so I don't put any extra salt in my meatballs, you know, it's funny that the pastor of my church, he called me one day, he said, hey, we saw your video, we're gonna make meatballs tonight, and he had me recite the whole recipe to him over the phone, he made it, he showed me, his wife made it, he showed me the meatballs afterwards, he said it was the best meatballs he's ever tasted, not gonna lie to my pastor, right, I'm gonna tell him it's the best, alright, alright, so we'll let that boil, let me taste if these are sweet, pretty good, alright, so what do I like to pair my pasta with, always a red wine, I don't really eat white with pasta, and so here I have our flagship wine, aside from all our fruit wines that everybody went crazy, I gotta tell you, after the meatballs, people were calling me because they all went on and they ordered the wine, and people are just loving it, they really are loving it, I have to say, I'm really pleased because when we started to produce these fruit wines, I didn't know, you know, first was the pomegranate, I'm not really big into pomegranate, but people really loved it, I said okay, and then they brought in the blackberry wine, and I said wow, this is for me, love it, brought in the cherry, good, like it, and then the strawberry, which has become, between a blackberry and a strawberry, my two favorites, honestly, but people are loving all of it, I think the pomegranate so far has been the best seller, as far as I know, but I gotta tell you, I'm really, really pleased with the way people have enjoyed the fruit wines, but this, this is our number one seller, our premium wine, and this is our Arrheni, and for those of you that don't know Arrheni, Arrheni is the parent of Pinot Noir, it's the oldest Pinot, and you know the story behind our wines, I don't think I have to repeat that again, but our wines are from the oldest vineyards in the world, thousands of years ago, and I'll give you the back, and this is, by the way, this is something that's very factual, you can go look it up, when Noah's Ark landed at the foot of Mount Ararat, and the flood subsided, the first vineyards were planted at the foot of Mount Ararat, which is Armenia, and so the oldest wines that we have in the new civilization are from Armenia, alright, so this is really the oldest wine in the new civilization, it's Arrheni, love the bottle, by the way, that is my fingerprint on there, that is my legit fingerprint, any of you crooks out there, or thieves, don't get any ideas, because, don't leave my fingerprint where it's not supposed to be, I can tell you right now, so, beautiful color on this wine, and I have to tell you, this has, I always let it breathe a little bit, this has a taste profile like a Pinot, but it finishes up like a Cab, and that's when we say it's the parent of Pinot, but it finishes up like a Cab, if you can sense that, for all you wine drinkers out there, Wolfgang Puck loves it, absolutely loves it, he made it, you know, one of his popular wines at his restaurant, really terrific, alright, this is cooking up well, looking good, now this right here is the base of the sauce, you're gonna say sauce, it's all wine and garlic, base of the sauce, try another one of these, very good, now, you can do this one of two ways, you can put the tomatoes right into the oil, the hot oil and garlic, or you can cut them in half, either way works, I like to put them in there and then smash them up a little bit as they cook, but you can cut them in half and put them there too, also the juices flow out, but it's really good either way, whatever you prefer, always fresh basil, don't use anything but fresh basil, I guarantee you're gonna love this dish, no question about it, and like I say, if you got a timer on, see how quick this all goes, the longest thing here is really just boiling the pasta, everything else goes very fast, the tomatoes obviously, they cook quick in there, in the hot oil, always fresh basil, do you love the smell of fresh basil? I do, I love it, alright, for those of you that, you know, I wouldn't consider you a wine snob, there are a lot of them out there, but for those of you that are not, do you ever sit around with somebody that drinks wine and they start talking about all the different things, like the aroma and all of that, and you're sitting there, you don't want to ask, but you say, yeah, I wonder what all that means, they never really describe it, they just say the aroma's good, the taste is good, they give you all these different terms that you don't know what they're talking about, but you know, when they say the bouquet or the aroma, it just means how it smells, I mean, there's no brain surgery there, you know, is it fruity, is it oaky, is it like grandma's jam, you know, either, something like that, they'll always give you a different kind of smell or aroma around it, but to me, it smells good, I'm going to be honest with you, I don't know all of those senses, if my wife were here or some people that really, you know, are wine connoisseurs or sommeliers, they'll tell you all the different smells, to me, it just smells good, I can tell if it's sour or not, but other than that, just smells good, I got to tell you, this is, you know, the crazy thing about this, I'm going to tell you this, people, if you do a blind taste on wine, blind taste, have five glasses of wine there, and you have different bottles, obviously with no labels on them, one is a $300 bottle of wine, the other is a $25 bottle of wine, you put them out, it's very subjective, I guarantee you, people will say the $25 bottle of wine is better than the $300 bottle, it's very subjective, you don't have to go out and spend zillion dollars on wine, you know, I've spent a crazy amount of money on wine, somebody gave me once a $15,000 bottle of wine, and I tasted it and I said, it's okay, but I'm not spending $15,000 on a bottle of wine, it's not necessary, this, just as good, and a lot less, believe me, okay, so the aroma, they can say it smells like fruit or like, oh, like grandma's jam, to me, just smells like good wine, all right, now we just let this simmer a little bit, you'll see the garlic starts to brown, that's what we want, it starts to get soft and brown a little bit, we let it simmer, okay, we're getting there, so like I said, you know what I'm gonna do, I'll show you just for demonstration, I'll cut up some of them and I'll leave some of them uncut, and by the way, if you have any questions or comments, we had a lot on the meatballs and a lot of good comments, and now people asking me for all different kinds of recipes, and believe me, I got a million of them, you know, a million of them, and we're gonna be sharing a lot, I think you're gonna enjoy this whole series that we're doing, I certainly hope you do, and any of you that have had the fruit wines, comment, let me know how you like them, and of course, our Arrheni also, we wanna hear from you, we're always looking to please our customers, all right, another thing, or another term I should say that you might hear is what is the body of the wine, you know, body, you know, how does it feel, how heavy is it, is it light like skim milk, is it full like heavy cream, and the Arrheni, it's kinda right in the middle to me, it's not too heavy, and it's not real light, you know, and it's me, I don't like anything too heavy, I don't like my coffee very heavy, I don't like anything heavy, I like it light, as a matter of fact, you know, when I drink my coffee, I put half and half in there, a little cream, and my wife says, you know, you're having a little coffee with your cream, I don't like anything too heavy, and there's certain coffees when they're really heavy, I can't drink them, I was in Turkey once, and I went to the, we were in the airport, and I went to the counter, and I got three coffees, which by the way was like 30 bucks, I couldn't believe it, and I taste, I couldn't drink it, it was like, gosh, it was so heavy, and it was like mud, I couldn't drink it, that's not for me, I like something that's not too light, a little bit heavy, kinda right in the middle, and that's Arrheni, delicious, great for the holidays, and it isn't breaking the bank, I can tell you that right now, you know, I made it a point early on, that whatever product I was gonna get behind, or whatever business I was gonna be in, I wanted accessible to everybody, I'm not looking to outprice or overprice things for people, believe it or not, I'm kind of a, you know, what could I say, I'm not an extravagant guy, and people are, come on, Michael, you had a jet plane at one time, you had a helicopter, I don't know that that was an extravagance, but back in the day, I kinda needed those tools to get around in different ways, because I was doing a lot of things, I wish I had it now, with all the traveling I do now, but I'm not into that, not into those kind of extravagances, I enjoy my vacations, I enjoy, you know, wearing decent clothes, if you see me online, I don't dress up to the nines or do anything like that, I'm kind of a middle-of-the-road type of guy in that regard, and the same with my wine, you know, I love a bottle like this, that I can bring home and enjoy, and people can enjoy, and like I said, it's not gonna break the bank, and you're gonna love it, and if it was a blind taste against any of the big expensive wines out there, I guarantee you, many of you will pick this, and with this pasta, the best. Okay, did you ever hear the term tannins? Okay, I'm sure you did, if you drink wine, you heard the term tannins, and, you know, a strong tannin can make your mouth, like, dry, it's like strong tea, you know, the tannins in it, it's part of the flavor, it shouldn't scare you, because people say, well, some of the tannins, that's what, that's what gets you a little bit drunk, if you drink too much, and that's true, Rennie, smooth tannins, bold taste, the tannins are very low, in all Armenian wine, the tannins are low, that's why you can drink more of it, believe it or not, you really can, not a sales feature, it's just the truth, and you don't get a headache, you really don't, and you know, I'm crazy, one thing I don't like, I can take pain, but I don't like a headache, because it stops me from thinking properly, I never get a hangover, never get drunk with this, I don't drink too much anyway, but it just sits with me really right, now, one thing you gotta eat with pasta, you gotta have Italian bread, no doubt, you gotta warm it up, you gotta have Italian bread, you know, one thing I found out in a restaurant, when the bread is, when the bread they serve you is not right, I always get a hold of the waiter, I say, is the manager, the owner here, I said, you got great food in this restaurant, why don't you serve good bread, it's not good, go out and get good, it's easier, it's just as easy to get good bread, as it is to get bread that's not that good, and it costs the same, it's not like good bread is so expensive, I don't like when I go to a restaurant and they serve the bread, and the bread is just not good, you need good Italian bread to start the meal, you agree, let me know, okay, getting close, the water's almost boiling, you bring the to a boil, I'm sure everybody knows that, that makes pasta, this is looking good, garlic is nice, now, as soon as I put the pasta in, which takes normally about nine, ten minutes, that's when I'll start putting the tomatoes in, and the tomatoes will get nice and soft, and that's the body of the sauce, it's the oil, obviously, and the tomatoes, terrific, let's do this now, making one pound here today, now, I wonder how many of you out there, maybe the guys, how many of you on your own can eat a pound of pasta, when I'm feeling good, I can eat a pound, no doubt about it, usually I'll eat a half a pound, maybe three quarters of a pound, I always have a second bowl, when I'm in a restaurant, obviously not, but my wife never finishes hers a hundred percent, so I normally finish some of hers, I absolutely love pasta, it is my favorite meal, no doubt about it, all different kinds, but like I said, this has become just about my number one, because it's light, I can eat a lot of it, it's delicious, it's flavorful, that's it for me, okay, got a nice loaf of Italian bread, put it in the oven, heat it up a little bit, when you put the bread in the oven, it's really up to you, I mean, I have it right now at 300, it'll just warm up a little bit faster, but you just wanna get it warm, you know, if you're making garlic bread or cheese bread or something like that, you cut it in half, you put a little cheese and garlic on it, and then you're gonna broil it, because you want it to get a little bit dark on the top, but to me, I just love Italian bread, so I heat it up a little bit, cut it, a little bit of butter, dip it in the oil, it's great with the pasta, absolutely great, all right, let's go with the tomatoes, start them, get them in there, like I said, you could either, whoop, I lost one, you could either cut them in half or just put them in there, and then when they get soft, you smash them up a little bit, don't skip on the tomatoes, because this is the body of your sauce, matter of fact, we're gonna throw them all in there, how's that, I don't know if you got a timer on, but this is all, this is a 20 minute to 25 minute deal, that's it, so what do the terms dry and sweet mean in wine, well, the dry means it's not sweet, very, very simple, you know, simple as that, sweet wine is normally fruity, and it's not always a dessert wine, but it just has a little bit of a sweetness to it, and usually because it's got a more fruity flavor, I like everything dry, I'm not too much into, you know, sweet, unless it's my fruit wines, because the fruit wine's supposed to be sweet, but again, you know, for me, it's the blackberry and the strawberry, but I don't know, you know, I've been getting so many comments on all of them, some people like the, the pomegranate was the number one seller, but we introduced that first, and then the rest are coming after that, the blackberry is catching on very, very fast, and now I've been hearing a lot about the other two also, so, you know, who knows, I mean, but for the holidays, terrific, gotta have it, no doubt about it, and if you're having pasta, it's gonna be our Arrheni for sure, all right, let's see how this is doing, excellent, all right, now it's time, add a little bit of basil, gives a little bit of a flavor, always fresh basil, like I said, gonna put a little bit of, a little bit of black pepper is good, all right, so remember, we have some basil, I'm gonna put a little bit more, now remember, this is, it's on kind of low heat, and we're getting the tomatoes really soft, and the whole tomatoes, like I said, you can cut them in half like we did, just showing you both, and the whole tomatoes, we're gonna wait till they get sauce, and then we're gonna just smash them a little bit, so that the juices come out into the oil, and I'm sure many of you have heard the term al dente when it comes to pasta, the one thing you don't wanna do ever is overcook the pasta, cannot do that, it's gotta be al dente, which means it's a little bit hard, but you don't want it mushy or soft in your mouth, because that'll totally ruin it, it just ruins the, it takes the flavor out of it, al dente is the term, I gotta tell you, there's nothing like a smell of fresh garlic when you're cooking, it's just terrific, so people have always asked me, Michael, what are your top three Italian foods, what do you really like to eat the best, well, pasta, just about any kind, is number one, my grandmother used to make these homemade raviolis, now if I really, really feel ambitious, because that's a big job, I mean from scratch, making the dough, and making the raviolis from scratch, if I really feel ambitious and energetic, I know how to do it, and I'll do it, I don't know if any of you are gonna take the time to do that, because it's time consuming, but the raviolis are the best, absolutely the best, so they're one of my favorites, I don't normally order them in a restaurant, I always order a light pasta in a restaurant, sometimes with a vodka sauce is great, all different ways, you know, and so many restaurants make it to their own style really good, pasta, number one, I love meatballs, I'll be honest with you, every restaurant now I go to, I order the meatballs, because that's a test for me, if they make good meatballs, then they really know what they're doing, they're really Italian, and that's an indication to me that the rest of the, I always order them in advance, because now they're, they make them as appetizers quite a bit, you can order it up front as an appetizer, if the meatballs are good, I said okay, I think we're in for a good meal, if it's a new restaurant that I haven't been to yet, so I love meatballs, you know, people ask me, do you like veal parmesan, of course I do, veal parmesan is terrific, chicken parmesan, terrific, you know, all of these Italian food, arancini, the rice balls, I love them, if they're made right, delicious, yes, I can make them and show you how to do that also, we're going to come up, we're going to make all the Italian dishes that you love, and then I'm going to give you a treat, I also love Mexican food, and I play around with Mexican food also, my wife's a great cook there, maybe my wife will come on with me, we'll do it together, she's terrific, believe me, but Mexican food is amazing, all right, we're getting there, tomatoes are getting soft, like I said, we smash them a little bit, because that lets the juice go out into the oil, and that's what we want, you can see the oil's starting to get a little bit red, because these juices are coming out, and gosh, they taste so good afterwards, let's see how this bread is doing, all right, getting nice and warm, got the strainer to drain the pasta, let me check, make sure it's al dente, another minute, we'll be good to go, okay, tiruan, have you ever heard that term with wine before, it's kind of a rare term, you don't hear that that often, but it means where it's from, where did it come from, well, you know, our wine is from Armenia, the world's first vineyards under the new civilization, it talks about the soil, the region, the vibe, you know, it all comes together under tiruan, I think we call it, I don't even know how to pronounce it, but my wines, again, straight from Mount Ararat, from the country of Armenia, and the world's oldest birthplace of wine, now, this is true, you could look it up, I mean, we've studied this before, I wanted to relay that to people, I really did my homework and studied it, and it really is the world's first vineyards, now, you know, the country of Georgia also has very old wines, but according to our research, we got them beat by a little bit, so these really are the world's oldest vineyards, and these are the world's original wines under the new civilization, all right, all right, getting close, people, another taste, remember what I said, it's got to be al dente, ready to go, now, there's another little hint I can give you, a little trick, I'm not doing it right now, is, but when we make another kind of pasta, you leave some of the water, you don't drain it all out, you leave some of the water in there, put the pasta back in there, and let it soak up for a minute again, it just, it's kind of the juice of the pasta, tastes really good when you mix it in with the sauce, really delicious, okay, all right, we're just about ready, so what we do now is we take this delicious pasta, and we're going to pour it right here into the sauce, just like this, and we're going to stir it all around, that's it, we want to get that juice, that sauce, and these tomatoes all over the pasta, and this delicious oil, that looks delicious, absolutely delicious, I hope I make it as delicious as my wife does, I think so, she'd be proud of me right now, these tomatoes and sauce all around it, looks terrific, you know, people have asked me all the time, you know, what is your favorite, what is your go-to dish each day of the week, well, we don't have it planned out, I mean, Sunday, always pasta, 99% of the time, pasta, on Monday, growing up, because Sunday meals were always so big, we serve, we eat all day on Sunday, Monday, we used to have soup, and especially, remember, I grew up in New York, where it's cold in the winter, we always had soup, my mother made a chicken soup, or a beef soup, we do the same now, kind of lighter, and by the way, my favorite chicken is soup chicken, you can't mess it up, it's never dry, I don't like dry chicken, when you go to a restaurant, you gotta be really careful, you know, is the chicken prepared properly, because if it's dry, I can't eat it, I always send it back, so I'm careful to order chicken in a restaurant, I like to make sure that they know how to cook it, but soup chicken, always delicious, you can't dry it out, really, and it's juicy, and it's always good, also, beef in the soup, terrific, and you know, got all the vegetables, you got carrots, you got, you know, potatoes in there, you got, just terrific, so on a Monday, it's soup, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, if we don't go out to eat, we usually go out to eat maybe once, twice a week, sometimes three times, all depends, I don't like to have my wife cook every single night, it all depends, we'll eat meat maybe once or twice, we do eat a lot of chicken, because my wife knows how to prepare it, you know, if we go out, you know, last night, we had sushi, I love sushi, I don't know about how all of you feel about it, but I love it, so we're pretty diverse in our cuisine, you know, I'm a, look, if it's prepared properly, I'll eat it, the one thing, you know, this is crazy, people have asked me, you know, that I went out to dinner with them, whenever they order oysters, I don't eat them, there's a backstory to that, I'm not gonna relay it right now, but I don't eat oysters, clams, absolutely, love them, mussels, absolutely, scungilli, galamad, all of that fish, I love bacala, Italian fish, we're gonna talk about that on Christmas Eve, I love all of that, but oysters, I don't eat, and I'm gonna leave it at that, if you can pry the story out of me, I might tell you, but my whole family has asked me, Michael, dad, why not oysters, they're delicious, I just don't eat them, and there is a backstory, so maybe you'll get it, you got me to cook, so maybe you'll get me to say something like that, I don't know, all right, so little basil on top of here, looks really nice, and obviously tastes really good, fresh basil on the top, and people, when you serve something, it's gotta look good, it's gotta look appetizing, if it doesn't look appetizing, people are turned off right away, but it's gotta look good, and there you have it, I mean, that's a nice dish, now, you know, a lot of people, I don't know, they don't like a lot of sauce in their pasta, I like a lot of sauce, I'm into sauces, I like it to taste good, I don't like anything too dry, but this is it, I guarantee this tastes great, put a little cheese on top, finish it off, sometimes red pepper if you like it, little cheese on top, always looks good, some people say, oh, Michael, I don't like cheese, you gotta like cheese, you're Italian, you gotta like cheese, if you're eating Italian food, you gotta like cheese, okay, all right, so we're gonna plate it, we have a few people here that they're gonna be fortunate enough to eat this, I know they're gonna love it, we're gonna plate it, and we'll take it from there, okay, all right, well, we're ready to try it, let me get some bread out of the oven, almost forgot that, nice Italian bread, looks great, like I said, the bread has gotta be good, if you don't see good Italian bread, don't buy it, man, this, you can do some damage with this, let me tell you, all right, one little piece for me, and let's try it, right, there's no way I'm gonna make this and not have a bowl, beautiful, beautiful, tomatoes on top, I guarantee your people are gonna love this, so like I said, don't bother ordering out, you know, open table and all of that, you gotta spend all that money, not that I'm against them, but what do you need to spend all that money for when you can make something at home for 25, 30 bucks for just you and your loved one, maybe your family, all right, so I'm not gonna do all of this work and not try my own pasta, me, I love a little bit more cheese on it, of course, I love a lot of cheese, Parmesan cheese, Romano cheese, whatever one you like is great, a little cheese, me, I like things hot, I like my wife hot, I like my food hot, you know, nice little red pepper, that's obviously by choice, if you like it or not, and then we're ready to taste it, it smells delicious, the tomatoes look good, you know, it's funny, in Italy, they don't use the spoon to twirl, it's crazy, we do that here in the United States, they just twirl it against the bowl, people, delicious, I gotta tell you, you see how easy that was, no effort, easy recipe, the pasta is delicious, really excellent, I'm gonna have one more bite, those tomatoes in the oil, it brings out the real taste in the tomatoes, always accompanied by a great glass of our Rennie wine, people, that's a meal you can't refuse, I guarantee you, you'll love this, no matter who it is, you wanna be a hero, you serve this pasta, whip it up really quick, like I said, don't order out, this is terrific, and remember the ingredients, so easy, you know, oil and garlic, you saute the garlic, put some basil in there, let it get nice and hot, and then you put the tomatoes in there, smash them up or cut them first, whatever way you like, boil your pasta, and that's it, you got a meal fit for a king here, next time you need to whip up something fast, you know the recipe, this is one, stay tuned, okay, we're always gonna have our wine to accompany something, listen, you know, Italians, you gotta have a good glass, so whether you're Italian or not, you gotta have a good glass of wine to kinda wash it down, accompany the meal, it's just terrific, so listen, for all of you looking in, all right, this is our second biggest recipe that we've had, we're gonna keep going, you're loving this, we're enjoying it, we're gonna put the recipe to this on the website, now remember, this was only for one pound, one pound, you're gonna feed two or three people, depending upon how you eat, if you got, you know, a husky guy like me that likes to eat a lot, you'll feed two, if, you know, you eat a little bit lighter, you'll feed three people with one pound, so you saw, one box of tomatoes, a little bit of olive oil, little bit of garlic, even though you can't overdo the garlic, some fresh basil, you got it made, simple, simple meal, but absolutely delicious, I'm telling you, Gordon Ramsay, I challenge you, okay, make your best pasta, I challenge you, I guarantee you, do a blind test, they're gonna love this one, so, you know, I love challenging people, so you got it, Gordon, we're gonna put this recipe on our Franzese Wine website, so go in there, take a look at it, and please let me know, comment, I wanna know how you like it, so to all of you out there, salut, cendano, enjoy, God bless, talk to you soon.