GREAT HOME COOKS : Family Food: The Magistrale Bunch

When Victor Magistrale and his five kids joined forces with Natalie Alexander and her two offspring 25 years ago, the newlyweds bought a big house in South Pasadena with enough room for all. Not long after, they started an entertaining tradition: every-Sunday-evening come-one-come-all pasta dinners.

“I will say that I am somewhat famous for those,” says Magistrale. “With seven kids and all of their friends, every Sunday night we had a crowd. Sometimes we’d have 15 or 20 people for dinner.

“When I was growing up, we always had a traditional Sunday meal at home, and it always included pasta. I wanted to carry that tradition on. It just didn’t seem like Sunday without pasta. And when more and more people started showing up, it’s such a simple thing to cook more pasta.”

Magistrale’s father, an immigrant from the Apulia region in Southern Italy, settled in Buffalo and opened an Italian restaurant. One table was always reserved for family. That’s family in the Italian sense, which could include parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, waiters, friends, neighbors and even the produce man.

“The chef was a great cook, and every day he would prepare one dish just for us, and we would sell whatever was left over,” Magistrale says. “It got to be such a big thing at the restaurant that many of our regular customers would come in and say, ‘Give me whatever the family’s having.’ ”

Magistrale’s family restaurant served mainly home-style Apulian dishes, including tripe stewed with tomatoes and onions, homemade ravioli stuffed with ricotta and mint, and a very rustic dish called capuzelli. The chef would buy whole lamb’s heads--when the butcher had them--then split them in half and roast them. “You could eat the whole thing,” says Magistrale, “Tongue, skin, brains. . . . If you were a real aficionado, you ate the eye, but I never got to it.”

Capuzelli was not on the Sunday-evening menu in South Pasadena. And, in fact, any deviation whatsoever from pasta was discouraged.

“When the kids were young, Natalie and I left town one weekend and left them with a neighbor,” says Magistrale. “He thought he’d give them a treat by taking them all out for hamburgers for Sunday dinner. My son Harold, who was only 8 or 9 at the time, looked up at him with big brown eyes and said, ‘But on Sundays, we always have pasta.’ So they fixed pasta.”

Now the children are grown. Jean is an attorney in Marin County, Claude a programmer in Pasadena, Teo a musician in San Francisco, Harold a geophysicist in San Diego, Tony a carpenter in Pasadena, CeCe an author in Santa Barbara and Grace a public administrator in Oxnard.

The big house is just for the couple. Magistrale retired last year from the University of Southern California’s Institute for Safety and Systems Management and spends a lot of time in the garden, tending the flowers and an ancient kumquat tree. (“Come climb up this ladder and get some,” he beckons. “You’ll never find a kumquat any bigger or any sweeter.”) The yard is dominated by a 30-foot-tall silk floss tree that he calls “Grace’s Tree,” after the daughter who planted it as a seedling.

And he cooks a lot. Magistrale boasts that Alexander, in her 42nd year as a professor at the USC School of Medicine, frequently has five-course meals waiting for her when she gets home from work. “Don’t let him snow you,” she says.

The rooms, large and solid-feeling, are decorated partly with art from friends. After the couple spent a year in Japan, two downstairs rooms were converted--one into a Japanese-style bath of dark woods, another into a sitting room with a low table and shoji screens. On a reading table in the living room you find a pamphlet on “Gene Structure and Expression,” a garden book from Colefax & Fowler and Giuliano Bugialli’s “Foods of Italy.”

“That guy’s really terrific,” Magistrale says. “A friend of ours has a cooking school and he taught at it. It was the only cooking class I ever took, and I still fix one of the dishes--a pasta with sardines, capers and tomatoes. I make that all the time. It’s much more in keeping with the way we eat now.”

Yesterday’s meat-based sauces have given way to clam sauce or vegetarian sauces. Mostly, though, the Magistrales eat what’s in the refrigerator. “We don’t throw anything away,” says Alexander.

“I just shop the specials and then I figure out how to use them,” says Magistrale. “If artichokes are cheap, I’ll buy a lot of them. There’s always something you can do.”

Alexander’s kitchen style can be described as “mixmaster.” “Basically, I start by frying garlic and onions and then I throw everything else in,” she says. One of her recent dishes featured skinless chicken breasts marinated in vinaigrette and yogurt and then baked. Another was coleslaw with blue-cheese dressing.

“One of our guests said it was the first time she’d ever tasted cheese in a coleslaw,” says Magistrale. “I think she really liked it.”

Now that the children have moved away, the Sunday pasta dinners have become more occasional. But you sense the dining room table is still the choice location in the house.

“You know, having people for dinner was always part of the way Italian immigrants entertained,” Magistrale says. “When people came into the home, you always set the table to eat. It didn’t matter what time of day or night. It’s a philosophy, a way to show friendliness. People sit around the table, they eat, drink, talk . . . it’s very important. The meal is the way to socialize--the center of the social circle.”

SLICED TOMATOES WITH OLIVE OIL AND OREGANO

2 large tomatoes

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Fresh oregano or dried

Salt, pepper

Slice tomatoes 1/4-inch thick and arrange slices, not overlapping, on large platter. Drizzle 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon olive oil onto each slice. Lightly season to taste with salt and pepper. Chop or crush fresh oregano in pestle or rub dried herb in palm of hand. Sprinkle over tomatoes. Serve with Italian bread. Makes 4 to 6 servings.

Each serving contains about:

73 calories; 79 mg sodium; 0 mg cholesterol; 7 grams fat; 3 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram protein; 0.40 gram fiber.

“When you make this dish, it looks like the weirdest damn thing,” says Magistrale. “My God, olive oil, sardines, capers. . . . But when you try it, you’ll say it’s the best thing you ever tasted. I also leave the garlic cloves whole so if someone doesn’t like garlic he can avoid it.” Actually, Bugialli’s recipe calls for canned tuna, but what’s a fish among friends?

NOT EXACTLY BUGIALLI’S PASTA CON LE SARDE

3 to 4 pounds tomatoes, sliced thin

3/4 cup olive oil

2 (3 3/4-ounce) cans skinless, boneless sardines, drained

4 to 5 cloves garlic, left whole, peeled

1/4 cup capers

Coarsely ground pepper

Salt

Freshly ground pepper

2 pounds dry pasta, spaghettini or linguine

Grated Parmesan cheese, optional

Place tomato slices in large roasting pan. Cover with olive oil and sardines. Distribute garlic and capers over and coarsely ground pepper to taste. Cover and simmer over low heat 30 to 45 minutes.

Bring salted water for pasta to boil. When sauce is nearly done, add pasta to boiling water and cook until al dente. Drain pasta. Mix well into sauce. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground pepper. Pass Parmesan cheese at table. Makes 8 servings.

Each serving contains about:

693 calories; 370 mg sodium; 38 mg cholesterol; 25 grams fat; 94 grams carbohydrates; 22 grams protein; 1.47 grams fiber.

These kumquats are too tart to use as a dessert, but they’re perfect when served with roasted or grilled meat, fish or poultry. Think of them as a chutney.

KUMQUATS IN SYRUP

2 cups kumquats, washed well

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

Cut shallow lengthwise slit in each kumquat and place in medium saucepan. Add sugar and water. Bring to boil and cook 10 to 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand overnight.

Bring back to boil and boil another 10 to 15 minutes. If preserving, place in sterilized canning jars and process in water bath according to canning instructions. Makes about 2 cups, enough for 8 servings.

Each serving contains about:

132 calories; 4 mg sodium; 0 cholesterol; 0 fat; 34 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram protein; 2.10 grams fiber.