Mister Minestrone
Sim ple Cook ing ISSUE NO. 84 FIVE DOLLARS Hanging Out at Mister Minestrone the No-Name A Diner Story (with Recipes) The Story So Far: On a run-down part of Water Street sits There are...dozens of versions of minestrone, which is a a tiny, brightly painted, nameless diner. Alec, our nar- really solid soup thick with vegetables and cheese and rice ra tor, who owns a used-book store in the row of Victorian or pasta and intended, with bread and wine, to constitute commercial buildings that loom beside it, has gradually the entire midday meal of hungry working people. become a regular, getting to know the Professor—the burly, — The London Sunday Times (March 29, 1959) bearded proprietor and grill cook—and Greg—the Gen-X In America, “minestrone” is just a fancy name for vegetable waitron-busboy-dishwasher. In the last episode, Alec and soup. We buy it in cans. We fi nd it offered as the soup of his wife, Jo, neither of them cooks, fretted over what to the day in coffee shops.... Around here, it isn’t a dish, serve the Professor, who, with his daughter, Jess, has been it’s a cliché. In Italy, on the other hand, and especially in Liguria, it’s not just a dish but an eagerly appreciated invited to their house for sup per. Tonight is that night. one—a celebration of the season. —Colman Andrews, FLAVORS OF THE RIVIERA T SIX-THIRTY SHARP the doorbell rang. With Sasha wrig- Agling frantically between my legs, I opened the door Y MOTHER MOVED this January to a retirement com- and ushered in the Professor, who, in a heavy maroon munity on the coast of Maine, and I stayed a bit parka well-dusted with snow, looked a bit like a sardonic Mafterwards to help her settle in.
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