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THE CHEESES OF ASTURIAS
By Gerry Dawes

                                                TAPAS & CUCINA

                                                                434 White Plains Road, Eastchester NY

                                                                                        914-652-7713

                                                                           By John Mariani

        It was mere happenstance that I’ve reviewed two Spanish tapas restaurants last month, but I’ve found a third, in Eastchester, New York, that deserves kudos for taking the genre a step further by putting Italian flavors onto the menu, calling it “Mediterranean Fusion.” Owner Gennaro Martinelli (left), who runs San Gennaro, one of the best trattorias on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, has taken over a small, quaint space in the suburbs where he’s offering a lot of new ideas you won’t find anywhere else.
        Martinelli, born in Capua, Italy, studied cuisine in Paris and worked at Vesuvio on the Champs Elysée, then in various European cities before moving to New York, and at 33 he opened San Gennaro several years ago; Tapas & Cucina debuted this spring. It’s a long, rustic room with good lighting, a small bar, rough wood chairs and tables and paper tabletops. The wine list is not long but of good quality and reasonably priced. The dozen wines by the glass cost from $11 to $14. Martinelli also makes his own limoncello. His partners, Esteban Ortega and Luz Adriana Ospina, keep him true to Iberian tradition.
        The menu is arranged in eight categories: Tapas, Pizza, Salad, Pasta, Paella, Meat, Fish, and Dessert. I can vouch for the pasta, meats and fish at San Gennaro, so my friends and I concentrated on the first two categories, where the more unusual dishes are to be found.
        In Spain’s tapas bars you usually go to the bar and simply pick the tapas arrayed on little plates and eat them standing up or at a table. At T&C the portions are more substantial and plated so that sharing is easy enough. The best thing to do is order several of them; at prices ranging from $8 to $18, six or more will make up an entire meal, and our party of four had tastings of each. You’ll get a complimentary cup of bean soup to rouse your appetite, and there is also good bread you use to soak up all the juices and sauces, as with the grilled octopus (below) served with salad, bruschetta and a lemon dressing ($18). Zucchini flowers would be a rarity at a tapas bar but not so much in Italy right now, so these are stuffed with provolone cheese that oozes out from the bright yellow and green flowers ($13). Croquettas are always on a tapas menu, and here the crisp little fried balls contain wonderfully fatted Serrano ham ($12), and the plump empanadas ($12) of either chicken, beef or vegetable have a fine, brittle crust and succulent contents. Although I’ve run across it before, I was delighted to find the menu has sweet dates stuffed with pungent bleu cheese, smoky bacon, basil and a rich, garlicky aïoli ($16). Certainly unique is T&C’s pasta pie ($11), a Neapolitan-style timbalo of fat bucatini macaroni lavishly stuffed with mozzarella, peas and chopped meat. And one of the heartier dishes is slow-cooked pork à la Madrilena in a bright, lusty ragù of plum tomatoes, served with soft cornmeal polenta. The only disappointment among the tapas we tried was fried calamari ($15) because the calamari had little flavor of their own and tasted more of the fried batter.
       Unusual, too, under the pizza category is the La Tapas, topped with sliced potatoes, sausage, smoky mozzarella and dusted with aromatic rosemary ($16). Next time I go I am eager to try one of the paellas (right), which include a classic Valenciana as well as a marinara and vegetariana  ($32 for two people, $58 for  three). Among the pastas, one of the stars at San Gennaro also shines brightly here: nudi, made with ricotta and fontina, chopped spinach and a truffle-dotted cream sauce with bits of crispy prosciutto ($22).
        The desserts, made on the premises, included a first-rate, not-too-heavy tiramisu ($10) and leche frita ($11), a form of “fried milk,” typical of Northern Spain.
      You could drop into T&C for a light array of tapas or enjoy a full meal, the only dilemma being how to choose among dishes that all seem so savory. By the way, from Manhattan, Eastchester is about a 45-minute drive. 

 

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        Katie heard from David within an hour; he said everything was all right with his police friend, Brian Cunningham. So she went to the precinct house and picked up the letter on City of Chicago Police Department stationery, stating who she was and why she wanted access to the house, and if the owner doubted it, they could call Lt. Cunningham directly.
        Katie thanked the officer profusely and Cunningham said, “Oh, I’ve got something else David said you might be interested in,” and he handed her a piece of paper with the name Alice Britt, an address and phone number. Katie’s mouth dropped open.
        Cunningham said, “David said this woman might once have been Al Capone’s psychic.”
        “I hope so,” said Katie, “but how did you find this?”
        “In between raiding warehouses and bordellos and arresting mobsters, we police sometimes have to haul in a psychic if someone complains she’d been gypped out of a great deal of money.  It’s usually just petty larceny, but apparently Miss Britt was pretty well known in her day and shook down a lot of important people, including Capone.  So we had an arrest record on her.  It doesn’t indicate she ever served any jail time, but she got out of the business and ran a woman’s hat store before retiring.  That’s the last address and phone number we have for her.”
        Katie kept saying thank you to the lieutenant, then asked if she could use his phone.
        “Sure, use that one over there.”
        Katie dialed the number.  After four rings a woman answered. 
        “Alice Britt?”
        “No, Alice doesn’t live here anymore.”
        Katie thought, where have I heard that phrase before?
        “Well, my name is Katie Cavuto, and I wonder if you could tell me where she’s living now?”
        “Last I heard she was in a home.”
        “Would you happen to know which one?”
         The woman told her to hold on and Katie heard her muttering.
        “If she’s still there, she’d be in Mother of Mercy, in Evanston.”
        “She must be very old,” said Katie.
        “They ain’t got many young ones in a rest home.”
        Katie thanked her, hung up and called a taxi, giving Lt. Cunningham Alice Britt’s new contact information.  He smiled and said, “I’m sure this’ll come in real handy.”
        Mother of Mercy was, for what it was, a fairly well-kept, clean place, though it smelled of antiseptic and aging bodies, with an undertone of urine.  Katie asked for Alice Britt’s room number and signed in, took the elevator to the third floor and asked a nurse on duty where the room was.
         “Down on the left,” said the nurse. “You may be in luck.  She just had her dinner, so her energy level may be up.
         Katie thanked her and walked to the room, rapping very lightly on the door. 
        “Miss Britt? My name is Katherine Cavuto.”
         Alice Britt lay in her bed while a nurse’s assistant was tucking in her blanket. The old woman was weak but surprisingly bright-eyed.  Katie stood before her for a few moments while Alice adjusted her thick eyeglasses.
         “Who are you? Do I know you?”
         “No, ma’am, I’m from out of town and I’m a writer”—she thought that sounded softer than journalist or reporter—“and I’m writing about Al Capone.”
         “You’re too young to know Al Capone,” said the old woman.
         “That’s true, but I am very interested to learn more about him from people who knew him.” 
         “I knew him,” said Alice Britt. “Knew him well.”
         “I understand you were his, uh, psychic?”
         “Oh, that was a long, long time ago.  During the Depression.  He was a very important man back in those days.  But he was like a little boy with me.  I’m sorry, dear, what’s your name again?”
         “Katherine Cavuto.” Katie wrote down “short-term memory loss?”
         “Italian, eh?”
         “Italian-American.”
         “So was Al, y’know. I’m Irish-American.”
         “Miss Britt, may I ask you some questions?”
        Alice Britt waved her hand to indicate okay.    
       “And do you mind if I record what we talk about?” asked Katie, taking out a voice recorder about the size of a cigarette lighter.  Alice Britt waved her hand again.
        “Now, when you said Mr. Capone was like a little boy, what exactly did you mean?” asked Katie.
         “Oh, I met him because he was having these bad dreams about seeing ghosts walking around his bedroom. When I was first introduced to him, he was almost in tears, like a little boy.  Said he was terrified by the ghosts and could I help him get rid of them.
        “Well, I had a pretty good reputation back then as a psychic. I had a gift, I really did.  I’m not saying I could actually see into the future, but I could calm people down, tell them what they wanted to hear.  Most of the time people who use psychics want to know if they’ll be getting out of debt or getting their hands on some money, and of course I told them they would. Not soon, but they’d get it. Others were getting over the death of a loved one, usually a wife or husband, and they wanted to know if they were still out there somewhere and if they still loved them. So I’d ask them a little about what religion they were, then I’d tell them what they wanted to hear according to their beliefs.  This one’s in heaven, this one’s waiting for you beyond the grave.  You had to be able to read people’s minds.  That’s what a psychic is. I never hurt nobody.”
         “And did you help Mr. Capone?” asked Katie.
         Alice Britt began coughing and the nurse’s assistant gave her some water to sip through a straw.
         “Oh, I think I helped him plenty.  He was a Catholic, or was born one, and deep down he thought he was going to go to hell for his sins.  I mean, everyone in Chicago knew what those sins were, and you didn’t even have to be a Catholic to wish a man like Al did end up in hell.  He said he was terrified as much by the ghosts as he was being shot down in the streets like a dog.  He was a young man, y’know.”
         “So how did you bring him out of it?”
         “To tell you the truth, I dragged out my visits as long as I could.  The money was no object to Al Capone.  I think I probably came by a couple of times every week until he went to jail.  I don’t remember what I told him but I made him believe the ghosts were vanished back beyond the grave.  And I told him he had to make his peace with God.  He answered that he gave tons of money to Catholic charities and poor people.  I said that was fine, but you have to get those old sins washed clean.  Told him I could see them like black spots on his soul.”
       Never trusting the batteries in her recorder, Katie was writing notes fast, amazed at the old woman’s brightness of mind and her recall of events that had happened so long ago. 
         “May I ask if you ever held a séance and what happened?”
         “I’m pretty sure I did. I must have. There was a lot of money to be made from séances, and you could acquire new customers that way. So, let me think, let me think. I did so many of those damn things back then.”
         After another sip of water, she went on.
        “If I remember correctly, we had one séance in which I summoned his father from the afterworld.  I found out he’d died young and Al was afraid he would too.  Now, of course, the people at the séance, if they’re believers, will swallow anything you tell them because they want so much to hear it.  So I told them that Al’s father was sad because his son had grown up to be a gangster—I didn’t use that word, but just that Al was a real disappointment to him—and that his own soul would never be at rest in heaven unless Al joined him there, free of sin.”
         “So how did Al react?”
         “He broke down. He was sobbing like a little boy.  And I remember asking him if he thought he could lead a better life and make up for his sins, and he said the oddest thing, as if it really wasn’t in his hands.  He said, ‘God only knows.’ Maybe it was his way of saying he was too weak to reform or too deep into the life he created for himself.  But that’s all he kept saying, ‘God only knows, God only knows.’”
         The old woman paused, then said, “I don’t think I ever went back to the house after that, but I do remember he paid me more money than I’d ever seen before, so I guess I must have helped him some way or another.”
         Alice Britt began coughing again, clearly with a lot of phlegm in her throat, and the nurse assistant asked if Katie might come back another time and let Miss Britt rest. Katie nodded and said, “Miss Britt, I’ve really enjoyed meeting you, and thank you so much for speaking with me.  You’ve been a lot of help.” 
        Alice Britt raised a wrinkled hand and made a slight wave goodbye.
        “Will you do me a favor, Katherine?”
        “Sure.”
        “I don’t know if you go to Mass but if you do, say a little prayer for me.”
        “I’d be happy to.  I’ll even have a Mass said for you, how’s that?”
        “That would be wonderful.  Thank you very, very much.”
        Katie left the room and knew she’d never see Alice Britt again.