[narrating]
In prison, dinner was always a big thing. We had a pasta course and then we had a meat or a fish. Paulie did the prep work, he was doing a year for contempt and he had this wonderful system for doing the garlic. He used a razor and used to slice it so thin that it used to liquify in the pan with just a little oil. It was a very good system. Vinny was in charge of the tomato sauce. I felt he used too many onions but it was still a very good sauce.
Vinny? Don’t put too many onions in the sauce.
I didn’t put too much onions, Paul. Three small onions that’s all I did, three onions.
How many cans of tomatoes did you put in there?
I put two cans! Two big cans.
You don’t need three onions.
[narrating]
Johnny Dio did the meat. We didn’t have a broiler so Johnny did everything in pans. And it used to smell up the joint something awful and the hacks used to die, but he still cooked a great steak.
Vinny? How do you like yours?
Rare. Medium rare.
Medium rare, hmm, an aristocrat.
[narrating]
See, you know, when you think of prison you get pictures in your mind of all those old movies with rows and rows of guys behind bars but it wasn’t like that for wise guys. It really wasn’t that bad. Except that I’d miss Jimmy. He was doing his time in Atlanta. I mean, everybody else in the joint was doing real time all mixed together living like pigs but we lived alone. I mean, we owned the joint. Even the hacks we couldn’t bribe would never rat on the guys that we did. [Enters the room with a sack of contraband] Sorry it took so long, that skinny guard’s getting to be a real pain in the ass
We’re gonna have to do something about that.
Naw, I took care of him.
What did you bring?
Bread. [tosses a loaf of bread to Paulie]
Good. Fresh.
Vinny, I got your peppers and onions. Salami, prosciutto, ‘lotta cheese.
Come on, come on, what else?
Scotch. [holds up a bottle of Scotch]
Nice.
Some red wine. [gives the bottle of red wine to Paulie]
Ok, now we can eat.
I got some white too.
Give me the white too. Beautiful. Ok, boys, let’s eat!
