MERRY CAMORRA CHRISTMAS!

Stella D'Euro

FLOWER POWER
This holiday season while the movie "American Hustle" is breaking box office records with the story of the ABSCAM* sting of the late '70s (and Christian Bale's comb over), the Camorra is breaking balls and raking over the Christmas merchandise in the Piazza del Mercato shopping district in Naples. This infamous arm of organized crime have poinsettia proprietors seeing red with their 'Italian Hustle,' scamorra that's taking a big chunka change outta their seasonal market profits. The Camorra (Neapolitan Mafia), can be likened to organized crime on steroids. They have their own BALCO** never ending supply of crime. In addition to extortion and drug trafficking, this motley crew super sizes murder, mayhem and madness. Would you like to add a side of bad ass muscle to that order?!! So as "American Hustle" has become a huge hit and is racking up kudos, the Camorra has been stacking up hits hustling these local Neopolitan plant vendors. 

WRECK THE HALLS - FA LA LA LA LA

For the last three Christmas seasons the Camorra has been shaking down retailers to buy their Stella di Natale (Christmas Star) plants by making them an offer even the don couldn't refuse - buy the plants at the inflated price of 100 euros (approx. $140 per plant, when the usual price is just 1 euro - holy holly!) or get the tinsel beat outta them and have a mafia wrecking crew come in to "decorate" their shops for the holidays. Most likely this is setting store owners up for having to hold pre-holiday sales of as-is damaged merchandise from having their shops vandalized just weeks before the festivities begin. The mobsters are also helping themselves to sample the goods adding to losses and hitting store owners twice as hard in their pocketbooks. 

NAUGHTY NOT NICE BOYS

The perps involved in this Yuletide scam are the notorious Mazzarella tribe canvassing this local Neapolitan shopping district and Scrooging the merchants. They lean on these shopkeepers to buy their Christmas Star beauties to raise money for their crime family members who are in prison so they can have a little extra this time of year and to be able to have that special something under their own X-mas trees. As Dickens reminded us in "A Christmas Carol," it is at this time of year that 'the poor' are especially in want. Luckily the police were able to string together wire taps and witness testimonies to make arrests of these naughty boys.

So as "American Hustle" cleans up this movie award season, http://youtu.be/NqgjPRNRDSY
Dining with the Don would like to present this year's Grinch and Christmas Dubious Achievement awards to the Camorra! 

Care & Feeding of Stella Di Natale

(even if you don't have a green thumb)

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061129052617AARhEbp

TO GET YOU IN THE SPIRIT:

                   THE CAMORRA CHRISTMAS SONG

             Merchants roasting on an open fire,
             Extortion nipping at their toes
             Yuletide mayhem taking over the stores
             Guys in their work you over clothes.

             Everybody knows Camorra with their bad ass moves
             Help to make the season's blight
             Shopkeepers scared with their nails all bit down
             Will find it hard to sleep each night.

             
             They know Camorra's on their way
             They're wielding lotsa force to keep you in
             their sway
             And every flower vendor's gonna cry
             To see that fists really know how to fly
           
       
             And so I offer up this simple scare
             For folks around the old town square
             When out this season for your holiday plants
             Do remember shoppers please beware 

Baccala Fritto 

This traditional Neapolitan Christmas Eve dish for dried salted cod fish, soaked then deep fried, is so easy leaving you Camorra thugs plenty of time to break balls by day, come home dredge your two-day soaked dried baccala in flour and deep fry in oil. 

DON'T FORGETS:  

Chop off heads and tails of fish ya know like you chop off the fingers of anyone who dips into your share of the profits.

Remove the bones - don't break, just remove.

Change the water frequently while soaking in the fridge, otherwise it'll stink up everything the way you stink up the holiday season!

Dredge in flour like you'd drag your enemy through the dirt, back and forth, up and down.

Cut up in small pieces. Ya know like cutting up anyone who crosses you before putting them through a meat grinder.

DOs

Deep fry 'til golden color, drain on paper towels. No excuses for serving greasy fish even being tired from a hard day of muscling merchants to get into the holiday spirit!

Salt and pepper to taste 

Pair your baccala fritto with a Pinot Grigio just to piss off the wine snobs as they consider it beneath other whites, or if ya gonna mangia mangia with your paisans, a nice cold birra Moretti, the Italian brew with the moustachioed signor on the label. 

BUON NATALE!!!

*ABSCAM - See "American Hustle." Amy Adams glitzed out and sizzling + all that Gucci!

**BALCO - Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative that pumped and plied designer anabolic steroids and performance enhancing drugs, HGH "The Clear" and revved up testosterone "The Cream" to super size star athletes the likes of Barry Bonds (Uh, uh, uh sorry Barry, Sammy and Mark, but juicing doesn't count - Babe Ruth is still the Home Run King!), Marion Jones (drugs couldn't help ya touch Flo-Jo's 10.49 and ya lied!)and 2z all-star, 5x Super Bowl starter linebacker Bill Romanoswski. Watch out roid rage up ahead!

All material copyrighted by Mafia Cook.