Page 74 - Blues Festival Guide Magazine 2024 Digital Edition

What’s

Cookin’

with Anthony Geraci

Linguini with White Clam Sauce

I grew up in an Italian family where food was sacred! pastry shops in that section of New Haven. Cool fact: my
My grandmother lived with us so both my parents were mother was born on Wooster Street in New Haven, which is
able to have full-time jobs. Much like hanging around with home to the now world-famous Pepe’s Pizza.
blues piano masters such as Pinetop Perkins, Sunnyland I’ve chosen to share my version of linguini and clams
Slim, Roosevelt Sykes and Lloyd Glenn, it was the same with in white sauce because it reminds me of the traditional
cooking and being around my mother and grandmother – I Italian Christmas Eve dinner, Feast of the Seven Fishes. I’ve
learned by observing and absorbing what they were doing, “upgraded” the recipe I remember from my mother and
without asking a lot of questions. grandmother… I’m just not good at following directions! We
Every Sunday, I woke up to the aroma of meatballs being usually only had linguini and clams on that holiday. I now
made and garlic being sautéed for the beginning of the make it a few times a year – my children love it!
traditional Sunday sauce – we never called it gravy. There
was a meatball war between my father’s side and my mother’s
side of the family – but that’s a story for another time!
On special occasions we would have a seafood pasta
dish. On really special occasions, we would have Lobster Fra
Diavolo. Watching my mother lay a lobster on the counter and
literally disembowel it still gives me the creeps! But my favorite
was linguini and clams.
Growing up in New Haven, CT, in the late 1950s, it was
still a time that you could to go to the docks and buy fresh
seafood right off the boats. My mother, grandmother, younger
sister Judy and I went every Saturday to get food for the week.
Saturday was always steak night – I think that was a special
treat my parents held over from the Depression Era days when
food and money were scarce.
After going to the docks, we would go into the “Italian”
section of New Haven. There were poultry shops where we’d
buy live chickens, pick one out and about 15 minutes later,
you would get the chicken and have a ready-to-cook bird –
you’d also get the innards and the feet that my parents cooked
into some kind of Italian Voodoo stew. I still remember the
smell of that place! We got our eggs there too. Then we made
our way to the bakery and deli to buy cheese and cold cuts
for sandwiches later that day, then sometimes to the amazing

72 Blues Festival Guide 2024