My Christmas Lasagne Recipe Has a Record Related Background

recipe from a book gifted by UFT Teacher Federation Founder Albert Shanker's wife

Here's how I produce a 42 pound lasagne every Christmas "from scratch" (bad word to use around records, I know)—and it's related to this channel's mission: vinyl records. How's that? But first: you might want to attempt this recipe. It's incredible. Back in 1997 I got a phone call from the wife of United Federation of Teachers founder Albert Shanker (referenced in Woody Allen's movie "Sleeper").

Shanker had recently passed away and had left a large record collection. Mrs. Shanker got my phone number from someone who said I'd be a good person to talk to about the collection's value and how to best sell them. I drove up to the Shanker home and found a large collection of not particularly valuable, but well-chosen budget label records on Odyssey (Columbia budget label) VOX and other such labels. Great music, little value.

To thank me, Mrs. Shanker offered me as many of Albert's prized cook books as I desired, and there were probably a few hundred. I took a bunch and drove home. When I looked inside I found that many had been signed by the authors, who included Marcella Hazan, and other well-known cook book authors (now that I look more closely, this may just have been signed by a gift giving friend, not by Hazan, but a few others were author-signed).

I ended up trying the lasagne recipe in "Italian Family Recipes From The Romagnolis' Table", which also was a series on WGBH in Boston. And it was spectacular! The book jacket is now well-worn.

With homemade bolognese sauce and fresh lasagne noodles that this video shows me preparing. You can downsize the amounts but making this big a lasagne--fits an All Clad roasting pan—is fun and I tried to make the video kind of fun. Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, happy nothing or whatever you do or not do celebrate at the winter solstice.

Bolognese ( I triple this to get the full pot of sauce):

small slice salt pork

3 small onions

3 small carrots

3 celery stalks

Grove&Vine olive oil

3 hearts, livers and gizzards

1 pound lean twice ground beef

1 pound twice ground beef, veal, pork

1 cup dry red wine

4-5 teaspoons salt (or to taste)

ground pepper

8 cups peeled plum tomatoes or 2 2 pound cans

1 small can tomato paste, plus equal amount of hot water