In
the 1978 movie Same Time Next Year, Ellen Burstyn's character
lamented that her husband considered his years in the Army the best
years of his life.
When Alan Alda's character, her partner in a 26-year
adulterous affair, commiserated that many men felt that way about their
time in the military, Burstyn retorted, "but he spent two years as a
prisoner of war."
Only a husband who wants to sleep on
the couch would admit to any source of happiness outside of
marriage... and only an honest answer to the loaded question "does
this dress make me look fat" is more deleterious to any
amorous prospects.
When I speak fondly to my lovely
bride about my years in Massachusetts, it's always prefaced or
followed by "I wish you had been with me." My two years in the
Bay State were the best years of my life...outside of my married
years, of course.
Massachusetts
converted this once gangly and naive lad of 19 who grew up in
bucolic Peņasco, New Mexico into a more worldly and sophisticated
young man ready to conquer the world.
Having
been raised on a diet of northern New Mexican staples such as chile,
beans and farm-raised vegetables, Massachusetts awakened my taste buds
to an electrifying new world of cuisine. Like the proverbial kid
in the candy store, I wanted to sample it all.
Here's how culinarily virginal I
was--until my years in Massachusetts, the only pizza I had ever eaten
outside of Pizza Hut was out of the box, a wafer thin Chef Boyardee
product with a cardboard-like crust. Is it any wonder Pizza Hut was my baseline
for good pizza.
I'd never even had
Chinese food not to mention Thai, Vietnamese, French, etc. My
experiences with "seafood" were limited to the fish sticks we ate
during Lent (unless you count the German Browns and Cutthroats we
caught in Peņasco's high mountain streams).
In the Boston area,
particularly in the North End, Italian restaurants are not only
authentic and refined, they're extraordinary--among the best in the
country. I couldn't always afford many of the North End
restaurants so it's a good thing every Boston metropolitan area
neighborhood seemed to have a few personality-packed Italian restaurants.
Most of the
neighborhood Italian restaurants were of the "red sauce" and pasta
variety whose genesis stems from the cuisine of Southern Italy.
The cream sauce and meat dish Northern Italian cuisine was in vogue at
the more expensive restaurants, while the little neighborhood Italian
restaurants could always be counted on to serve hearty portions of
soul-warming pasta and pizza.
One
of the Albuquerque
Italian restaurants which most reminds me of those wonderful
neighborhood Italian "red sauce" restaurants of my days
in Massachusetts is Mario's Pizza & Ristorante, a venerable Duke
City institution.
That's likely because fragrance is one
of the most potent mediums for conjuring up memories. Among the most
enduring sensory memories of my days in Massachusetts are those
associated with the amazing aromas that greeted me each time I visited
my favorite neighborhood Italian restaurants.
Mario's conjures up those memories as
well. The familiar aroma of
garlic-laden tomato sauces over a
stovetop and yeasty pizza dough in the oven envelop you like a warm
hug from the minute you enter
the restaurant.
Mario's culinary
lineage goes back to the mother country. The Burgarello family
immigrated to America in 1949, settling in the Knickerbocker area of
Brooklyn, New York. Mario, the family patriarch, worked as a
pizza maker before launching his own pizzeria in Queens back in 1965.
As fate would have
it, a 1972 family vacation in New Mexico reminded the Burgarellos of
the climate in Sicily so much that they moved to the beautiful
Southwest. The rest, as they say, is history.
Enamored of its traditional Sicilian
cooking, Albuquerque has accorded Mario's seven People Choice awards.
That's a lot of love--and it's a love that's reciprocated in the form
of delicious food.
If love can be served on a bowl, it
might taste like Mario's minestrone. This thick Italian
vegetable soup might just be the essence of an Italian comfort soup.
Mario's version includes peas, carrots, potatoes, tomatoes and other
hearty vegetables, the type of which you hated as a child but would
love in such a soup.
In 1995,
Pizza Today,
the leading trade publication in the pizza industry listed Mario's
among its "Hot 100" as one of the top independent pizzerias
(#87) in the United States. By 2007, Mario's had climbed to #76 among America's highest grossing independent pizzerias.
Even though the menu's pizza section
is entitled "Gourmet Pizza," this is New York style pizza, not some
colorful California concoction of disparate ingredients competing for
the rapt attention of your taste buds.
Mario's will accommodate (within
reason) any weirdness with which you may be inclined to imbue your
pizza. The "create your own pizza" includes a treasure trove of
ingredients (no sashimi grade sushi or in-season mangos if you're
aching for a California pizza).
This is pizza stretched to the edges
where it puffs out like the sweet and savory yeasty oven-baked dough
it is. Its outside edges are replete with tasty char and airy
pockets of deliciousness. Even kids who don't like the crust
will love Mario's pizza edges.
They'll also love the tangy tomato
sauce and piled-on ingredients. Garlic is minced and potent,
sausage is fennel-kissed and spicy, white onions are sweet and
flavorful and the green chile has the roasted flavor New Mexicans
love.
There's a lot to love in Mario's
stromboli, a meaty version of Mario's calzones. It's like a
doughy half football stuffed with ham, salami, onions, green peppers,
black olives, provolone and mozzarella cheeses. For a bit more
zest, ask for it "Greek style" and the accommodating kitchen staff
will add feta cheese and Kalamata olives.
The stromboli is enormous, easily
big enough for two to share. It is served with a small bowl of
marinara sauce for dipping. The sauce is tomato rich and tangy,
the quintessential red sauce I remember so well from Massachusetts.
The menu also includes all the
favorite red sauce pastas Americans love so much. Steaming bowls
of spaghetti, ravioli and lasagna are among the best-selling items
according to the wait staff.
The dessert menu includes several
favorites such as real New York style cheesecake (or as reasonable a
facsimile of as you can get in New Mexico). The homemade
tiramisu is always a hit.
For me, Mario's is the place in
Albuquerque for spumoni, the molded and colorful Italian ice
cream with layers of flavor. Spumoni at Mario's means vanilla
and chocolate ice cream with hidden surprises of pistachio and
cherries. It's like opening a box of assorted chocolates with
flavor combinations that make your taste buds sing.
Albuquerque has been singing Mario's
praises for a long time and there appears to be no surcease to its
success in Albuquerque. Mario's is an august family-owned
restaurant whose veneer may be showing a few signs of age, but it
holds fast against a tide of trendy chains. The wait staff is
genuine not saccharine. The food is authentic and delicious.
It's the way I remember Italian food in Massachusetts.
