Spaghetti with chickpeas. Anyone running the marathon this weekend? I have a hunch that the overlap between people who, say, read a home cooking blog that unapologetically embraces butter and people who, say, run 26.2 miles in their spare time as an personal challenge, is slim-to-none. And yet, I know a handful of people running this weekend that love good cooking as I do, despite the fact that we obviously have nothing else in common.
Seeing as they run when not chased, I bet they also do dishes for pleasure and go to bed advisably early for a less cranky tomorrow. Weirdos. But we can meet at a middle ground affectionately called “carbo-loading”. I found this recipe from New York chef and owner of three great Italian restaurants in the city, Michael White, in an article that recommended it for, fittingly, carbo-loading. Spaghetti with Chickpeas [Spaghetti con Ceci] From Michael White, via New York Magazine Serves 4 as a main, 8 as a first course or “2 to 3 marathoners”, says NYM Set 1/3 cup of chickpeas aside. Baked rigatoni with tiny meatballs. Did you hear a resounding whine/sigh/moan the volume of the entire Eastern seaboard? Because there’s a fresh foot of snow outside for the 200th time this year and friends, I love snow.
I get so excited when it is going to snow. But this? Lacks charm, likely because the first day of this anticipated four day storm was three to four inches of mucky slush. Anyway, I still maintain that complaining about the weather is dull, thus if any one good thing can come of this, it is that pasta, meatball and cream sauce season just got extended by at least another weekend. After the excitement over Marcella Hazan last month, I wanted to share a recipe from her on the opposite end of the spectrum, sort of the Italian version of Italian-American baked ziti. I loved her head notes on these meatballs, by the way, where she said it used to startle students to learn that meatballs and spaghetti were not an authentic Italian dish. Serves 8 but I think Americans would serve this to 4 to 6. Spaghetti with lemon and olive oil. Look, it wasn’t my finest moment but my Happy Valentine’s Day gift to my husband was an epic meltdown over book deadlines and recipe flops and the near impossibility of getting anything done with a toddler underfoot in a kitchen that doesn’t actually fit the two of us.
It wasn’t pretty. We ordered pizza and watched How I Met Your Mother. Now, just in case that story elicited even a wisp of pity, you should take it back right now because the week, it got better from there. First, I realized that my “hey, let’s not do gifts this year” conversation with my husband may have never left my own head when he busted out tulips and a spa certificate. (Oops. I’m a real catch, aren’t I?) Then my very kind agent and editor talked me off the book ledge, they’re good at things like that though I suppose they have to be, taking on nuts like me. Here’s where the story could continue in any of the following ways: How hard it was to be away from our little baby for the weekend (so hard! But I say, “eh!” Mushroom marsala pasta with artichokes. People, I’m about at the end of my ordered-in dinner rope. It’s not that — as the front page of this site might suggest — I haven’t cooked anything since the baby arrived, it’s just that I’ve largely cooked things that could be assembled during naptimes, and most of Alex and my conversations about meals go, “What should we do for dinner?”
“I made mushroom toasts and a bowl of butterscotch sauce today!” “Right, so what should we order?” And so on with the pho, cracker-thin pizza and hummusiot dinner deliveries. Now, I don’t expect any violins, especially from folks without the East Village’s globe of food delivery options at their fingertips, but I am sure you all understand what it means to desperately crave a homecooked meal. One year ago: Seven-Layer Cookies and Grasshopper BrowniesTwo years ago: Peanut Butter Cookies and Austrian Raspberry ShortbreadThree years ago: Short Ribs Bourguignon and Robert Linxe’s Ganache Tart So what’s the story with this?
Serves 4 to 6. Meatballs and spaghetti. [Guest photography by Elizabeth Bick]A few weeks ago, over a couple bottles glasses of wine, my friend Liz, a photographer, and I got to discussing the photography in the smittenkitchen, and she said she was dying to come in and take some pictures of me at “work” one day. We started fantasizing about doing a 1950s Mad Men-style shoot, rollers in the hair, a frilly but perfectly tailored apron and classic home cooking. In reality, the rollers and the silly apron didn’t quite happen, but Liz came over earlier this week (and then our other friends, a couple hours later for dinner) and we had a blast. So please welcome here today our very first smittenkitchen guest photographer, Elizabeth Bick.
I suspect you’ll be as wowed by her photos as I am. But meatballs and spaghetti have always eluded me. Well, silly me. These photos: All of the photos in this post were taken by the inimitable Elizabeth Bick, who specializes in weddings, portraits and food photography. Paris! Serves 6. Linguine with tomato-almond pesto.
We are dragging this summer out. Maybe it’s because as far as I am concerned, it didn’t really start until August, when the bulk of the heat wave was behind us and we willingly ventured outside of our air-conditioned caves again, and when we finally took a little family vacation. Maybe it’s because if it is still summer, the baby is still a baby and not a one year-old toddler as he will be after this weekend. But it is most likely because we headed down the Garden State Parkway to Exit 0 last weekend for a belated 5 year anniversary mini-vacation without said baby and somehow, well into September, still got sun, sand and freckles.
Summer in September? Despite the fact that the calendar may suggest fall clothes and butternut squash, the markets are still flooded with tomatoes. I made this recipe because a line in the recipe — “If you are Sicilian, become hysterical at the prospect of overcooked pasta. Linguine with Tomato-Almond Pesto [Pesto Trapenese] Adapted from Gourmet.