Farofa

 Unlike American steakhouses, where you’re given one big piece of meat and a limited number of sides ordered ahead of time, Brazilian establishments serve you much smaller quantities of meat per portion, but there are many more options, and the selection is virtually unlimited. The salad bar is open, and depending on the set-up of the restaurant, you either form a line at a grill and select meats from spits being rotisseried on a coal or wood fire, or waiters come with those spits from table to table and you, the customer, indicate with a card if you want the next meat rotation or not. In any case, farofa is found at every Brazilian steakhouse and is an integral part of not only the traditional Brazilian barbeque experience but also a staple of home cooking and a regular accompaniment to red meat or chicken.

The concept of “farofa” is a rather difficult one to explain to an American audience because no true analog exists. Perhaps the best approximation of the dish lies in what we Americans call “stuffing” or “dressing,” although I’ve never seen farofa presented as “stuffing” is here in America, that is, inside of a whole bird or roast of meat. However, it is my hope that using “stuffing” as an analog in the American culinary vernacular will make this dish substantially more accessible to even the most novice cook. 

Whether someone can make good farofa might well be a good litmus test for how well any given chef has mastered Brazilian home cooking: everyone has their own family recipe, there exists an enormous variety of interpretations of the dish. 

Every farofa has a few common elements: eggs that are somehow scrambled, some sort of flour, and an assortment of mix-ins. The following is my immediate family’s recipe—my mom and I use this, but, just for the sake of showing how much variation there is in this dish, I’ll point out that my aunt does something totally different from what my mom does, which is probably totally different from what my grandmother would do—and that’s just on one side of the family. This immense variability will definitely play to the advantage of any American home cook wanting to try farofa: whatever your tastes, you can adapt your farofa to include those ingredients prepared exactly as you like them. 

Farofa is a quick dish, so I strongly recommend two technical points: first, put your phone away. You cannot afford to be distracted while preparing farofa. I’ve learned this from experience; they burn very quickly if you’re on your phone and not giving them the attention they need by stirring pretty much constantly. Second, reach and maintain a state of what the French call “mise en place.” This term, French for “everything in its proper place” means cutting, washing, seeding, etc. anything you need well in advance of when you actually need it, and even before you start properly cooking. Do all your washing, chopping, and other prep work early; this dish comes together quickly enough that a few seconds cutting an onion might mean the difference between good farofa (if you had already cut the onion) and a bad, burned one (if you waited until you needed the onion to cut it). If you learn nothing else from farofa, learn to always maintain mise en place, even in your home kitchen. 

I like to start my farofa by sweating out any alliums—relatives of garlic, like garlic itself, yellow or white onions, shallots, scallions, or leeks— I might have in my fridge. The objective when sweating vegetables out, especially alliums, is to minimize browning. That’s a different technique, caramelization. When sweating, cook the alliums gently until they are translucent, but don’t really pick up any color.  

Once the alliums are sweated out, place 3 beaten, seasoned (just salt and pepper) eggs in the pan, and keep the eggs moving until cooked through. Your objective is not to form an omelet here, but to fully cook and scramble the eggs without burning them, and without integrating the alliums into the eggs either. (This is the main difference within my family—some people cook the eggs with everything else and break them up in the same pan, while others cook the eggs separately, break them up, and then introduce them to the other ingredients.)

Once the eggs are fully cooked, add in some sort of flour or meal. Cassava or yucca flour is traditional, but, probably because of the quarantine associated with the coronavirus and the shortages that have resulted, I can’t recall the last time we’ve had cassava-based farofa; instead, we’ve been using cornmeal, which has been much more readily accessible, and, I’d argue, produces an even better flavor profile than with the cassava. Keep everything moving so as not to scorch either the now-fully-cooked eggs or the (yucca or cornmeal) flour. Your only objective at this point is to lightly toast the flour until aromatic and to introduce the other flavors in the pan to the flour. 

Once enough flour has been incorporated, the dish should resemble an American stuffing with small particles, not a batter. At this point, if desired, fold in whatever accouterments you wish to add. Remember, to an American home cook, you’re assembling something similar to stuffing. By this point, you’ve already taken care of your starch base (flour here, bread in stuffing) and your binder (eggs in both dishes). Feel free to add in whatever you like, exactly as you would when assembling a stuffing with your favorite mix-ins. We normally add white raisins and/or black olives, just keeping the pan on the heat—and stirring constantly—until incorporated and heated through. Once all your flavorings are incorporated, turn off the heat and taste the farofa for seasoning. 

As mentioned before, farofa is traditionally served as an accompaniment to red meat or chicken, also accompanied by rice, beans, and the vegetable side of your choice. 

If you make this, be sure to leave a comment down below letting me know!

Ragù Bolognese alla Quarantena

Ragù Bolognese is a true comfort food, a welcome quasi-nostalgia in this time of uncertainty as we deal with the worldwide spread of the novel coronavirus. Because of this new virus, I’ve had to make some changes to how I prepare Ragù, so this is not a traditional recipe as would be seen in Italy by any means, but it’s similar enough that I’ve coopted the name and adapted a few elements of this classic to make it my own, in part to leave my individual mark on the dish as a home chef, in part because I had to since supplies were limited because of the virus-related lockdowns.

Technically, I’ve only made a proper Ragù Bolognese once or twice since coming home from campus back in March, while we still had wine at home. We haven’t had wine since our only bottle finished very early in the pandemic, and because wine requires handing over an ID for age verification in Georgia, to limit contact with others when we go out, we haven’t bought any in months. Technically, Ragù Bolognese is a simple meat, wine, and stock sauce with a proportionately very small amount of a tomato product (usually highly concentrated tomamto paste, which is just a tomato sauce left over the heat for hours and hours). But since we’ve been out of wine for months now—and we probably won’t get more wine until well into 2021—I’ve made several changes to Ragù Bolognese to fit what we have at home during the quarantines imposed because of the Coronavirus. And while Ragù Bolognese is typically made with ground beef and/or ground pork and/or ground veal, we’ve been using ground turkey since the pandemic broke out. 

My variation on the sauce, in common with the traditional version, starts with browning ground meat: in my case, turkey (traditionally, any combination of beef, pork, and veal). I start with enough olive oil to coat the bottom of my 3-quart sauté pan (or my 9-quart Dutch oven, if the grocery store’s substitutions give me much more meat than I asked for), and I leave it over high heat for several minutes. The oil should be hot enough that a quarter of a teaspoon of water evaporates almost instantly—3 seconds or less—before any meat ever touches the pan. Once the pan is hot enough, the ground meat can go in. When it goes in, it’s okay if the entire block of ground meat goes in as one piece. You will need to stir pretty constantly until it’s broken up into individual grounds of meat. Ground meat doesn’t immediately brown. Before it can do that, it needs to release some moisture which then needs to evaporate. (Don’t worry, this won’t be dry or gummy.) Once the moisture is released and evaporated, the meat will begin to fry in the oil and in its own rendered fat. It takes some time to learn to tell the difference, but the two parts of the browning process sound different.

As with many of the recipes I’ll share, mise en place (“putting everything in its proper place” by having everything chopped, washed, processed, etc. ahead of time) is critical. Part of mise en place here is to process 5 tomatoes, 2 red bell peppers, and one yellow onion until smooth and emulsified (to where you cannot distinguish pieces of tomato from pepper from onion, and you are left with a relatively thick, red liquid in your blender). Once the meat has been browned, this mixture (about 32 ounces of liquid) should go into the pan with the browned meat. Further, add one cup of cartooned, homemade, or reconstituted chicken stock (stock from a powder or bouillon cube is fine). Season with dried oregano, thyme, bay, and dill. Grind in fresh black pepper. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer, cover, and let simmer for 45 minutes to an hour, stirring every 7 minutes or so. If the sauce starts to evaporate too quickly, add in more stock. When the sauce is otherwise complete, taste for salt—you added chicken stock, which may have a considerable amount of salt in it already, so taste the sauce before you add any more salt. 

Cook one pound of long pasta (fettucine, spaghetti, pappardelle, etc.) to one minute short of what the manufacturer lists as the time for al dente pasta. At that point, drain the pasta, and finish the last 60 seconds folding the pasta into the ragù. Serve garnished with parmesan and or pecorino romano. 

If you make this, be sure to leave a comment down below letting me know!

Creamy mashed potatoes

This recipe, set to go live with the others, is my go-to mashed potato dish, especially for special occasion dinners like birthdays, anniversaries, Easter, Thanksgiving, or Christmas. However, this dish is versatile enough that it can be used at any time of the year and works well in any context where mashed potatoes are appropriate. As with its companion recipes, don't get scared by the length of the recipe that follows. It's only this long because I explain not only what to do and when to do it, but also why to do it. Great chefs separate themselves from good chefs in their knowledge and execution of a good potato dish. 

There are generally three kinds of potatoes on the American market: waxy, mealy, and somewhere in between. This recipe works best either waxy or intermediate potatoes, like Yukon Golds. Mealier Russets, the typical baking potatoes, don’t have the right consistency for this dish. 

The dish starts with 2.5 pounds of peeled potatoes left soaking in water. Keeping the potatoes soaking in water once they’ve been peeled to prevent them from oxidizing. Remove any eyes (brown spots/blemishes deeper than the surface of the potato) as you peel; most peelers have potato eye removers. However you decide to peel your potatoes, exercise caution. Keep things as organized as possible in a kitchen, and peel them into a single pile for easy cleanup. Do one task at a time, do it completely, and do it well. After all the potatoes have been peeled, cut them into uniform 1-inch cubes. This will ensure the potatoes all cook thoroughly, and that they do so at the same rate. 

Drain the potatoes from the water in which they sat while being peeled to rinse off some of the extra potato starch. Refill a large lidded pot—somewhere between 4 to 6 quarts is ideal—with fresh water to cover the potatoes entirely, plus about an inch and a half. Lightly salt the potatoes; a teaspoon or so is fine at this point. More can be added later if necessary. Cover the pot and place it over high heat. All else equal, salted water takes longer to boil than unsalted water, so be patient with your potatoes as they come to a boil; after all, they have been salted and are starting from cold, so this will take a while.  From cold to done, this should take about 35 minutes, but the time depends on the size of your potato pieces and the power of your stove, so after 20 minutes or so, periodically check your potatoes. When you feel minimal resistance, after however much time has elapsed, they are done. 

Drain the potatoes, returning them afterward to the same pot in which they were boiled. Add 3 to 4 ounces of low-fat milk and 3 to 4 tablespoons of butter (about half a stick) and stir in rather vigorously with a spoon until incorporated. You can alternatively use no milk and more butter, or no butter and more (whole) milk if you wish. Taste for salt content. Salting the water infused the potato pieces, which have by this point become mashed potatoes, with salt, but you may want to add more now. Add seasonings to taste. I go with dried dill, thyme, oregano, and paprika, plus freshly ground black pepper and freshly grated nutmeg, but the spices you add can certainly be tailored to your palate. Stir, not only to combine but to attain your desired creamy consistency. (Yukon Golds and other similar potatoes have the notable advantage over Russets, etc., that no amount of mixing done by hand will deteriorate the texture.)

Serve. 

If you make this, be sure to leave a comment down below letting me know!

Lemon Garlic Herb Roasted Chicken with Vegetables

If you, like me, live with a small family (especially now, in the age of quarantines and COVID-19, it's just been my parents and me at home alone together for the better part of the last 9 months or so) or are cooking on a tighter budget, roasting a chicken can be just as good, if not better, than roasting a turkey for a special occasion like a birthday, anniversary, Easter, Thanksgiving, or Christmas. Don't get scared by the length of the recipe that follows. It's only this long because I explain not only what to do and when to do it, but also why to do it. Every good chef should know this recipe, and an even better chef can take this recipe and adapt it as they see fit.

Roasting a good chicken starts well before you enter your kitchen; it actually starts even before you leave home to go get the ingredients you need at the grocery store, only starting to roast when you come back home. At least in the US, our Agriculture Department has different classifications based on the age and/or weight of the chicken that can tell you why to buy which kind of chicken. Basically, there are 3 really common categories you'll see in grocery stores nationwide: broilers, fryers, and roasters. Roasters are the biggest of the common categories (but bigger categories do exist), probably coming in at 5 to 7 pounds. Any bigger, and you might as well buy a small turkey, and any smaller, and you might as well buy a broiler or fryer-- but their names indicate their purposes, and we are neither broiling nor frying, so do not buy a broiler or a fryer. If you can find it, I'd recommend a free-range chicken-- it's more humane, lowers the carbon footprint, and actually improves the flavor profile of the chicken. Even more technically, look for an air-chilled chicken rather than a water-chilled chicken. Air-chilled chickens are cooled by cold air, while water-chilled birds essentially sit in an ice water bath. You'll get better color and crispier skin from an air-chilled chicken because the water chilled chicken introduced excess moisture that inhibits what's known as the Maillard Reaction-- the chemical process that gives a great steak, chop, (or in this case, bird) its great color by changing the structure of the sugars and proteins when heat is applied, forming a flavorful crust or creating crispy skin. To summarize: buy a sustainably raised, air-chilled roaster chicken if at all possible.

Now, a few comments on food safety. First, at least in the US, your bird almost certainly will come with its neck, heart, and maybe some other organs (liver, etc.) in a plastic bag inside the cavity. That plastic is not oven-safe and will melt if you follow my recipe. Take that bag out and throw it away-- you won't need it or any of its contents for this recipe. Second, especially among older generations, the conventional wisdom is to wash a chicken. NO! Washing a chicken just increases the potential for cross-contamination and the transmission of food-borne pathogens. Do NOT wash your chicken. What you do want to do is to pat your chicken dry with a disposable paper towel: this removes moisture from the skin. Moisture is the enemy of Maillard browning, so get your chicken as dry as possible. To that end, let your chicken stay, uncovered, in a clean, dry, ventilated place at room temperature for about half an hour before you roast it. Room-temperature birds roast more evenly than refrigerator-temperature birds.

Once you have a good-quality bird, the other half of the battle can begin: deciding on seasonings. I like to be pretty traditional here, so include 3/4 of an onion; a bunch each (1/2 an ounce, 14 grams-- one package) each of fresh rosemary, sage, and thyme; a lemon; a whole head of garlic, chopped open at its equator to open up every single clove (don't bother peeling it); salt; and pepper. These last two, but especially the salt, are often left out by inexperienced home cooks-- and this omission alone might explain why people don't like to cook and/or why they do like their own food. Salt has two purposes: removing moisture and intensifying existing flavored. That whole long list of ingredients will go inside the cavity of the bird. This will serve to flavor the bird from the inside out. Another list (olive oil, salt, and pepper) should be applied to both the breast side of the chicken and its opposite side. This will season from the outside in. Truss the chicken simply by bringing its drumsticks together so they either meet at a point or cross over each other and tie them together with a length of kitchen twine. This does 3 things: ensures the chicken cooks evenly, improves the presentation, and prevents anything stuffed in the cavity from falling out and imparting any burned flavors to the chicken.

Carrots, celery, and onions are some of the classic flavor combinations in innumerable cuisines worldwide. The French call it "mirepoix," the Italians "soffritto," and the Portuguese "refogado." I'll call it mirepoix from now on simply because that was the first term I learned for it. For this, which will form a bed on which to roast the chicken, I use a whole rib of celery (that is, a whole bunch of stalks attached at the root), two onions, two shallots, and a pound of carrots.

Each of these four components is prepared differently. First, the carrots. I cut off just enough from the top to get rid of the point at which the green stems are or would have been connected to the body of the root. Then, cut the carrots each into thirds or quarters depending on their length. If the carrot is particularly thick, cut each piece through its long axis so that the end result is two half-cylinders of carrot which each lie flat on a cutting board thanks to a rectangular base created by this cut. For the celery, make one cut at the top of the whole rib to remove any excessively leafy or woody parts. Then, disconnect every stalk from the whole rib at once by making a cut near where the stalks all meet. Now, cut each stalk at least in half, if not in thirds. For each shallot, peel it, cut off both the stem and root ends, and slice the shallot into halves or thirds depending on its size. For each onion, prepare it in much the same way as the shallots: peeling, removing the stem and root, cutting in half from stem to root to create a flat surface, and cutting each half into thirds pole-to-pole. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Seasoning here can be light since these elements will be indirectly seasoned by the drippings that come down from the chicken.

Lay the mirepoix in an even layer on a roasting pan--I like a 9qt Dutch oven, the biggest roasting-suitable vessel we own-- and then place the chicken breast-side up in the same tray on top of the mirepoix. Having removed all but the bottom rack from the oven and having preheated it to 500 Fahrenheit (or as high as your oven can go—but not engaging the broiler), place the roasting pan in the oven. Leave the chicken in the oven at this temperature for 30 minutes, and then drop the temperature to 350 and cook for about another 15 minutes per pound, or until the thickest part of the thigh registers 165 Fahrenheit. A 6.75-pound roaster like the one I’ll be preparing a few days after this recipe goes live, should be ready in about 2 hours 15 minutes.

Once the chicken is done, move it and the vegetables to a serving platter to rest. Return the roasting vessel with all the drippings from the pan still intact to the stove, adding in a slurry of about a teaspoon of cornstarch in a cup of chicken stock or water, if no stock is available. Also add in a tablespoon or two of low-fat (but not skim) milk. Bring the sauce up to a boil, whisking constantly to disperse the starch and fat granules as much as possible and to prevent any of it from scorching. Once a boil is reached, back off the heat to a simmer and continue whisking until a stage the French call “nappé.” Inexperienced chefs make the mistake of only taking the sauce to a simmer before killing the heat; your sauce will never reach the right consistency if you make this mistake. You know your sauce has reduced enough to reach nappé when you can put a metal spoon in the sauce, drag your finger across the back of the spoon, and see a trail leaving distinct left and right sides. If the sauce comes back together immediately and the trail disappears, keep going; you are not yet at nappé. If the sauce is so thick that you have to fight it to get the trail, you've reduced too far and have now passed nappé; thin out the sauce with more stock or water, and attempt to approach nappé again. Once nappé has been reached successfully, transfer the sauce to the serving vessel of choice.

Serve the pan sauce as an accompaniment to the chicken which is sat on the same bed of vegetables on which it was cooked (and both the vegetables and the chicken are on a platter).

If you make this, be sure to leave a comment down below letting me know!

Signature Dish

Every chef—even a home chef—needs a perfected signature dish. The recipe you’ll find below is mine, but you’ll notice one component of a typical recipe is totally gone: the measurements. That omission is entirely intentional. Early in the quarantine, we were under because of the Coronavirus, in either March or April 2020, I had a ton of chicken thighs in my home fridge and I didn’t really know what to do with them. This recipe, which I’ve prepared pretty much every time we’ve bought large quantities of chicken thighs since then was born out of the quarantine—a time when I was fairly limited in what I could use and what or when I could restock. My philosophy in the kitchen is this: “The best chef is not the one who follows a written recipe the most correctly but the one who produces the best results without any recipe at all.” I haven’t included many measurements here (other than the intentionally vague “pinch,” “dash,” and others) because one of my firmest convictions as a home chef is that the average home chef doesn’t know how to cook without a recipe—by coming up with ideas and tasting and adjusting through the course of assembling a dish. If every home chef in America knew to taste food and what to look for in the intermediate steps of cooking, so many more people would realize their great untapped potential and in doing so, would realize that cooking is not a task or a chore, but an incredibly fulfilling activity—if done with good technique. Good technique will yield good results. If nothing else, let this be a lesson in tasting and proportional cooking.

In some sort of bowl (I like the largest circular-ish Pyrex bowl I can find in my kitchen, which holds 7 cups), combine about equal parts of three different acids (I like balsamic and red wine vinegars, plus the zest and juice of some citrus, usually lime and/or orange). Whisk lightly to combine. These things just need to mingle, so it’s perfectly acceptable to go easy on the whisking at this point. Whisk in about the same amount of reduced-fat homogenized milk as any one of the acids. Again, here, it’s okay to whisk lightly. Now, whisking quickly, stream in about 3 times as much liquid oil as there are (total) acids and milk in the bowl. Oil doesn’t like the acids or the milk (because the milk is mostly water and the oil doesn’t like water), so the two will try to stay separate from each other; whisking constantly and adding slowly will essentially “make the molecules hug each other” in such a way that they won’t separate. Basically, you need to get the fat cells in the oil of your choice (again, use a liquid oil like olive or canola, not a solid one like coconut) into units that are as small as possible—in the best case, just one molecule— which are surrounded by and attracted to the water molecules. The chemistry of water allows us to create this “molecular hug” just by whisking long enough and adding in the oil slowly enough. Here, whisk vigorously. An unbreakable emulsion has been achieved when the fat particles are small enough as to be invisible to the naked eye and thus small enough to be held in suspension in the other liquids.

Technically, what this step does is it creates an emulsion, a mixture of two things that chemically don’t like each other but which are held together either by physical force (applied by whisking) or by each bonding to one side of something that both things are attracted to. (This is why people like to put eggs in meatballs: the eggs not only add protein, but they bring together elements of the meatball which chemically repel each other per se, but are both attracted to the egg, so they can be held together if they hold on to the egg—the egg thus gives the meatballs the structural integrity they need not to fall apart too soon.) Every good marinade has four components: fat, acid, spices, and salt. Whisk in spices. I’ve always used smoked and sweet paprika, basil, oregano, thyme, dill, garlic powder, bay leaves, fresh-cracked black peppercorns, and salt. Especially if you’re inexperienced in the kitchen, I recommend using Kosher salt. Kosher salt has the advantage of being coarser than normal “table salt” that isn’t Kosher, so it’s easier to see how much you’re actually salting something if you use Kosher salts rather than non-Kosher. I recommend having tasted the marinade at least three times by now: when only the acid, the milk, and the oil have gone in; after everything but the salt has gone in, and after the salt has gone in, adjusting what you already have in the bowl at each round.

Move this out of the container in which it was built into a container whose lid’s area is big enough such that the container could reasonably hold all the chicken in as close to a single layer as possible. If there are some spices left over in the container where the marinade was built, use some water to loosen the spices and pour them over the chicken. Close the chicken container, and shake it for a few seconds, just long enough to get the marinade moving around and coating all the pieces of chicken. Leave this in a refrigerator for at least 12 hours, but no longer than 48. Any longer than 48 hours and the acid in the marinade will actually begin to “cook” the chicken rather than just tenderizing and flavoring it.

Once ready to continue, after no less than 12 but no more than 48 hours of marination, move the chicken into enough baking dishes so that they all lie flat in one layer. If you have any more than 4 thighs on an average-sized baking pan, you will need more than one. Preheat an oven to 375 Fahrenheit (190 Celsius); once the temperature has been reached, place the thighs on the same level rack of the oven, and leave them there for an hour. Transfer the marinade into a sauté pan (something that’s wide, has a lid, and has sides that are maybe 2 inches tall), and let it come to a boil, reducing by a third. At this point, the sauce is safe to taste, so you should do so for likely the fourth time in this process.

While the chicken is roasting, it will release two things that together can only be described as “culinary gold.” The first is some of the juices from the chicken—don’t worry, this always happens, no matter how you cook chicken, and this chicken will still be particularly moist. The second is “schmaltz”—that is, slowly melted, flavored chicken fat. Move the chicken onto a separate plate and reserve it. Transfer all the schmaltz from all the roasting trays used into the pan where the sauce is being assembled. Whisk to combine—try to start emulsifying the sauce, but don’t be alarmed it stays separated; in fact, it won’t be until the next ingredient is added.

Cook one pound of some sort of long pasta—I like fettuccine with this recipe—to one minute short of the manufacturer’s instructions. Time the pasta so that it is drained as close to at exactly the same time as when the chicken comes out of the oven and the schmaltz is added to the sauce. Drain the pasta and reserve momentarily. Add anywhere from 2 to 3 heaping tablespoons of sour cream to the sauce and whisk until emulsified. You should not be able to distinguish the schmaltz from the marinade or the schmaltz-marinade from the sour cream. Once everything is thoroughly incorporated, the schmaltz does not appear separated, and there do not appear to be any visible white specks of sour cream in the sauce, it has been properly emulsified. Check for seasoning, adding salt and/or freshly ground black pepper as desired.  Bring drained long pasta into the sauce and stir or toss to combine. Serve chicken atop pasta, garnishing with as much grated Parmigiano Reggiano and/or pecorino romano cheese as desired.

 If you make this, be sure to leave a comment down below letting me know!

Mother's Day Chicken Parmigiana

I prepared the following recipe today as a special Mother's Day Lunch, and it has proven to be quite popular on Instagram, so I thought I'd share it here as well. Enjoy!

1 18 oz jar of fire-roasted tomato and garlic sauce

1/2 onion finely diced

4 Roma tomatoes

4 cloves garlic

1 on-vine tomato

2 Tbsp each of oregano, salt, freshly-ground black pepper

2 oz Chianti or another medium-body red wine

Bread crumbs

Mayonnaise

Milk

Thinly-sliced (about 3/4") whole chicken breasts-- buy them sliced or make a cut along the long side of the breast so it opens up like a book

Long pasta (linguine, spaghetti, etc.)

Mozzarella

Parmesan

Sweat out the onions in a thin coating of olive oil, letting some fond develop on the bottom of the pan, but not allowing the onions to burn in a large sauté pan. Process the tomatoes, onion, and garlic until smooth, and use water to collect bits of sauce that didn't come of the food processor. Season with salt, pepper, and oregano. Allow spices to bloom over low heat. Stir. Once fragrant, add wine and raise heat to high to allow alcohol to cook off quickly, then lower heat to low. Add in sauce from jar in 2/3 cup increments, incorporating each measure into the homemade sauce before adding the next. Once whole jar has been incorporated, season again, raise heat to medium, then cover. Maintain over medium heat until ready to serve-- about 40 minutes.

Combine milk and mayonnaise. Season with salt, pepper, and oregano. Season bread crumbs. Trim excess fat from chicken breasts, discard. Dredge chicken first in milk/mayonnaise, then in bread crumbs, shaking off excess each time. Bake at 350° for 32 minutes.

Remove chicken from oven. Slice medium-moisture mozzarella. Top chicken with sliced mozzarella and grated parmesan. Place back in oven, now set to broil on high or to highest possible temperature if broiler isn't available. Leave under broiler for 4 minutes.

Cook pasta according to packaged instructions to al dente so as to be ready when chicken is ready. One minute before the pasta should be ready, remove it and place it in the sauce, allowing some of the water the pasta was cooked in to come into the sauce. Uncover the sauce, and turn off the burner. Let residual heat in pan finish cooking pasta in sauce.

Once pasta, sauce and chicken are ready, plate and serve.

If you make this, be sure to leave a comment down below letting me know!

May 6, 2020: A day of great joy for the Archdiocese of Atlanta as we celebrate the Mass of Installation of our Seventh Archbishop

As I originally shared here two months ago, Archbishop-designate Gregory Hatmayer, OFMConv was announced as the seventh Archbishop and eighth Bishop of the Archdiocese of Atalanta, and he would be installed soon. That day has come and as of this afternoon, we no longer need to call him our Archbishop-designate: the See of Atlanta is no longer vacant, and, for the first time in more than a year, we have an Archbishop. Anyone who attends a Mass via livestream in the Archdiocese will, for the first time, hear "Be pleased to grant her peace, to guard, unite and govern her throughout the whole world, together with your servant Francis our Pope and Gregory our Bishop, and all those who, holding to the truth, hand on the catholic and apostolic faith" (if the celebrant uses the Canon, or the equivalent petition in the other Eucharistic Prayers), once again having a chief shepherd to pray for by name.

I was one of thousands of the faithful of Atlanta who, on March 6, began making plans to attend today's Mass of Installation at St. Peter Chanel. Finals would be over, I'd be home, and I live relatively close to St. Peter Chanel (I've done several multi-parish retreats that included both my home parish and St. Peter Chanel precisely because the parishes in my area are close enough to do events in clusters like this), so the date and time would be perfect for me. This was such a momentous occasion that I wrote and shared my first publiccomposition here to celebrate the appointment and impending installation.

Alas, COVID-19 at the time was a much milder threat back then than it is today: since then, the number of cases in Georgia has increased from three cases on the day of the announcement to well over thirty thousand today (an increase of 1,022,000%). So, a few weeks ago, Bishops Konzen and Shlesinger, the auxiliary bishops in whose temporary care the Archdiocese had been for about a year, made the prudent decision not to keep hundreds of sexagenarian, septuagenarian, and even octogenarian priests close together in an enclosed space for a few hours-- these Masses under normal circumstances tend to run from 2 to 3 hours in an enclosed space, plus there's the time they're waiting in a sacristy together before and after Mass (in an even smaller space), plus the reception afterward (with thousands of people from all over the state). When social distancing guidelines came out, our local church, under the care of our Diocesan Administrator and Auxiliary Bishop Joel Konzen, had made the decision to turn the installation into a private ceremony-- but one which the faithful were still absolutely encouraged to witness by means of the Internet livestreams. They also moved the installation back to the Cathedral (from where it was previously scheduled while still a public event, at St. Peter Chanel), so the installation of the Archbishop and his taking possession of his new Cathedral would be one liturgical action, not two liturgies on different days as had been planned.

For those who didn't make it to the original live stream and who would like to watch the archived version (or for those of you who did make it, and want a summary of what happened) already in the know about the installation procedure, refer to this post from when the announcement for a play-by-play inspired by a joke by Archbishop Bernard Hebda of St. Paul-Minneapolis that he regretted that there were no "How To Consecrate and/or Install a Bishop" tutorials on the Internet for him to watch beforehand, so he'd need the people of Sioux Falls and their Bishop-elect to bear with him as he went through the rite for the first time. (The consecration of Bishop DeGrood of Sioux Falls earlier this year was Archbishop Hebda's first as principal consecrator.)

Here's a recap of what happened this afternoon at the Mass that not only marks the transfer of the care and governance of the Archdiocese to Archbishop Hartmayer, but also the Archbishop's (as of yesterday) 41st anniversary of ordination to the priesthood.

(I apologize in advance for the poor quality of these pictures. Most of the screen captures I got weren't very good at all, and at points the video was streaming below 240p. If/when the Archdiocese posts the archived footage off today's Installation Mass-- probably be the end of the day, if at all--I'll edit this post to include those better pictures.):

Archbishop Wilton Gregory, the previous Archbishop of Atlanta who served here from January 2005 to April 2019, and has now been in Washington since May 2019, welcomes the Archbishop-designate, via a video message before the Mass of Installation began. When the Archbishop-designate was appointed a bishop in 2011 and sent to Savannah, Archbishop Gregory was the man who consecrated him and thus made him a bishop by the authority of the Pope.

Archbishop-designate Hartmayer, ceremonially locked out of Christ the King Cathedral, knocks on its doors three times (once for each Person of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), asking to come into the Cathedral and become the new chief shepherd, and is welcomed into his new Cathedral by its Rector

Archbishop-designate Hartmayer enters what will momentarily become his Cathedral for the first time, in a homecoming of sorts-- between 1995 and 2011, Archbishop-designate Hartmayer had been pastor of two parishes in our Archdiocese before being appointed Bishop of Savannah, where he had served until now.

The Apostolic Nuncio, the Pope's ambassadorial representative based in Washington, read the English translation of a mandate written and signed by Pope Francis in Latin that named Archbishop-designate Hartmayer officially as the Archbishop of Atlanta and released him from his obligations in Savannah, After being asked one more time if he accepted the appointment, the mandate was shown to a group of priests and to the people to verify its authenticity. Here, a deacon shows the people the original Latin mandate. Around 2000 devices watched the installation. Given that there were probably families watching together on a single device, if the Mass of Installation had been held with the public present, the 3000-plus seats of the Cathedral would likely have all been full.

Msgr. Frank McNamee, Rector of Christ the King Cathedral, on behalf of all the clergy of Atlanta (only about 10 of whom were present, out of nearly 300, in keeping with social distancing) inspects the Papal Mandate naming Archbishop-designate Gregory Hartmayer to Atlanta for its veracity

The mandate was shown to us, the faithful at home, so we too could see that the signature on the mandate really was that of Pope Francis, and that, therefore, the mandate was authentic.

The mandate was verified by both the people and the clergy, so everything was leading up to this moment, when he sat on the Cathedra for the first time and became Archbishop Hartmayer, officially assuming responsibility for the teaching, governing, and sanctifying of the 1.2 million Catholics in Atlanta, and ending the 13-month vacancy that had begun in April 2019 during which there was no Archbishop. Ordinarily, the people would give their assent by applauding the Archbishop from within the Cathedral; however, expressions of such assent were limited in scope since the Cathedral was almost empty. However, Archbishop Hartmayer, you can be sure that all of us who watched from home are very pleased with your appointment. To the Archbishop's right in the background, you can see another Bishop, Bishop Kevin J. Boland, applauding. Bishop Boland, Bishop Emeritus of the Diocese of Savannah, reached the mandatory retirement age of 75 in 2010 and was replaced in 2011 by then-Father Hartmayer. Bishop Hartmayer succeeded Bishop Boland, and he served in Savannah as their Bishop until he was appointed to serve as our Archbishop back in March.

After the Gloria, Collect, First Reading, Responsorial Psalm, Second  Reading, and Gospel, the newly installed Archbishop Hartmayer gives his first homily as Archbishop. By Canon Law (the laws of the Church) ordinations/installations of priests who are not yet bishops can happen up to 4 months after the date on which the mandate was given, with exceptions made for extenuating circumstances. Installations of men who are already Bishops must happen within 3 months, with exceptions made for extenuating circumstances. From within that window, this  particular week was selected because this previous Sunday was Good Shepherd Sunday-- and the Archbishop is the chief shepherd of his Archdiocese, and Archbishop Hartmayer explicitly requested that there not be a delay so the installation could still coincide with the week of Good Shepherd Sunday.

At the conclusion of his Mass of Installation, Archbishop Gregory Hartmayer gives us, the people of Atlanta, his new flock, his first blessing as our new Archbishop.

Three things in particular stood out about this Mass: first, the deeply Franciscan charism of our new dear Archbishop, reflected in the fact that, under his chasuble (the cream-colored poncho-like outermost garnet the Archbishop is wearing in all these pictures, aptly named, since in Latin, “casula” means “small house” and these things really are big enough to justify that naming), stole, and alb, the Archbishop wore the Conventual Franciscan habit, and in the musical selections which, again, had a very deeply Franciscan character about them. Second, the homecoming that this was for Archbishop Hartmayer. The Archbishop served here in the Archdiocese as a priest from 1995 to 2011, being a pastor of two parishes in that time (one from 1995 to 2010 and the second from 2010 to 2011). In 2011, Pope Benedict XVI called him to go to Savannah, and he served there as their bishop for eight and a half years before being called back to Atlanta to serve as our Archbishop. Archbishop Hartmayer has been a priest for 41 years as of yesterday (Happy anniversary, Archbishop Hartmayer! Ad multos annos!), and more than half that time has been spent in Georgia’s two dioceses. Third, and most obviously, the lack of people in Christ the King Cathedral. Though Georgia’s statewide stay-at-home order has been lifted, the Archdiocesan suspension on public Masses continues for our safety, so only the most essential people were in the Cathedral: the Archbishop, his two auxiliaries, a few priests and deacons, one lector, and the Cathedral’s organist and its choirmaster. Notably absent from the expanse of its pews were the thousands of faithful who would have gone had the Mass been open to the public, but who instead watched a livestream from home.  Mass, as a liturgy, is by definition a both communal and a public act, so this felt very strange to all involved. We all long for the day when we will get to meet our Archbishop in person, but we know that while social distancing is in place, that day will not come. However, we also know that if we do our parts to minimize risk and exposure by wearing a mask and social distancing, the outbreak will be over sooner, and the day we have been longing for will draw closer. If we do what we are supposed to do and if we pray with and for one another, albeit from a distance, the day will come when we can gather again, and the day will come when we no longer need to see our Archbishop through a TV or other screen, but when we can be with him. Hang in there, my friends. Stay safe, practice social distancing, and be careful— those are the ways we will return to  the communities we know and love. 

To our dear Archbishop Hartmayer, welcome back home to Atlanta. Receive from us our warmest congratulations to you on your installation and your 41st anniversary of priestly ordination. Your appointment and installation have come during a time of great uncertainty amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and during a time when it has not been possible for us to be with you to welcome you back to the Archdiocese where you served 16 years, now as our Archbishop. These first few months as our chief shepherd will be difficult and different from any other time you’ve experienced in your forty-one years as a priest and nine years as a bishop, but do not be afraid, for our prayers are with you. The road ahead will not be an easy one, but you are a worthy, humble, and capable shepherd, and we your flock place our love and trust in you, guided by the Holy Spirit, to help us through these trying times. Our prayers are with you now and always. When it is safe to do so, we will happily celebrate with you in person, we all look forward to meeting you, and we will cherish the opportunities to pray with you and celebrate the Sacraments with you. 

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me bring love.

Where there is offense, let me bring pardon.

Where there is discord, let me bring union.

Where there is error, let me bring truth.

Where there is doubt, let me bring faith.

Where there is despair, let me bring hope.

Where there is darkness, let me bring your light.

Where there is sadness, let me bring joy.

O Master, let me not seek as much

to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand,

to be loved as to love,

for it is in giving that one receives,

it is in self-forgetting that one finds,

it is in pardoning that one is pardoned,

it is in dying that one is raised to eternal life.

Amen. 

St. Francis, pray for us! St. Gregory, pray for us! St. John, pray for us! St. Pius X, pray for us! St. John the Baptist, pray for us!

From Denver to Rotterdam and around the world: A message of hope amid a global crists.

As I write this, we’re currently in lockdown in my home state of Georgia. Millions of people have been diagnosed with what was originally thought to be a mysterious and quite aggressive form of pneumonia after having visited one specific open-air market in China in late December 2019. By 2020, the disease was found to be a new pathogen, and the city where the outbreak started (and the whole province)—close to 60 million people—were on lockdown in China.

My home country, the United States, got its first case in February, in the state of Washington; my home state of Georgia was about a month behind the first case in the country. In early March, we had 3 cases. More than 24 thousand people in my state now have the disease, and the whole country has 989 thousand cases—the most in the world—and worldwide, at least 3.06 million have contracted the virus, of whom more than 212 thousand have died. We need to test people to see if they have or had the disease, but, especially here in the United States, we can’t—there just aren’t enough tests. Millions more may be infected and that we’ll never know for certain because they weren’t tested, not because they chose not to be tested, but because they couldn’t be tested since the tests they needed literally did not exist and could not be made. Because of the severity of the disease we’ve been fighting—for months now classified as a pandemic—the world economy is at a standstill; many countries in Europe and many areas in my United States have been limiting economic activity to only the bare essentials, often closing every business indefinitely except those that make food, medicine, or things needed to fight the virus.

Hospitals are overrun. Doctors are desperate, some having to make life-or-death calls, giving life to one patient and denying life to another in a zero-sum game fighting over ventilators and experimental treatments in dangerously low supply. Public health officials say that this is the most serious affront to our national and global health systems since the Spanish Flu of 1918 a century ago. To prevent the death toll of the Spanish Flu pandemic, governments worldwide have put billions of people under government-enforced lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, potentially for the next several months, for their protection. The leading doctor fighting the virus here in America says we may have to wait until 2022 for a vaccine, and even longer until the vaccine is distributed widely enough that we can all consider ourselves safe again and to have some semblance of a return tot normalcy, like things were before the virus.

We are all scared, and we all need hope. Even for those of us who have not yet been directly affected by the virus, it's an incredibly treacherous time with so many unknowns: everywhere we look, we’re reminded of the crisis, and every time we turn on the TV and check the news, it’s bad, and very few people can give us sound information that tells us the end is really in sight. The numbers have worsened: more have died, there are fewer available hospital beds and ventilators, and there doesn’t appear to be any end in sight. 

For musicians, it’s a tough time: the concert halls are closed indefinitely, and some ensembles have had to disband entirely because ticket revenue has fallen so much so suddenly. Doing what we love to do-- playing for audiences who love what we play-- is impossible right now. One of the orchestras that shines brightly as an example of how to continue bringing music and hope to the world even though we musicians can’t rehearse together, let alone play in a packed concert hall for thousands at a time, is the Rotterdam Philharmonic in the Netherlands. The musicians in that Dutch orchestra, at a time when their country currently has about 37,000 cases, came together to give the world hope. The musicians came together via video from wherever they were, and from living rooms and kitchens, each musician alone played his or her part in the finale of Beethoven’s Ninth. As far as I can tell, the choral part was reused from another one of the Rotterdam Philharmonic’s recordings of the Ninth. The video, which went up on March 20, 2020 on the Rotterdam Philharmonic’s official YouTube channel, now has nearly 2.7 million views, 127 times as many likes as dislikes, and 2800 comments as of when this was written in late April 2020. The video was probably put together with next to no rehearsal time, and certainly no rehearsal time together, and titled “From us, for you,” has been a tremendous source of hope through the desolation and devastation of the pandemic. Even though this performance didn’t happen in one of the grandest concert halls in Europe led by an all-time great conductor for an audience who paid for a ticket to see a concert, it still managed to touch the hearts of millions of viewers. That’s the power of the Ninth: whenever or however we hear it, it’s an instrument of hope, of healing, of comfort.

I’d like to share some of the comments posted on the video.

This one is from a doctor actively working to end the pandemic “Thank you – as an ER physician dealing with the repercussions of this global tragedy, it is beautiful to have reminders of why we are putting our lives at risk every day. You have touched my heart and given me, and others, strength to keep being what we are - doctors - because of what you are - artists....”

An Indonesian doctor said this “I am a physician in Indonesia. I lost it when the chorus came in. Thank you.”

 Another man said this about his Dutch wife’s past experiences through World War II and how they relate to the current pandemic: “…Her parents watched [Rotterdam] erupt in flames in May of 1940 and lived through five years of occupation. As we cope with this pandemic, I remember the courage of my Dutch family, I draw strength from knowing that people have survived terrible times…” 

This commenter included a quote from Washington Irving, an American writer roughly contemporaneous with Ludwig van Beethoven. The commenter said: “‘There is a sacredness in tears. They are not a mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition and of unspeakable love.’ [ –Washington Irving] Thank you for giving me Joy 💖.” 

 This commenter speaks of the immense emotional impact even an impromptu performance under the strangest of circumstances, like this one, can have: “When I saw all the comments saying how they cried unexpectedly, I didn't think I would cry but I did. This hit me so hard, thank you so much. Music can heal.”

This commenter points out that authentic joy is transcendent over even the most crippling illnesses or physical disabilities, like Ludwig van Beethoven was: “A deaf man that knows what joy would sound like is a great testament to the potential greatness of humanity.” An American commenter wrote this: “This brought tears to my eyes. Music is the universal language. Thank you and much love from America. 🧡🧡🧡”

Another commenter contrasts the desolation of today with the hope of tomorrow: “Literally crying at the end. It's difficult to explain how powerful this music is. This song has survived so many ugly events in human history. Yet, it remains beautiful. Thank you, Rotterdam philharmonic orchestra. You have shown us exactly what context our current worries exist in. In the existence of this song, Rotterdam was cruelly burnt to the ground. The citizens of the Netherlands experienced unimaginable suffering, yet the song survived. Now the citizens of Rotterdam can proudly perform the music, just like the generations before them. I know coronavirus is terrifying, and it has deeply harmed my personal life. But we will survive this crisis, just like Beethoven's symphony. There will be a time when symphony halls across the world will be full again.”

Another commenter on the transcendence and historical importance of this performance, despite it not being in as grand a setting or with as illustrious a conductor as the other monumentally influential performances I'll discuss in that section of my upcoming book. “No concert, no lesson, no future musical event will ever be more important or as powerful as these last 4 minutes. Thank you for sending such an uplifting message in such tumultuous times. God Bless.”

This commenter speaks to the universality of the healing power of music, our common language: “This is why music is SO important. In a language that we can all relate to, all feel and all bond. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! For sharing your gifts with us all in time where we need hope, love and song. Beautiful!”

On the uniting power of music: “This is so beautiful I'm crying. If only the world would come together like this at all times. Thank you!!”

Another similar video was released at around the same time by the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, based in Denver, Colorado. There, 544 thousand people have seen the video, there have been 136 times as many likes as there have been dislikes, and there have been about 490 comments as of when this was written in late April 2020. Here’s a sampling of those comments.

“We may be remote but we are STILL musicians and we can still touch souls.... We need our music and those around us virtually need it as well…”

“I started tearing up watching this. If you'd brought in a full choir, I would have straight-up broken down. Wonderful job, all of you.”

“The arts are what make us human, both in good times and times of difficulty. Everyone of these individuals, everyone of these instruments is unique and different and yet when they come together, they bring peace, beauty and joy. Thank you to each of these musicians for sharing this beauty. May we all learn a lesson that when we come together, in our uniqueness, we can make beautiful things happen. I so enjoyed this amazing rendition of Beethoven's Ode to Joy, last movement of his 9th Symphony. Thank you!”

“Brought tears to my eyes. Thank you for sharing your gift of music with us at this time.”

“I'm in tears. Thank you so much for sharing joy in this time of uncertainty. Blessings on each of you."

“Thank you so much for this beautiful song! I think it's so amazing that us musicians can still play together, even under the current circumstances!”

“Music is essential in crisis. It gives you courage.”

Using online tools to translate their comment from Japanese, I found that one person wrote “I will be healed. I pray that all the hearts of the world will be healed. Thank you for the wonderful music.”

 “Thank you. In a time of distancing you all model music togetherness. And bring out individual gifts for the gift of shared music. Thank you”

 One of the great miracles of this symphony is the hope that this melody and its lyrics inspire in all of us: "Alle Menschen werden Brüder." "All men will be brothers." Leaning on each other and on our music for strength and encouragement, we'll make it through the crisis. These past few months have been difficult, and there are many more difficult months ahead. But do not be afraid. Now, while many of us are scared, let us remember that we have each other, and let us take comfort in each other's company, and in the beautiful music and memories we can create together, even in the midst of a global crisis because hope, music, and love transcend anything. Anchoring ourselves by our music, let us not lose one of the things that matters most: our hope. Stay strong, my friends.