Tag Archives: Pasta

New Featured Pastas to Consider While You Eat the New Featured Bruschetta[!]

Posted on by
Reply

[UPDATED: Management has objected to the following text and asked that it be ignored in favor of the text following the following text.]

If it’s so great, why isn’t it on the regular menu?

Ever been in a great relationship but she doesn’t like baseball and then you meet someone who you know you don’t have much in common with she but looks like the kind of girl who would definitely watch baseball, maybe even without being asked, and before you know it you’re pretending to read the sports page in the morning so your significant other doesn’t realize that instead of working late you were sharing a plate of spicy wings and a pitcher of beer while the Braves play?

Continue reading →

Bucatini all’Amatriciana – My Favorite Pasta Dish That We Don’t Offer

Posted on by
Reply

Amatrice, located to the northwest of Rome in the inland part of the bulging calf of the Italian boot, may or may not be the point of origin for this dish. The confusion arises from the name and its popularity outside of Amatrice.

The word Amatriciana means “in the style of Amatrice” and its popularity in Rome cannot be overstated. I’m on the side that believes a Roman liked the food in Amatrice and came up with something evocative of the place thus “in the style of” but I’m open to it being a direct import.

Either way I first encountered it in Rome over dinner with possibly the most pompous person I’ve ever met. Lucky for him, he was interesting and could pull it off.

Continue reading →

Cookbook: Marcella Cucina by Marcella Hazan

Posted on by
Reply

This is currently my favorite cookbook. It has been for quite a while and I’m usually pretty capricious.

Marcella Hazan (Her Name Be Praised) earned her place in the Italian cooking pantheon with Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking (Originally published in separate volumes as The Classic Italian Cookbook in 1973 and More Classic Italian Cooking in 1978 – combined, updated, and revised in the current single volume in 1992)

As wonderful as it is, Essentials is as advertised. It’s the essentials. It resembles in style and layout, Rombauer’s The Joy of Cooking. I assume that was an intentional and successful attempt to claim staple status among Italian cookbooks in the same way Rombauer had general European-American books. It’s a broad overview. Her later, shorter books are more adventurous. They have a sharper focus and capture the mood and culinary fetishes she’s entertaining at a given moment. She’s more fun after she laid the groundwork.

I’ve got my mother’s copy of Marcella Cucina (1997.) Most of Mom’s cookbooks are heavily annotated. I remember a veal dish in a non-Hazan book exed out in pencil with the words “Never Again!” scrawled in the margin. Not so this book. There are a few notes here and there, but I get the sense that Mom thought Marcella did a pretty good job.

Continue reading →