The other night, my fiance and I were at home re-watching a classic film from the 1990s, The Talented Mr. Ripley. Shot almost entirely in Italy, the movie features some exotic and breathtaking locations along the Italian coastline, including Ischia Ponte and Bagno Antonio in Ischia as well as the city streets of Procida and Rome.
It’s a near-intoxicating immersion into Italian scenery and lifestyle, and one of my absolute favorite parts of the film is the unleashed debauchery of the musical number set in a jazz club in what’s meant to be Naples (but was actually filmed at the Caffè Latino in Rome). A wild-eyed Jude Law lets loose with the stuffy Matt Damon on a rendition of Renato Carosone’s classic Italian pop hit “Tu Vuò Fa’ L’Americano,” and every time I see it, it has me Googling for cheap flights to the Italian Riviera.
Alas, I didn’t get to San Remo or Genoa this time. But I did get a craving for cannoli (can I really blame this on a movie, though?) and thought I would finally try out the cannoli over at Cugini’s Pizzaria and Trattoria, one of our favorite local dining spots.
Why have you taken so long to try out their cannoli, you’re probably asking right now. Well, I don’t do desserts. (I’ll take a moment as you clasp the paper and scream in fury at me right now.) That’s just how it is. I typically skip them (except in rare cases where a menu item just blows my mind) because as a food writer, I, uh, eat … a lot. I eat pasta courses and cheese courses and meats in heavy creams and side dishes basted in butter and then slathered in more butter and then, well, you get the picture. So I avoid dessert as much as possible to give myself the illusion that I’m eating “healthy.”
Along with my quest to try out the cannoli, I also of course had to dig into some of the reliable favorites on the menu. Here’s the secret to ordering at Cugini’s: Get the sauce on the side. They are generous with it, and I personally prefer to control my portions of things like that. Especially when it comes to the lasagna, which is a really pretty plate of food when you see the details they put into it. The lasagna is hearty and very filling, and it also comes with one of their delicious rolls. I always end up eating too much of their bread (that garlic bread, mamma mia), and that’s why I have to skip dessert.
On the weekends, they roll out their specials, including chicken piccata, one of my favorite dishes in the world. It’s also one of the first things I ever learned to cook and it can be very tricky to get the lemony butter sauce flavor just right. The secret is in the brininess of the capers, and you have to be careful not to over- or under-do it otherwise you don’t get the right amount of acid in each bite. I like Cugini’s take because they do a good job on that bright lemon taste, and it comes with a generous portion of pasta on the side.
As for the cannoli. I was told a few years ago when I moved into town that Cugini’s had really great cannoli, and I can’t believe I waited all this time to sample them. Cannoli are a Sicilian dessert, almost iconic in terms of what they mean to the food culture of the region. As the famous Godfather line goes, “Leave the gun; take the cannoli.” Because you never ever let good cannoli go to waste; it’s just that special.
They are made from a fried pastry dough, which forms a small wrapped tube. That is then stuffed with a ricotta cheese mixture, and that’s where you find the small variations in recipe tweaks that every Italian joint incorporates to make theirs unique. I personally couldn’t stop staring at them in order to actually dive in and eat one. Cugini’s version is sublime; the rich filling holds up nicely to the crack of the fried exterior. I ordered two of them, savoring each bite slowly, all the while beginning to seriously rethink my whole “no dessert” policy.
Leave the sides; take the cannoli.
Arts and Lifestyle Writer Rebecca Rose has seen The Godfather 800 billion times. Ask her anything at rrose@santamariasun.com.
• Happy belated Turkey Day, wherever you may be. Orcutt Bakery served up adorable holiday-themed cake pops, including ones that looked like a turkey (pictured). Go see what kind of cake pops they’ve got now at 4869 S. Bradley Road, No. 112, Orcutt.
• I’m sure everyone participated in an annual Thanksgiving food drive somewhere, but how about we also remember that people need food year-round, too. So sometime after you’ve made that final leftover turkey sandwich with that last weird scrap of meat from under the neck, think you could gather a few more non-perishable food items for your local food pantry? I Rebeccamend you do that and enjoy the rest of the holidays with your family and friends. (Put down the paper and go talk to your mother. She misses you.)
This article appears in Nov 30 – Dec 7, 2017.
