I don’t typically post food picture but Linguini and Clam sauce brings back some very special high school memories that I just couldn’t help myself.
The very first time I ever ate Linguine and Clam sauce was when I was invited to my classmate, Phyllis Frogales’ house for dinner and she served it to me. Phyllis lived with her family in a home in Queens, not very far from our high school, Our Lady of Wisdom Academy, Ozone Park. I felt so grown up sitting around her family’s old fashioned formal dining room table with a few of my closest High School friends. I had never eaten anything like this before. My Mom’s homemade Manhattan clam chowder or my Dad’s occasional shucked raw clams were the only things I ever knew you did with clams. But when I tasted Phyllis’s piping hot bowl of Linguine and Clam sauce I was immediately hooked. I was also very impressed with Phyllis’ culinary skills and wondered how one so young could create such a tasty meal. All these decades later, I still have no idea if she labored over an elaborate recipe or simply opened a can of Progresso Clam Sauce and boiled some pasta. Whatever she did, I loved the results and became an immediate fan. Shortly afterwards, a group of us HS Juniors, went out for a celebratory dinner after receiving our senior rings in the OLWA chapel. We made reservations for this very special dinner event at Mama Leone’s, an iconic and very famous landmark restaurant in midtown Manhattan. A bunch of my HS friends and I were seated at an impressive, large round table elaborately decorated with a white tablecloth, fancy china dishes and sparkling silverware and glasses. We were in the middle of the fanciest restaurant I had ever been in my life. I can still feel the refreshing coolness of the air conditioning that surrounded my body, and off to one side I see the impressive wall filled with wine bottles floor to ceiling. I also hear and feel the mist from the waterfall that was created right nearby our table in this elaborate Italian establishment. The waiters stood at attention and treated us like Queens; they were ready to fulfill all our requests even before we asked. At 16 years of age, this was a totally new experience for me. I knew nothing about fine dining. I didn’t even know how to properly set a table without looking at the back pages of my Mom’s cookbook. But, one thing I knew that day and people who know me well know that this is a big thing-a really big thing-I knew what I wanted to eat, I knew what I wanted to order. Without hesitation I told the fancy waiter, “I’ll have the Linguine with Clam sauce.” And, I might add, it was delicious!
