Our "Big Night"

Things got a little crazy around here this past week and night. One of our employees, Amy, had suggested to Carl the 1996 movie "The Big Night," a movie about Italian immigrant brothers in the U.S., trying to keep their traditional restaurant from having to close. We watched it last week and enjoyed it--good acting and good food. (And, of course, Isabella Rossellini.)

The central recipe in the movie's big restaurant dinner party scene is called timpano (also related to a timballo), a massive Italian pasta-and-everything-else dish which is baked inside a crust inside a Dutch oven. It is a truly ridiculous many-layer multi-day endeavor. Perfect for me!

included in one layer--a dozen eggs!

I found a user-friendly vegetarian recipe version online and spent two days doing the various tasking, which included boiling the eggs, making the tomato sauce and ricotta, charring the red peppers, rolling out a crust as big as our table--quite the event! My dad helped me assemble it in the Dutch oven, and then we all waited two more hours to see if the thing would behave and release when the oven (all 23 pounds of it!) was inverted. I certainly was holding my breath.

Dylan @ the un-ovening

Amazingly, it actually turned out pretty well. It's just that at some point, either while slicing it into massive wedges or looking at everything that came with it onto your plate, you can't help but shake your head. I used to think LASAGNA was the most labor-intensive dish--when my mom made it, it was a true labor of love. Our timpano wasn't exactly elegant, but we could certainly taste the good intentions and all of the mounds and mounds of tasty ingredients. 

Like consuming an apartment building full of food. 

What ultimately matters, of course, just as in the movie, is that the effort put into food to share with those we love is effort well spent, well spent indeed. We had a gloriously warm and silly evening., well stuffed.

Salute!!