My nephew and his beautiful girlfriend gave my wife and I this wonderful book called "Italy, The Country and Its Cuisine"and I love this section about coffee.

The Art Of Espresso

"Hot as hell, black as the devil, pure as an angel, and sweet as love--that's a perfect espresso. There are many details to attend to in the quest for the perfect caffe': precise proportions of coffee and water, pressure, water, temperature, brewing time and more. The water can not contain too much calcium, the coffee much be freshly ground every time, the espresso machine must be the correct temperature, the cups must be pre-warmed, and they have to have a rounded bottom and cannot be too thick or too thin.

The quality of the espresso is immediately apparent in the crema, or the light foam floating on its surface. If the golden brown crema has a consistency firm enough to support the sugar that is spooned onto it, and if this covering remains intact even after stirring, then there is nothing left to stand in the way of a cup of perfect pleasure"

I love the part about the cups because as a child I can remember the perfect cups and spoons that my mother brought forth to serve coffee to our guests. No styrofoam for me.

The book also lists a type of coffee in Naples that I had never heard of, "un sospeso"or "suspended" in English. I will paraphrase the book here. If someone has just completed a good deal or is having a good day, he or she orders a caffe' and a "sospeso" The suspended coffee is for some one less fortunate to drink. So someone can enter a coffee bar and ask, C'e un sospeso" or "is there and suspended coffee". The barista says yes and the person gets a coffee for free. I love this idea. I think that Starbucks ( not that I like their coffee) should start this. Go in after a good day and buy a coffee and a sospeso. Did I mention that I love the Italians. Their good things outweigh any of the bad things in their culture.

I wish you all a good day, and one in sospeso.

The Land Of The One Eyed Men

Yesterday I was watching the opening of the new Congress and I was reminded of a saying I heard many years ago; “In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king.” Not to say that this congress has any more one eyed men than the one’s that preceded it, but I do feel that with every election the one eyed men become more prevalent.

I have thought about this for some time now and I have come up with some personal conclusions. But first I would like to include something written by David Brooks of the New York Times that caught my eye, the one that I have. I’m not a big fan of Mr. Brooks, but I must say he does have two eyes. The problem is that his glasses sometimes distort his vision. Before I go on, I must confess that I am a very liberal democrat and very proud of it, but I am an equal opportunity hater and I feel that some of the most egregious one eyed men are democrats. Any way this is what Mr. Brooks wrote:

“Howard Gardner of Harvard once put together a composite picture of the extraordinarily creative person: She comes from a little place somewhat removed from the center of power and influence. As an adolescent, she feels herself outgrowing her own small circle. She moves to a metropolis and finds a group of people who share her passions and interests. She gets involved with a team to create something amazing.

Then, at some point, she finds her own problem, which is related to and yet different from the problems that concern others in her group. She breaks off and struggles and finally emerges with some new thing. She brings it back to her circle. It is tested, refined and improved.

The main point in this composite story is that creativity is not a solitary process. It happens within networks. It happens when talented people get together, when idea systems and mentalities merge.

Now imagine you are this creative person in the year 2010, 2025 or 2050. You are living in some small town in Ukraine or Kenya or some other place, foreign or domestic. You long to break out and go to a place where people are gathering to think about the things you are thinking about, creating the things you want to create.

If you are passionate about fashion, maybe you will go to Paris. If it’s engineering, maybe it’ll be Germany. But if you are passionate about many other spheres, I suspect you’ll want to be in America.

You’ll want to be in the U.S. because English has become the global language. You’ll want to come because American universities lead the world in research and draw many of the best minds from all corners of the earth.”

I have thought about this piece by Brooks and I have tried to adapt it to America itself. So let’s say you come from Tulsa, Oklahoma, not to disparage Oklahoma, but it is in the middle of the country. Let’s say you are very smart, creative, aggressive high school senior. You are the best and brightest, something I was not, maybe Brooks was. Having been a teacher for 20 years I am sure that your school, if not your parents encourage you to leave Tulsa and go to one of the elite schools in the US.

Now not all, but many of the elite schools are concentrated on the coasts. Yes I know there are elite schools throughout the country, but generally speaking the major urban centers are where someone like this ends up. As Brooks says they meet people like them and they exchange ideas. More times than not, and I am generalizing here, they don’t go back to Tulsa.

So what you have in Tulsa is not the best and brightest, they’re gone. What you do have is the blind and the one eyed men. I do not want any blind or one eyed person to take umbrage, I am using this metaphorically. Moreover, when it comes time for elections the blind scream out, “Let’s elect the one eyed man, at least he can see something”. They elect them and send them to Washington or to the State Capitals and what you have is not the blind leading the blind, but the one eyed man leading the blind and therefore he or she is KING.

Unfortunately, with the dumbing down of the American society we are doomed to be run by one eyed men, and actually, more and more by the blind themselves. This is not my opinion. We are losing educationally to the rest of the industrialized world more and more every year. Good luck friends

Upgrade Now!!!

Did you ever notice how many times one has to upgrade things with the new technology. You have to upgrade Facebook, Twitter, your apps, email. Everything that we now own has to be constantly upgraded. I mean if you have a three year old computer people laugh at you, like “what are you doing with that piece of crap?” Piece of crap it’s only three years old.

The truth is that this technological world is being run by a bunch of twenty and thirty somethings. They sit behind a screen and constantly think of doing things better, faster and smarter, not to mention another way to make people spend money. The truth is they run our lives and the people that don’t upgrade are left behind and laughed at. My great nieces are always laughing at me because I haven’t upgraded fast enough. I mean, how can I upgrade when I didn’t know there was an upgrade available?

After one such Uncle ridicule session, I started thinking about upgrades. I started thinking that people need upgrades every so often also. I look at middle aged and older people and I realized that most of them haven’t upgraded since they were 25. Let’s face it the world has changed exponentially in the last 30 or 40 years. I’ve tried to keep up and for the most part I’m doing pretty well. I’ve changed my hairdo, my clothes, my beard and certainly my attitude to fit the times, but I know many people my age and younger who are still mentally back in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s.

Have you even checked out the people who run our government? I watch the news constantly and I often wonder who these people are. They are people who haven’t upgraded in years and they are running a country in which 68% of the people are under 44. No wonder young voters are turned off.

Let’s take my great friend Harry Reid, for example. I must add that I am a life long Democrat, so that does cloud my thinking on political issues, but Dear Harry was quoted as referring to Black Americans as “colored”. Now this may seem like a small issue and maybe he isn’t a racist, but when the hell has he last upgraded? Colored is a 1950’s term. He’s the head of the Senate? He’s making decisions that effect 68% of the population that are under 44. If he hasn’t upgraded on this, what the hell else hasn’t he upgraded on?

Check out the hair do’s on these people. They haven’t upgraded since the 50’s or 60’s. Forget about their shoes, I’m sure they are still wearing wing tips. I frequent many cigar parlors to enjoy an infrequent cigar and I am appalled at what I see and hear there. Most of the men are younger than me as I see them wearing Vietnam Veteran shirts. The talk is the same talk that I heard in the 50’s. The N word is thrown around as if we were still in slave times. The discussion about women is misogynist to say the least. These people vote and they have never upgraded. They vote in people just like them.

Now, I don’t think that age is the factor. If you upgrade your computer or car you can keep it going for a long time. So a person, no matter what age, is upgradeable. The will and the knowledge of the importance to do so is what is necessary. Get yourself a new pair of shoes and a new haircut for a start. At least check out Lady Gaga Gaga because believe me, whether you believe it or not, she is the new Sinatra. Get used to it. They, the young ones, set the agenda, no matter who is in power in
Washington.


UPGRADE NOW!!!

The Immigration Problem

It is impossible to have a rational discussion about anything when you are arguing with someone who has their facts all wrong. One perfect example of this is immigration. I have heard or seen written four talking points in this argument which are so far off the mark that they need a fact check. The four are as follows:

Premise 1. The new immigrants, or at least the Hispanic immigrants, don’t learn the language like the prior immigrants did.

My family immigrated from Italy in the 1920’s so I know a little about this subject. It is true that many of the new immigrants do not learn the language today, but to suggest that the groups before them did is disingenuous. My parents did learn English but believe me they were not the norm. My father thought he was a little more sophisticated than the Italians that came in the early 1900's so he moved into an “American” neighborhood where he and my mother were forced to learn English and take the abuse that ensued because they spoke it badly. Most Italians moved into Italian neighborhoods where they felt comfortable and could get by very well speaking their native tongue. My oldest brother entered school at five years old not knowing any English. Many, if not most of my relatives, spent 30 to 50 years here learning little or no English. Most were forced, by circumstances, to become citizens before the Second World War. They became citizens without learning English.

Ditto for the early Polish immigrants.

Go to any Chinatown today and tell me that the immigrants there speak English.

German immigrants? Go to Lancaster County today and see how many people still speak a form of German (Pennsylvania Dutch).

Irish Immigrants? Don’t they speak English in Ireland?

Russians? The Russians and Eastern Europeans that fled Communism and are still coming over are recipients of a sophisticated education system where they learned multiple languages, therefore learning English was somewhat easier for them.

ALL, including Hispanics, who were born here or came here early in life speak English. The major difference today is that there is bilingual education (much maligned) that is afforded all the newer immigrants. Because of this they are given the ability to move ahead in school while they are learning English. My brother and others like him spent years in a class not knowing what the teachers were talking about in subjects such as math and science, certainly putting him and the others in a hole that they had to dig their way out of. Many never did. Wouldn’t it have been better if they were bilingual?

Also, I have had the privilege to live for extended periods of time in Brazil and Austria among Americans expatriates, much better educated than recent immigrants in America, who never learned the language of the respective countries. Many lived there for multiple years and, just as in America, their children learned the languages. It is extremely difficult to learn a new language as an adult. Just ask anyone who has lived abroad.

Premise 2. New immigrants, especially Hispanics, bring crime!!!

Of course this is true, but to those that argue that previous immigrants didn’t, I have two words for them, “La Mafia”. Ever hear of the Italian Mafia, the Chinese Mafia, the Russian Mafia, the Irish Mafia? Most immigrants then and now are not criminals. There are always a small percentage within every group that are. Many natural born Americans are criminal.

Premise 3. Millions of Hispanics enter the country illegally.

This is also true, but to think that the Italians, Polish, Irish and other Eastern Europeans did not, is a pipe dream. I suggest that those that can see Arthur Millers, “A View From the Bridge”. This is a story about two Italian “submarines”, as they were called, coming into the country in the hull of a ship. If these previous immigrants came from a country that had a contiguous border with the Untied States, how many more would have flooded the country illegally? It is much easier to cross a two foot border than to cross an ocean of three thousand miles in the hull of a ship.

Premise 4. I am tired of pressing one to speak English.

Why? Is it difficult to press one? And, business people are not stupid. They know there are millions of prospective customers that speak Spanish, for example, and they want their business. I don’t blame them. Government also knows that they need to communicate with non English speakers to have them understand what it is that they want. Imagine the IRS, for example, that has someone who needs information about their taxes (Yes, most Spanish speakers pay taxes). Believe me, I have lived in countries that only use one language. It makes it more difficult if not impossible to get what you need.

So, let’s have a discussion about illegal immigration, but let’s make sure we have our facts straight. To do otherwise and use talking points will never get the problem solved. It would be a physical and logistical nightmare to deport the 11 or so millions back to where they came from. Do you think they would just go easily without a fight? If you want to see criminally, try it. Many of the illegals here today live in families that have legals living in them. Yeah, I can just see them allowing their mothers, fathers and in some cases children to be shipped out. Get real!!!

Pizza, Pasta and Prozut

Italian Food? This is something that has been bothering me for a long time. What exactly is Italian food? Ask different people and you get different answers. From my point of view Italian food can be broken down into two areas: Italian/Italian and Italian/American. Italian/Italian is mostly eaten in Italy and Italian/American is consumed in America. Did you notice that I used the words “eaten” for Italy and the word “consumed” for America?

Both cuisines can be very good, but I will say that the variation, between good and bad, is the more pronounced in America. Rarely does one find bad food in Italy and then again good Italian food in America can sometimes be hard to find.

Let’s look at Italian/American food first. When the first immigrants came to our shores the food tradition that they brought with them was for the most part Southern Italian peasant fare. To think that our ancestors ate haute Italian cuisine would be a grave mistake. They ate pasta, pizza and prozut (Prosciutto) or some variation thereof. The taste was wonderful and many of us remember well the smells and tastes of that cuisine. They were not eating or cooking the same way that the gentry were eating in the large cities of Italy, however their food was still very high quality, minimally processed and locally sourced.

Throughout the years this cuisine morphed into what we in America today call Italian food. Unfortunately, it morphed to satisfy the American palate, which in many cases is not well developed. ( Rent the movie “The Big Night” ) Quantity took precedence over quality descending into the abomination that we today call “The Olive Garden”. Some of the worse culprits of this descent are “spaghetti and meatballs”, “chicken parmigiana”, “veal parmigiana” and most things on the menu at “The Olive Garden”. La Pizza, which was invented in Naples, also has had its dumbing down spiral. You can get good pizza in America but it will not be found at Domino's or Papa John’s. There is actually a government entity in Naples that defines what a “real” pizza should be. There are a few places in America that qualify, but most are very far from the mark and so are their tastes.

Most cuisines around the world grow and improve with time. Look at Chinese food for example. After thousands of years they have a cuisine that is varied, delicious and still evolving. For the most part the Italian/American cuisine has devolved into something startlingly standard, bad tasting and getting worse. There are exceptions to every rule, although most are not found in Italian/American restaurants, but in the homes of some second and third generations of Italian/American cooks. Fortunately, I know some of these individuals and they make me happy when I dine with them. Marie and Louise where are you?


Now let’s look at Italian/ Italian cuisine. For those of you who have been fortunate enough to travel to Italy you will know what I mean. Rarely, and I mean rarely does one get a bad meal in Italy. In fact, there are “Howard Johnston” type restaurants that can be found along the large motorways in Italy, called “Autogrilles” that can compete with the best Italian restaurants in America. The one secret ingredient in Italian food is fresh local produce. Seldom are there items on the menus that are not in season. Also, there is a creative culture that exists in Italy that is a force that moves their cuisine to higher and higher levels. They certainly match the Asian cuisines in this respect.

Once you go to Italy you will realize that their food is very dissimilar to what we in America think of as Italian food and a gazillion times better. After a few weeks in Italy my wife and I always dread the thought of coming back to our food. “Where are we ever going to find food like that in America?”, we lament. The truth is, if you look you can find it.

Where can you find it? Probably in most large cities in America there is someone, or more, that knows how to cook Italian. Certainly in New York there are many Italian/Italian restaurants. They may be a little more expensive, but they are worth the price.

Also, and I am not a TV fan, but the Food Channels that show Mario and Lydia are wonderful. I think that they, especially Mario, have done more to change the American palate than anyone else. Mario is GOOD!!! He learned to cook in Italy and he knows the history behind everything he makes. He knows real Italian food. Don’t ask him for chicken parmigiana.

He and Lydia have teamed up with an Italian and opened up a place in New York City called “Eataly”. Google it. This place is 60,000 square feet of food that showcases food from everywhere in Italy. There are different sections, such as the Pizza section, the Pasta section, the Meat section, the Fish section etc. Each section has a restaurant attached to it. I have eaten only at the fish section and I can tell you it was Italy supreme. The original began in Turino, Italy with the second in Tokyo, Japan. The third and I think the largest is in New York. They are looking to open the next in Los Angeles. Look for one in your local area very soon, I hope.

What I urge you to do, if you have not already, is to expand your palate. Find a real Italian restaurant or prepare something that the Mario or Lydia types suggest. For god’s sake, or my sake, don’t go to The Olive Garden.

From Guappo To Guido

“You dirty Wop”. Them’s fighting words to any Italian/America. Calling an Italian/American a Wop is the equivalent of using the N word for an African/American. When this word is used I cringe, for example when President Nixon used it to describe Judge Sirica during the Watergate investigations. However, I also cringe when folks, both Italian/American and otherwise, tell me the derivation of the word Wop. I have heard many otherwise educated people tell me that it means, “Without Papers“, meaning that when the Italians came over they would pin the letters WOP on them to indicate that they were undocumented. This is pure folk etymology which is defined in Wikipedia as the following, “ Folk etymology in its basic sense, refers to popularly held (and often false) beliefs about the origins of specific words, especially where these originate in "common-sense" assumptions rather than serious research”. http://wikipedia

This “without papers” has three major flaws as I see it. First of all “papers” were not introduced until 1921 and the use of the word “Wop” certainly predates that. Secondly Italians were not the only ones that immigrated to America and so they probably were not the only ones after 1921 to come in illegally. Why would only Italians have the words WOP written on them? Thirdly, I have never seen a picture of anyone, let alone Italians, with the words WOP written on them. Wouldn’t someone have documented this if it were true?

What is more than likely true is that the word “Wop” derives from the Neapolitan word “Guappo” which was a term that was used in Naples and Campania to describe a boy, usually connected to the Camorra, a Neapolitan organized crime group. My father told me this 50 years ago and it still makes sense today. The Neapolitan dialect chops the end off of words so that “Guappo” became “guap” and the article in front would sound like “u” hence the word “u guap” morphed into “Wop“. English speakers mimic the “u guap” sound and referred to all Italians as “Wops”.

In Spanish “guapo” means a good-looking, flashy male. Spain ruled Southern Italy until 1860’s and its Capital was Naples. Because of this, I am sure that many Spanish words are in the Neapolitan dialect.

Wikipedia says the following about a “Guappo”:

“It is a historical figure in the Neapolitan area, distinguishable by his smart or overdressed dandy-like appearance, his unusual pose that serves to draw attention to him, and the particular care he lavishes on his body and face” Remember this definition, it is very important.

Since the late 1880’s and the early part of the 1900’s Italians and particularly Neapolitans came to this country in droves. They lived in what we could call Italian ghettos. These areas were full of “guaps”. In fact, they came to define the Italian/American culture. I came of age in the 1950’s and although I did not live in the Italian section of town I knew many people who did. It was full of this type of individual, both male and female. Every non Italian that I knew thought that this was “Italian”. Many times I was told that I was not like “them”. I remember my mother telling me very clearly, “I don’ta care who you marry, but no bringa homa one of thosa types” I knew just what she meant. They were “Wops”, I was Italian.

In the 70’s and 80’s a new name was given to this ever shrinking, but overtly visible group, “Guidos”. The above mentioned definition remained the same only the name was changed. Watch “Saturday Night Fever”, “My Cousin Vinny” or “True Love”, these were the quintessential Guidos. That is until “Jersey Shore” came along. This show gave Guidos a new dimension. These are Guidos on steroids, both figuratively and literally. Also, in egalitarian America the female version of Guidos were introduced, “Guidettes”.

What’s the big fuss? This group has been with us since the first Neapolitans landed on these shores. This is just the line from Guappo to Guido. Well the big fuss is that we Italian/Americans thought we had made it in this country, that we had arrived, and in many ways we have. Two on the Supreme Court, The Speaker of the House, plus many, many others in high places. This was supposed to be a Post Guap/Guido period in our history. But no, with the general dumbing down of America, television producers had to tap into the very lowest rung of our society, hence “Jersey Shore”. Just like the mafia image, they are a subpart of our culture and we will have to accept it, but not glorify it.

As in most things Italian/American there is a direct connection to Italy. Anyone who thinks that “Guidos” and “Guidettes” are an American phenomenon has never been to Naples. The only difference is the language, as the above definition is true for both groups.

How does one differentiate a Guido from a normal Italian/American? The first give away is the leather jacket, then the open collared shirt (even in winter), the chains around the neck, the jelled hair and of course the ever present Cadillac Escalade. If you ever run across one give them a fist pump for me.

La Mafia

Now, I’m going to write you a blog that you can’t refuse to read. There are many truths and myths about the above captioned organization, most of which are perpetuated by the media. Yes there is a Mafia, but very few Italians are actually involved. There are many different crime families throughout Italy and the US and the media, both in Italy and in the US, paint all crime organizations with the same brush. They are all referred to as La Mafia. The truth is La Mafia only exists in Sicily.

Let’s use another term when referring to these organizations, “Organized Crime”. La Mafia exists in Sicily and all members are blood Sicilian. La Mafia is a hierarchical society. That is, there is a organization with “ lesser capos” both on the bottom and the higher rungs of the organization. However, there is also a “Capo de Tutti Capi” and he is the supreme head of all. It is a pyramidal organization.

In Naples there is a completely different organization called “La Camorra”. La Camorra is a loosely knit group of gangs that do not necessarily work together all the time. They in some ways are more dangerous than La Mafia in Sicily. They are always fighting one another for control of whatever it is that they want to control--the docks, drugs, garbage, you name it. Actually, I would say that La Camorra controls much more of Italy than does La Mafia. If you have any interest in La Camorra, there is a book by Roberto Saviano called “Gomorrah”. There is also a subtitled movie of the same name that points out the brutality of this group. Roberto has been under protection of the Italian government for several years now because of the threats on his life. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camorra


Further down the peninsula from Naples in Calabria there is another brutal group called the “Ndrangheta”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/'Ndrangheta. I would say that this group is more like the Neapolitan Camorra than the Sicilian Mafia. All of these organizations are equally dangerous and grew out of the extreme poverty of the South.

Of course in the United States we are fortunate :) enough to have our own group, "La Cosa Nostra”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Mafia Again, as I previously mentioned , there are very few Italians that actually belong to these organizations, but there are a lot of “wantabes”, people that act as if they are Mafiosi but are what we call “”Guidos and Guidettes or Cugines”. To be sure not all Guidos, Guidettes and Cugines are Mafia wantabees. I’m going to leave this for another blog.

What we have is the following:

1. Mafia Sicilana
2. Camorra Napolitana
3. Ndgrangheta Calabrese
4. La Cosa Nostra Americana

I don’t know how many of you have come across anyone from the organized crime world, but as a teacher in a Prep School in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn in the late 70‘s and early 80‘s, I came across many relatives of such mobsters. I know this to be true because some of the parents of the students that I taught were convicted and sent to jail. In fact, I had a student who was a great nephew of the famous Paul “Big Paulie” Castellano http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Castellano who was murdered by John Gotti. To be sure all of these kids were very intelligent and did not go into a life of crime.

I have a funny story concerning wantabes or actual mobsters, I don’t know which. But before we get into the story I want to give you some important terms and their definitions. First and foremost is the word “Cafone” or in dialect “cafon” or “gafone”. This is a very important word that in Italian means a bumpkin, as in country. We here in America have refined the meaning and it can be used in several ways. As a noun as in a lowlife uneducated person usually with money, which is a bad combination. As a verb as in “he gafoned his food down”. You can imagine what that means. Also, an adjective describing something, as in “a gafone house or a gafone car”, meaning something over the top, ostentatious.

The next word is a great one also, “Citrullo” or in dialect “gitrul”. This means dim wit in Italian and in dialect it is a cucumber or cetriolo. My father used to call me a gitrul all the time, but who cares.

Now we can continue with the story. For some years in the 80’ and 90’s I was the Director of Real Estate for Carnegie Hall. In that capacity I had many men and women that worked for me. Also around that time and actually for the last 110 years or so there was a famous Italian/American restaurant in Harlem called Raos. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raos It was famous for not being able to get into. They once turned down Madonna and that made a big splash in the New York papers.

As I said before, in my capacity at Carnegie hall I had many people working for me. One of these was a doorman who happened to be very interested in food and restaurants and we would speak often about such things often. One day in November I walked in the building and he asked me if I had ever heard of Raos. Of course I said its famous but you can’t get in. He comes back with this statement, “Do you and your wife want to go sometime? I can set it up” Flabbergasted, I said of course. The next day when I came into the office he says that it’s all set up for February 20th. That was four months in advance but I said I would take it. I rushed home to tell my wife Sharyn the news and she, being a restaurant maven, pissed her pants in excitement. I think that was the longest 4 months in her life but the day finally came, we were going to Raos.

I was told by my doorman to go in, ask for Frankie and tell him that Joey sent me and that I was supposed to see Nickie the Vest. We went in and we were approached immediately by two cafones in suits looking menacingly at us, as if to say what the hell are you doing here. I meekly told them exactly what the doorman had told me and one of them yelled over to the bartender, “ Nicky, there’s someone here that said Joey sent em”. Nickie, thinks for what was the longest 30 seconds in my life, and then says, “Oh yeah they’re ok let em in”. Phew, we made it and from that moment on they treated us as if we were family. The deal in the restaurant is that every table is reserved forever and the only way you can get a seat is if the reservee is not coming that particular evening.

Frankie Junior, who is Frankie Senior’s* nephew, took charge of us and explained how they do it at Raos. The table is yours for the night so you can sit any time you want. Usually what people do is go to the bar, get a Manhattan and smoke a cigar. (This was when smoking was allowed) As I looked around I noticed that this place was full of CAFONES, cafoning their food down. I swear they filmed the Godfather there. There were no menus. Frankie tells you what they have for the night. Basic Italian/American food, which was no better or no worse than any good place in Brooklyn or Queens.

However, they do not take credit cards and I only had $200 in cash with me. I was sweating it out fantasizing that I wouldn’t have enough to pay and they would string me up on a rack in the back room . Fortunately the bill was $164.00 with tip. I was home free. Did I mention that you could park your car right in front of the restaurant and leave the keys in it. Keep in mind this was Harlem in the 1980’s. Were they gangsters or what? I don’t know.

We went back several times after that and I remember one of the times we brought a very attractive woman with us. She caused quite a stir with the cafones at the bar, each vying for her attention. She loved the flirting with them and asked one of them for his “Business Card” which he promptly gave to her. The problem was that it only contained his name, nothing else. She demurely asked what business he was in and he answered, “In Raos you never ask anyone their business”.

Some years later, splashed all over the New York Papers was the story of a murder at Raos. It seems that one of the cafones at the bar who was also a citrul, got into an altercation with another cafone and killed him. One of the regulars, I guess with one too many Manhattans in him, decided to serenade the patrons with opera. The person who was killed didn’t like the singing and let it be known in a loud manner. The killer took umbrage with this person’s remarks and when the guy went to leave he shot him in the back and killed him, much to the chagrin of all the workers and patrons. The killer calmly walked out of bar and told some policemen who were outside that there had been a killing inside. One of the workers alerted the police who this person was and the guy was arrested. He’s in jail now and Raos is even more famous.

Now this cafone who did the killing is the classic definition of a citrullo. He was 66 years old at the time and still stupid enough to pull off such a crime. I can truly assert that there are no cafones or citrullos in my family, at least I hope not.

Although the Italian culture is one of the greatest in the world, we do own, for better or worse these groups. Although a minority, they sometimes define us, which is unfortunate. But to deny that they exist is also unfortunate, it makes them harder to weed out. Ridding Italy of organized crime is a tremendous problem, as it is in the Unted States. They are entrenched in the culture. Read Saviano's book.

* Frank Pellegrino Sr. is also an actor and played one of the FBI lawyers in "The Sopranos"