food!

We may not have everything (like, I don't know, my thesis, or, occasionally, where to park the car), but we do eat well. There are popovers for breakfast, scrambled eggs with feta and fresh parsley snipped from Kirsten's potted herbs on our patio, occasional sourdough pancakes, and recent rotations of french toast. Our lunches are usually devoted to eating leftovers or recovering from the excesses of the morning, but our dinners have been consistently lovely.

Tonight, for example, this was dinner: Kirsten went to work in the afternoon, I hung around and wrote a little; about five, I wandered over to the subway, hopped up to Sunset and stepped into one of our local Jons (and while my initial enamoration - that's a real word, I promise, it means the process of falling in love - with the market has faded a little, it remains rock-solid for two-pound containers of feta, cheap tomatoes, and more varieties of pepper than you could shake a stick at) to pick up some stuff for dinner: a couple of pickling cucumbers for an appetizer, some pumpkin filling for pumpkin muffins later this week (I told you we eat well), and about two pounds of Roma tomatoes for tonight's pasta.

Tonight's recipe came by way of our friend Melina. She had us over for dinner a couple of nights before we skipped Chapel Hill, and made a remarkable pasta out of a sumptuous cook book titled On Top of Spaghetti. Being a pasta lover myself, I was in love, but for one reason or another, held off from buying the book until a recent foray onto Amazon just before dinner time resulted in a spur-of-the-moment cookbook. Go figure.

But the book is remarkable. Seriously. I've just finished dinner, and leafing through the cookbook is making me hungry again.

Without further ado, then, two recent recipes:

4 am spaghetti for one (but double for two):

4 ozs. spaghetti; 1 large garlic clove, peeled and trimmed; 1/4 c. extra virgin olive oil; 1/2 to 1 teaspoon powdered Esplette pepper or hot or sweet paprika; large pinch of dried oregano; freshly ground black pepper; pinch of sea salt.

1. Bring your water to a boil; generously salt the water; cook, stirring often. For the love of all that's holy, don't put oil in the water.
2. While the pasta is cooking, heat your pasta bowl (seriously. It's a new trick and I love it) in the oven or in warm water; once heated, rub the garlic clove all over the bottom of the bowl; pour in the olive oil; throw the herbs over; add the salt and pepper; the oil should warm up in the bowl and release its flavors; smile broadly, sip your wine.
3. Drain the pasta, leaving it a little wet; toss it into the bowl. Enjoy.

This next recipe is in honor of my dear friend Giovanni, who made me a version of it a year ago; little did I know I've been saying Matriciana when it should really be Amatriaciana. Go figure.

bucatini with fresh tomatoes, pancetta, and onion (I changed proportions to reflect the pancetta packet that Trader Joe's sells)

4 oz. pancetta; 5 tblsps. olive oil; 2 lbs. ripe roma tomatoes, chopped; 1 heaping cup diced onions; 1/2 tsp. sea salt; pinch of red pepper; 1 lb. spaghetti

1. Put the pancetta in a big saute pan over medium heat; toss often to keep it from sticking; let it render a little, lose some of its fat, and brown on the edges; lower the heat, add the olive oil, the tomatoes, the onion, and the salt (Don't worry about the excess liquid, it'll cook down). Stir in the red pepper; cover, bring to a boil, lower the heat, and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes, until the onions are all the way cooked; taste and salt as necessary.
2. Boil your water; salt generously; cook, but before you drain, reserve about a cup of the water (another trick - the starchy water that is to be drained is really good for keeping the pasta moist and supple as you mix in the sauce). Once drained, toss the pasta into your saute pan with the sauce and mix until well-coated; as needed, add water to keep the pasta supple. Serve in heated bowls.

Like I said, we eat well.