Home Cooking to Go, at Zaza Lazagna

If you ‘d asked me, a number of weeks earlier, how I felt about caponata, the agrodolce(sweet-and-sour) Sicilian enjoy that is usually made with eggplant, plus tomato, aromatics, olives, and capers, I would have shrugged. When had I last consumed it? On unfortunate crostini, cold and clumpy? Ask me now and I’ll inform you that recently I had caponata for lunch– not as a dressing or perhaps a side meal, simply straight caponata, straight from a plastic deli container, amazing.

The caponata was made by Zahra Tangorra, the chef behind the late, cherished Cobble Hill Italian dining establishment Brucie, who now runs a takeout operation called Zaza Lazagna. Her analysis included butternut squash rather of eggplant, plus white sweet potato, cauliflower, San Marzano tomatoes, sage, rosemary, raisins, Castelvetrano and Kalamata olives, and red onion– unexpected however deftly layered in both texture and taste, an apt example of her freewheeling, user-friendly cooking design.

Before Brucie, Tangorra had actually never ever operated in a cooking area. In 2006, after art school and a stint as an Urban Outfitters window designer, she was visiting through California with a group of artist buddies when their bus plunged over a cliff. Exceptionally, everybody endured. Tangorra was relocated to reevaluate her life. She liked to prepare, and with settlement cash from the mishap she opened Brucie.

When she closed the dining establishment, in 2016, “we were sort of at the height of our appeal,” she informed me just recently, however she was feeling stressed out, and transitioned to seeking advice from and catering. At Brucie, she had actually provided a lovely service: B.Y.O. pan, and they ‘d bake you a lasagna to consume at house. In November, 2020, her pals at Shelsky’s, a smoked-fish store on Court Street, consented to let her utilize their kitchen area for Zaza Lazagna, to prep heat-and-serve lasagnas (offered whole, in non reusable aluminum trays, and by the piece), plus other home cooking (consisting of meatballs and huge loaves of tomato-butter garlic bread), for pickup from the store on Friday nights.

Every week in the cooler months, Tangorra and her organization partner, a previous Brucie cook called Ryan Crossman, make a timeless meatless lasagna, with red sauce, ricotta, mozzarella, and provolone, and an unique lasagna, typically influenced by pasta meals that do not take a trip too (Alfredo, Amatriciana), or by, state, the Super Bowl, as when it comes to a current spinach-and-artichoke range. That a person anchored a loose game-day style, completed by Negroni ribs, braised with entire mandarins in gin, Campari, and vermouth, and Buffalo-chicken-stuffed shells, laced with blue cheese and dill.

To make up for the loss of dining-room environment, Tangorra and Crossman discover methods to be spirited, from a dynamic Web website– the entire timeless lasagna marketed with a picture of Garfield the feline, a pint of Sexy Slaw with a still-life of veggies set up to appear like a reclining naked– to the handful of sweet (state, Andes chocolate mints) that gets tossed in with orders. Each Friday, they get pairings from Brooklyn Wine Exchange, throughout the street from Shelsky’s, and put tastes as they disperse the food; if a bottle strikes your fancy, you can pop over and purchase it at a discount rate.

A couple of weeks earlier, my Zaza haul consisted of a paper cup using a skirt of fringed tinsel, like a go-go dancer; underneath its cover I discovered a foil firework mixed drink choice standing out of an Aperol-spritz cake that might just be referred to as groovy, glazed in a tie-dye pattern of pinks, its shiny crumb aromatic with olive oil. When we spoke, Tangorra pointed out Raymond Carver’s narrative “A Small, Good Thing,” in which a young couple looks for convenience after a catastrophe; a visitor on “Processing,” a podcast that she co-hosts with her mom, a bereavement therapist, had actually suggested it. “Sometimes simply doing that little, good idea for individuals– you do not understand what they’re going through,” Tangorra stated. “It might go a long method.” ( Dishes $10-$32 Entire lasagna begins at $40) ♦