How to Make Frankies Meatballs

In a recent Test Kitchen post, I admitted to a) being lazy and b) sexually enticing my husband via meatball. (I bring a level of professionalism to the New Yorker offices not seen in some time.) For all it revealed, though, my writing didn’t include the actual recipe for Frankies meatballs, so I’m sharing it here:

Ingredients:

  • 4 slices bread (2 packed cups’ worth)
  • 2 pounds ground beef
  • 3 gloves garlic, minced
  • 1/4 cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
  • 1/4 cup grated Pecorino Romano, plus about 1 cup for serving
  • 1/4 cup raisins
  • 1/4 cup pine nuts
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons fine sea salt
  • 15 turns white pepper
  • 4 large eggs
  • 1/2 cup dried bread crumbs
  • Tomato sauce (Note: As I explain in my post, the Frankies tomato sauce takes about four hours to make and requires a level of patience I do not possess. I just buy the sauce from Frankies directly; you can get some at your local grocery. Make sure it’s super garlicky.)

Directions:

1. Heat the oven to 325F. Put the fresh bread in a bowl, cover it with water, and let it soak for a minute or so. Pour off the water and wring out the bread, then crumble and tear it into tiny pieces.

2. Combine the bread with all the remaining ingredients except the tomato sauce in a medium mixing bowl, adding them in the order they are listed. Add the dried bread crumbs last to adjust for wetness: the mixture should be moist wet, not sloppy wet.

3. Shape the meat mixture into handball-sized meatballs and space them evenly on a baking sheet. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes. The meatballs will be firm but still juicy and gently yielding when they’re cooked through. (At this point, you can cool the meatballs and hold them in the refrigerator for as long as a couple days or freeze them for the future.)

4. Meanwhile, heat the tomato sauce in a sauté pan large enough to accommodate the meatballs comfortably.

5. Dump the meatballs into the pan of sauce and nudge the heat up ever so slightly. Simmer the meatballs for half an hour or so (this isn’t one of those cases where longer is better) so they can soak up some sauce. Keep them there until it’s time to eat.

6. Serve the meatballs 3 to a person in a healthy helping of the red sauce, and hit everybody’s portion–never the pan–with a fluffy mountain of grated cheese.

And that’s it. It’s almost easier than making chocolate-chip cookies using the recipe off the Toll House bag, which is something every American has mastered by age 7. So get cooking.

Tobias Wolff = Gentleman

Saw Tobias Wolff and Mary Karr at the New Yorker Festival last night, and I have to say: Tobias Wolff is fascinating. I realize that this is news to no one. Also, I really liked Wolff’s take on memoir writing–he was nervous to get involved with a genre associated with “actors, successful generals, and Winston Churchill.”

The quote of the night, though, came from my husband, as he looked around the theatre before the talk began: “I’d like to know the total number of high-school beatings in this room.”

Read the Rich

Normally, I hate reading about wealthy Manhattanites. Look, they’re neurotic! And spoiled! And out of touch with the common man! But Jonathan Dee is an excellent writer, and “The Privileges,” his latest book and this month’s New Yorker Book Club selection, makes this potentially tired subject interesting. I still hated the characters, but Dee made it so much fun to do.

My musings on the novel–and the danger of half-formed thoughts–continue at newyorker.com.

The Cle

It’s 62 degrees and raining: the first real day of fall. It’s the kind of afternoon that reminds me of Cleveland, where I grew up and where I returned to after college. In October of 2004, I moved from the East Side to Lakewood, to the first and only apartment I would ever have all to myself. I painted my secondhand bedroom furniture to match, hosted Thanksgiving, and fell in love with someone who didn’t love me back. I left for Manhattan a year later.

I think of Cleveland, particularly in the melancholy autumn, as a place of struggle and loss and, ultimately, growth. So when The New Yorker staffers were asked on Friday to share our hopes for the 2010 NFL season, my bit on the Browns got a little mushy:

Only a real masochist can return annually to the heartbreak of Cleveland Browns fandom. The first time I saw my dad cry was after The Fumble of the 1988 A.F.C. Championship game—he’s since gone on to buy season tickets, countless jerseys, and, when the old Municipal Stadium was torn down, a row of seats which now sit, dramatically uplit, in his rec room. Every year, he claims to expect nothing from the team, and every year, he’s both affirmed and bitterly disappointed. I plan to spend this Sunday afternoon on a barstool at the Greenwich Street Tavern, home of the Tribeca chapter of the Browns Backers. Like Dad, I have a loyalty that is heavy on defeatism and sourness—which is to say, it’s true.

The Browns lost today, after a great first half and what my brother called “a swagger I haven’t seen in years.” My iPhone tells me it’s sunny in Cleveland right now, but that doesn’t seem right.

Flashback

Google Street View is the perfect tool for the nostalgic voyeur. Want to see your old apartment? How about your college dorm, or an ex’s front door? Arcade Fire and the director Chris Milk—whose past collaborators include Kanye West, U2, and Green Day—have partnered to make these virtual flashbacks as emotionally fraught as possible with the interactive video for the song “We Used to Wait,” from the band’s new album, “The Suburbs.” Read more at newyorker.com…

So, Did You Hear About This Chelsea Wedding Thing?

The Wedding of the Year is over, and what have we learned? There was an interfaith ceremony; Bill lost the required weight, and then some; the cake was gluten-free. The wedding’s final price tag is still under wraps—Bryan Rafanelli, the Boston-based event planner who wrangled the affair, told the New York Times only, “I know Chelsea and Marc wanted to have the highest quality. That doesn’t mean the most expensive; it just means really a beautiful wedding.”

No matter how high-minded the intentions, however, you can’t save a wedding from itself. Read more at newyorker.com…

Achatz, Chang, Etc.

In a 2008 issue of The New Yorker, D. T. Max profiled the Chicago chef Grant Achatz, a disciple of molecular gastronomy and the man behind Alinea, widely considered one of the top restaurants in the United States. Now the travel blog Gridskipper gives a peek into Achatz’s five favorite Chicago boites, as part of its new Star Maps feature. Read more at newyorker.com…