Frank Sinatra loved Veal Milanese. His Dad Marty used to make it for young Frank and Sinatra ate Veal Milanese over a thousand times at his most favorite restaurant in the World, PATSY’S of NEW YORK on West 56th Street .. Franks other favorites were; Clams Posillipo, Spaghetti & Meatballs, SUNDAY SAUCE, and Rigatoni Marinara …
See Daniel Bellino Zwicke’s book “SUNDAY SAUCE” When Italian-Americans Cook for recipes of Sinatra’s favorite dishes and recipes for SUNDAY SAUCE alla SINATRA and DOLLY SINATRA’S MARINARA ..
And MANGIA BENE !!!
VEAL MILANES RECIPE alla SINATRA
INGREDIENTS
2 cups Bread Crumbs (Plain)
2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
1/4 cup minced flat-leaf parsley
1 cup plus 3 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 large eggs, beaten
4 veal cutlets (about 1 1/4 pounds), pounded thin to slightly less than 1/4 inch
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 lemon, cut into 8 wedges
DIRECTIONS
Break or cut the bread into large chunks and place in a food processor. Process until the bread is reduced into fine crumbs. Transfer the crumbs into a large bowl and stir in the cheese, oregano and parsley. Gradually add 3 tablespoons of oil, stirring until thoroughly combined. Season with salt and pepper.
Spread the flour onto a large plate, plate the eggs in a shallow bowl and spread the seasoned bread crumbs on a second large plate. Coat each veal cutlet in the flour, then the beaten eggs and then the bread crumbs, patting with the palm of your hand to ensure adhesion.
Heat 1 cup of the oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high flame (to a frying temperature of 350 degrees F.) and sauté the veal for 2 minutes. Turn and sauté for 1 additional minute. Do not crowd the pan. If necessary, fry the cutlets in batches. Remove with a slotted spatula and drain on paper towels. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve with lemon wedges.
Frank Sinatra’s connection to pasta sauce includes a commercial line of pasta sauce that he launched in the 1980s. It was his mother Dolly Sinatra’s recipe. The line had limited success before closing down with a short run.
A recently published popular book titled SINTRA SAUCE by fellow Jeresyite Italian-American author Daniel Bellino Zwicke contains many Italian food recipes of dishes that Frank Sinatra ate, including recipes from his mother Dolly, father Martino, his aunts, and Frank Sinatra’s own recipe for Salsa Pomodoro to make his Spaghetti with Tomato Sauce which he once demonstrated on television on the Dinah Shore Show.
SPAGHETTI POMODORO
RECIPE “FRANK’S TOMATO SAUCE”
Frank’s Salsa Pomodoro is a quickly made tomato sauce that retains fresh tomato flavour, as opposed to sauces that are cooked for longer periods of time. It is simply made with top quality ingredients of San Marzano Tomatoes, Italian Olive Oil, fresh garlic, salt, black pepper, and Bay Leaves, and fresh Basil. The best quality ingredients and short cooking time is what gives Frank’s Sauce its fresh wonderful taste.
SALSA POMODORO
Ingredients:
1 pound imported Italian Spaghetti
1 (28 oz) can Whole Peeled San Marzano Tomatoes, crushed by hand
8 tablespoons imported Italian Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
3 cloves Garlic, peeled and lightly smashed
Handful of Fresh Basil Leaves, torn
Kosher salt and black pepper to taste
Optional: Pinch of red pepper flakes
Instructions:
Infuse the Oil:Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the smashed garlic cloves and sauté for 2–3 minutes until golden brown.Sinatra’s Rule:Remove the garlic once it’s golden to leave only a subtle infusion.
Start the Sauce: Carefully add the hand-crushed tomatoes and their juices to the oil. Add red pepper flakes if using. Simmer on medium-low for about 15–20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sauce slightly thickens but remains bright red.
Cook Pasta: While the sauce simmers, cook spaghetti in a large pot of heavily salted boiling water until al dente (firm to the bite).
Finish & Emulsify: Reserve 1/2 cup of pasta water, then drain the spaghetti. Add the pasta directly into the sauce skillet.
Toss: Add the torn basil and a splash of the reserved pasta water. Toss vigorously over medium heat for 1 minute until the sauce coats every strand. Serve immediately.
Sinatra Sauce “Music Metaballs & Merriment” and Living The Good Life. “Like Frank” .. Yes, it’s about Frank. That is one Francis Albert Sinatra, the Greatest Singer of The 20th Century, and Icon of American, especially of the Italian-American Enclave in America. Frank Sinatra was many things, first and foremost a Great Italian-American singer, Love & Adored by Millions. Mr. Sinatra was also an actor, citizen, and Entertainer Par Excellence. Yes this book is about those things, Frank Sinatra : the incomparable singer, actor, recording artist, Teen Idol of the 1940s, philanthropist, and Las Vegas & Nightclub Entertainer. He was like no other, Sinatra was one-of-a- kind, and he had a lust for life, “Hanging with Friends,” – sipping cocktails, with good food, and making good times. That’s what this book is about, Frank Sinatra, eating (Italian Food), enjoying a cocktail or two, and the company of family and friends. Yes, Frank Sinatra lived life to its fullest. He wouldn’t have it any other way, but “His Way.”
This book “Inspires” and gives you the tools to live out your Sinatra Dreams. You can make it reality, with recipes of Frank’s Favorite Italian Foods, Pasta, Meatballs, Posillipo, Eggplant Parm and more. Eating, drinking, and having good times, all the time as Frank did. Meals with friends and family. Meals you can cook, with recipes in this book. The info and recipes are all here in Sinatra Sauce. Read it, put on some Sinatra (music), cook, eat, and create memorable times at the table, just like Frank. That’s what this book is about: Sinatra, Family, Friends, and Good Times. “The Best is Yet to Come”
Author Daniel Bellino Zwicke is a lifelong Sinatra fan. He is a Best Selling author, who lives and writes in New York’s Greenwich Village. Daniel is currently working on several other projects. He has authored : Sunday Sauce, La Tavola, Mangia Italiano, Grandma Bellino’s Cookbook, Segreto Italiano, and Positano The Amalfi Coast – Travel Guide / Cookbook.
It’s an old tradition in my family, that most Sunday the Bellino Family gathers together and we eat Sunday Sauce Italian Gravy. The whole family gets together and Grandma House, or Aunt Helen’s, but mostly at Aunt Fran’s House in Lodi, New Jersey. It’s a wonderful all day affair, starting with a little antipasto, followed by the star of the show, Sunday Sauce. Aunt Fran or Aunt Helen usually make the Sauce (Gravy), which is the most supreme dish of all. It’s a long simmered tomato sauce laden with special meat treats, that include: Sausages, Meatballs, and Braciole. We eat it with short maccheroni, usually rigatoni. “It’s the Best Thing ever,” we all just love it, and who wouldn’t, it’s so damn tasty, it is.
After the Sunday Sauce, it’s on to dessert and coffee, which is a 3 or 4 hour affair, as the grownups sit around the table drinking Espresso (with Anisette) and eating all the tasty desserts that’s made of a whole array of sweet treats, like: Aunt Fran’s Ricotta Cookies, Cannoli, Sfogliatelle, and whatever sweets that other visitors might bring. And there’s a whole lot of talking about this that and every other thing: sports, politics, gossip and what not, all as Frank Sinatra records play softly in the background. Always. Aunt Wanda loves Jerry Vale, and Dino has his turn too. Those were warm and wonderful days spent with loved ones, and sadly all of the older generation is gone, and we miss them dearly. But me, I think of them often, and especially when it comes to Sundays, eating all day long, cahtting and having fun, eating maccheroni, sausage, Meatballs, and Braciole, listening to Sinatra, and loving it all. My cousins Joe, Tony, and I keep it going. We try to organize as many get-together s as we can, always centered around food, whatever it may be: fresh fish, pasta, Steak, and our all-time favorite Sunday Sauce. And don’t forget Sinatra, Francis Albert that is. Or just simply Frank.
Sinatra Sauce “Music Metaballs & Merriment” and Living The Good Life. “Like Frank” .. Yes, it’s about Frank. That is one Francis Albert Sinatra, the Greatest Singer of The 20th Century, and Icon of American, especially of the Italian-American Enclave in America. Frank Sinatra was many things, first and foremost a Great Italian-American singer, Love & Adored by Millions. Mr. Sinatra was also an actor, citizen, and Entertainer Par Excellence. Yes this book is about those things, Frank Sinatra : the incomparable singer, actor, recording artist, Teen Idol of the 1940s, philanthropist, and Las Vegas & Nightclub Entertainer. He was like no other, Sinatra was one-of-a- kind, and he had a lust for life, “Hanging with Friends,” – sipping cocktails, with good food, and making good times. That’s what this book is about, Frank Sinatra, eating (Italian Food), enjoying a cocktail or two, and the company of family and friends. Yes, Frank Sinatra lived life to its fullest. He wouldn’t have it any other way, but “His Way.”
This book “Inspires” and gives you the tools to live out your Sinatra Dreams. You can make it reality, with recipes of Frank’s Favorite Italian Foods, Pasta, Meatballs, Posillipo, Eggplant Parm and more. Eating, drinking, and having good times, all the time as Frank did. Meals with friends and family. Meals you can cook, with recipes in this book. The info and recipes are all here in Sinatra Sauce. Read it, put on some Sinatra (music), cook, eat, and create memorable times at the table, just like Frank. That’s what this book is about: Sinatra, Family, Friends, and Good Times. “The Best is Yet to Come”
Author Daniel Bellino Zwicke is a lifelong Sinatra fan. He is a Best Selling author, who lives and writes in New York’s Greenwich Village. Daniel is currently working on several other projects. He has authored : Sunday Sauce, La Tavola, Mangia Italiano, Grandma Bellino’s Cookbook, Segreto Italiano, and Positano The Amalfi Coast – Travel Guide / Cookbook.
Frank’s Favorite Restaurant in The World, was Patsy’s on West 56th Street in New York, in The Theater District near Times Square .. Frank’s Favorites were; Calms Posillipo, Spaghetti Pomodoro, Veal Milanes (extra Thin & Crispy) and Spaghetti & Meatballs of which patsy’s makes The Best in The City ..
PATSY’S is by far the restaurant most associated with SINATRA — on its website, the restaurant notes that it “has been known for years as the restaurant Frank Sinatra made famous.” You can still order up old-school Italian there, but you might not have the exact same experience as Sinatra, who was said to have entered through a special door to sit at a reserved table on the second floor. Sinatra became especially loyal to the restaurant after making a solo Thanksgiving reservation one year, not realizing the restaurant was slated to be closed that day. Patsy Scognamillo didn’t want to turn Sinatra away, so he allowed the reservation. He also didn’t want Sinatra to know the restaurant was opened just for him — so he had the entire staff bring their families to fill the place up, something Sinatra didn’t learn until years later, according to Patsy’s lore. The restaurant still celebrates its connection to Sinatra: At right, in 2002, Joe Scognamillo served actor Bill Boggs, who had dressed up as Sinatra . (236 West 56th St.)
SINATRA at JILLY’S New York with Friends and Daughters NANCY and TINA
Frank loved going to his close Pal JILLY RIZZO’S New York Restaurant JILLY’S where Frank would eat Chinese Food, tell stories, and drink JACK DANIEL’S to the Wee Hours of the morning.
FRANK SINATRA had DOM Send him BREAD to Palm Springs , California
FOCCACIA From DOM’S BAKERY
GRANDMA BELLINO’S COOKBOOK
“RECIPES FROM MY SICILIAN NONNA”
by Daniel Bellino “Z”
Author Daniel Bellino “Z” has the same ancestral Sicilian Roots as Frank Sinatra and one Charles “Lucky” Luciano who was born in LERCARA FRIDDI SICILY , as was Frank SInatra ‘s father Martino Severino Sinatra and Bellino ‘s maternal grandparents Giussepina Salemi and Fillipo Bellino who both immigrated from Lercara Friddi to New York through Ellis Island in 1904 . In 1906 Luciano ‘s parents immigrated and settled on the Lower East Side of New York when young Charlie (Salvatore ) was 9 years old.
““Frank Sinatra and Tony Curtis were close, lifelong friends. They knew each other since the 1940s when Sinatra was playing the Paramount. In 1958 they were in the movie Kings Go Forth together. Curtis is often mentioned as part of The Clan/Rat Pack in the 1950s and 1960s. Tina Sinatra remembered that when her father was old and sick, she once found Tony Curtis cradling her father in his arms.
Sinatra called Curtis “Bernie” (pronounced “Boinie”), because his real name was Bernard Schwartz.
Here are some of the things that Tony Curtis said about Frank Sinatra, in interviews and in his memoir.
“When I met him, I realized he was very nice with everyone around him. He wasn’t so obnoxious. That was the rumor about Frank, that you didn’t know what he had in mind.”
“I became an honorary member of Frank’s Rat Pack; I never went on stage with Frank, Dean, Sammy, Joey Bishop, or Peter Lawford, but anytime they had a get-together, I was invited. Whenever those guys got up to any kind of mischief, I was there. They treated me like a kid brother, which brought out the best in everyone.”
“I knew a lot about Frank. We were really close. He liked me a lot, and that meant a lot to me. To be a friend of Frank’s was a great help in those early days. I didn’t abuse it or take advantage of it. I would just make myself available when he would call or want to go out to dinner.”
“When he was not angry, there was a calm humanness about him. He would always stick up for his buddies. He was always available. He would stick up for you even if the guy was a big guy.”
“Frank wasn’t a womanizer – he was womanized! What a great position to be in! You know, those were carefree, intelligent, and very stimulating days and nights!”
“Women would flock around him. Then the husbands or the boyfriends found themselves ill at ease. I couldn’t understand it, you know? Frank wasn’t gonna take ‘em anywhere. He’d just hang-out there.”
“He’s one of the biggest prudes I’ve ever met…he’s an old-fashioned man. I’ve never heard him use a vulgar word in front of a woman!”
“Frank Sinatra was like the sun, with a lot of people revolving around him.”
“Notice I don’t bring up the Mafia. He in himself was his own godfather. He ran his own family and his friends like that. Untouchable.”
“Frank exhibited the traits I admired most in a person, namely his unfailing self-confidence.”
“I would make model airplanes, the kind you make with balsa wood. I’d make it with glue and the things that would make it work. He was so pleased because he told me, ‘I was never able to get that body in the plane right’. So, he’d throw his stuff away. But, there I was making the bodies and he’d say will I add to it? Then, we’d paper it. We did the wings. We put a rubber band in it, and a propeller. We’d go out in his garage, in back, and I’d wind it up and let it go. The f***er would ram into a wall, and there it was all broken again. We did this two or three times. Sometimes we had more success than others. But, I loved him for that.”
Tony Curtis wrote about one time at the Sands when he was very drunk and Frank and Dean threw him into the swimming pool fully dressed.
Tony Curtis: “I climbed out of the pool… freshened up, and went back down to the casino. I was still a little dizzy, but at least I was keeping my eyes open. When Frank saw me he said, ‘Where have you been?’
‘Somebody threw me in the pool,’ I said. ‘I had to go upstairs and change.’ Frank said, ‘Who in the world would do that?’ I told him I thought he might have had something to do with it, but he denied it,and I couldn’t be sure I had remembered it right.”
Tony Curtis wrote that during the filming of Sweet Smell of Success, he was “the recipient of one of Frank’s legendary acts of thoughtfulness.” He was learning to play the flute for the movie and would often go over to Sinatra’s house to practice.
Tony Curtis: “I’d come over to Frank’s house and practice playing my flute for him. Frank was impressed that I was learning this new skill for my part in the movie, and he noticed that I was playing a cheap flute I’d picked up. So without telling me, he went out one day and bought me a magnificent flute, a priceless gift that I cherish to this day.”
In an interview, he talked about the flute too and called it “one of my sacred possessions from The Man.”
Frank Sinatra once said Tony Curtis was his favorite actor “because he beat the odds.”
Their mutual friend Sidney Poitier said of Tony Curtis, “When you’re with Tony Curtis, you’re with somebody very alive. He was – and is – one of the most ‘up’ people I have ever known.”
This is one of my all-time favorite of the many great albums by The Chairman of The Board, Mr. Francis Albert Sinatra. My good friend Jimmy Starace gave this to me for a Birthday present one year and I’ve loved this wonderful Sinatra Album ever since. The album comprises songs that were Frank Sinatra’s best loved songs. His daughter Tina had the idea of producing album of songs that her father Frank Sinatra recorded that were his own personal favorites. Tina asked her father to pick these songs, and the album Everything Happens to Me was born. If you’ve never listed to the album and I’m sure you’ll agree that this collection of Mr. Sinatra singing his favorite songs is a beautiful and poignant one.
This is one of the most interesting and successful Frank Sinatra collections out there. Everything Happens to Me avoids the obvious hits and collects a number of the finest ballads and torch songs that Sinatra cut while at Reprise Records during the ’60s, ’70s, and early ’80s. It’s a regal collection that concentrates on the darker side of Sinatra‘s art. Instead of celebrating a cross section of the Voice’s career the way that so many compilations do, the album sounds like an elegy and has a strange cohesiveness considering that it’s drawn up from material that stretches over a 20-year period. Sinatra had recorded the title track numerous times throughout his career, but the previously unreleased version included here (complete with new lyrics) is his darkest and most battle-scarred interpretation. Even considering its lighter moments (“The Second Time Around” and the lyrically downbeat but wondrously swinging “Summer Wind”), this is a stark collection that almost plays like an original concept album about confronting disappointment, loneliness, and ultimately, mortality. That’s a lot to ask casual fans to embrace, but Everything Happens to Me ends up giving listeners who only know of the swinging Rat Packer more than a glimpse of the complexity and depth behind Frank Sinatra‘s art.
FRANK SINATRA Born in Hoboken, Frank was an only son. His mother came to this country from Genoa and father from Sicily. As a lad, Frank had always been crazy about music, but his parents failed to share his enthusiasm of making a career of it. His first singing spot was with Harry James, then Tommy Dorsey. The turning point in Frank Sinatra’s career came in January, 1943, when he signed for a series of personal appearances at New York’s Paramount Theater. Then and there, he became “The Voice.” Sinatra’s slight build is kept in hard trim by his prowess at boxing, golf and bowling.
MRS. FRANK SINATRA’S RECIPE FOR SPAGHETTI AND MEAT BALLS
MEAT BALLS –
1 lb. chopped meat, 1/2 pork, 1/2 beef
1 clove garlic (chopped fine)
1/2 cup grated Italian cheese
1 cup bread crumbs
1 teaspoon finely chopped parsley
Salt and pepper to taste
(Mix all well, form into balls, brown in oil and put aside until sauce is made.)
SAUCE
1 large can Italian style tomatoes
1 can tomato puree
1 small onion
1 clove garlic
1 teaspoon ground parsley
1/2 cup olive oil
Thyme
Salt
Black pepper
DIRECTIONS
Brown chopped up onion and garlic in oil in which you brown meat balls. Strain tomatoes, add puree to the juice. Add the oil in which you have browned onion and garlic, but remove all sauteed ingredients. Season with salt, pepper, thyme and parsley. Cook the sauce (covered) for 1 hour, with meatballs added, over a slow fire.
Boil spaghetti in water, salted to taste. Remove spaghetti, drain. Serve it on a platter over which you have poured sauce and meat balls. Add layer of cheese, and add full covering of sauce, add another layer of cheese and another layer of sauce. Serve piping hot.
Above, you have the SPAGHETTI & MEATBALLS Recipe of Nancy Sinatra. Nancy Barbato Sinatra, Frank’s wife, not his daughter Nancy.
In the book “Sinatra Sauce,” along with many other recipes is another Spaghetti & Meatballs recipe, but not Frank’s wife Nancy, but his mother Dolly’s recipe. Both are excellent, we’re sure you will agree. If you want to know more of Frank Sinatra, the foods he loved, and grew up with in the Italian Enclave in Hoboken, New Jersey, along with all of Frank’s favourite dishes and restaurants around the country and the World. Dishes like Chicken Vesuvius of Chicago, BBQ Ribs from The Anchor Bar in Chicago, Veal Milanese and Clams Posillipo from “Patsy’s Restaurant” in New York, and Frank’s afternoon Egg Sandwich in Palm Springs, California.
Jackie Gleason’s family background was, according to most accounts, almost Dickensian. It was marked by severe illness and grinding poverty, in any event. His father was a henpecked insurance clerk who took his myriad disappointments in life out in drink. He deserted the family when Jackie was nine. His mother was overprotective of her younger son, who died when Jackie was in his teens. An older brother, Clemence, died, probably of tuberculosis, at the age of 14, when Jackie was three.
In the 1930s, before he ever really made it even in small-time venues,
Gleason was a bartender at a bar in Newark, NJ, called The Blue Mirror. He wore his apron high on the chest just like he did as his “Joe the Bartender” character 30 years later on his television show, and he entertained the patrons with his antics, just like “Joe the Bartender.” Eventually, he got such a following that the owner gave him a chance at the microphone on stage. The rest, as they say, is history. This was also a time when he actually lived and slept in the back room with the empty bottles, etc. Naturally, of course, it was across the street from a pool hall that he patronized in the afternoons after he was finished cleaning up the Blue Mirror.
“Drinking removes warts and pimples. Not from me. But from those I look at.”
Jackie Gleason was a mentor and frequent drinking buddy of Frank Sinatra. It was Gleason who first introduced Sinatra to Jack Daniels whiskey, which became Sinatra’s signature drink.
Gleason recorded a number of albums featuring instrumental “mood music” (what is now known today as “lounge music”). Gleason served as producer, bandleader, and (on occasion) vibraphone player, despite the fact that he couldn’t read sheet music. Several of the albums included original compositions by Gleason. One album, “Lonesome Echo”, topped the charts in 1955, and featured an album cover with original art by Salvador Dalí. When asked what inspired him to became a “mood music” legend, Gleason replied, “Every time I ever watched Clark Gable do a love scene in the movies, I’d hear this really pretty music, real romantic, come up behind him and help set the mood. So I’m figuring that if Gable needs that kinda help, then a guy in Canarsie has gotta be dyin’ for something like this.”