From the Recycling Bin
Sometimes, I start writing a post and then, for whatever reason, I just don’t finish it.
Back in November, I started writing a piece titled This post of only vaguely connected stories is my homage to Robert Altman’s movies… but then Robert Altman up and freakin’ DIED that very same day and I was so weirded out, I just stopped writing and left it with the other abandoned drafts.
And now, because I have nothing better to post today, here it is, in its incomplete glory:
Despite my love for them, I am a cookbook cheapskate. If you’re in my kitchen and you see a cookbook published within the last 10-15 years, you can almost certainly pick it up and ask “who gave you this one?” and I could tell you.And as such, I am really into the recipes offered by FreshDirect. They have recipes from over 60 cookbooks and magazines (and last season’s Top Chef!) for free. You choose the recipe and FreshDirect puts the ingredients in your cart and emails you the recipe when your food is delivered.Last week, I tried Baked Pasta with Caramelized Tomatoes from French Farmhouse Cookbook by Susan Hermann Loomis. I have two issues with this recipe’s name. For starters, I have no idea why this is called “baked” anything, because it’s all cooked on the stovetop. Secondly, I’m no Alton Brown, but I think calling these tomatoes caramelized is, well, wrong. These tomatoes are cooked for a relatively short time: only about 20 minutes total, which doesn’t really seem to be enough time for the caramelizing process to become fully developed. Plus, they’re cooked in a lot of oil. So, really, they just fried at first, and as they softened up, they kind of stewed. Either way, not a lot of caramelization going on.
[Oh, and? I hate any recipe that calls for less than a whole standard box of pasta. I’m supposed to assess how much 10 ounces of pasta is? Screw that noise; I’m cooking the whole pound, recipe be damned.]
Personally, I would have called this recipe Pasta with Fresh Tomato Persillade — a word I learned from watching my TV-chef boyfriend, Jacques Pépin. Persillade is traditionally an equal mix of garlic and parsley, and that’s pretty much all there is to this recipe besides tomatoes and pasta and all that oil.
So. Despite not liking the name, the method of cooking, or the amount of pasta I was supposed to cook, the end result: fan-freakin’-tastic.
I piled up a plate. And then another. And then even though I was pants-unbuttoning full, I kept picking at the serving bowl: a tomato here, another couple strands of pasta there. I think part of the reason I couldn’t stop eating it was because I couldn’t figure out what made it so good. The tomatoes were run-of-the-mill plum tomatoes. The parsley, I admit, was not really at the peak of freshness. But, then it struck me… the garlic!
I buy a head or two of this rocambole garlic from that very bin every time I go to the Greenmarket and although it’s hard to see in this smaller photo (click it to see it up close), the sign says it’s “arguably the best garlic in the known universe” — and I tend to agree.
The garlic, while having all the usual sharp garlicky notes, also has a surprisingly rich depth of… other flavors I can’t quite put my finger on, but they’re there.
And that’s all I wrote.
I don’t even remember where I was going with this post. Was I going to tie the garlic back into my being a cookbook cheapskate somehow? Was there going to be another paragraph that was going to bring it all together? Did I have a point to make or did I just have too much coffee that day?
Well, if nothing else, recycling this post reminded me that pasta was really good. Maybe I’ll make it again this weekend.
Uh… the end.
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March 2nd, 2007 at 3:28 pm
Also, I think the ghost of Robert Altman is haunting my blog, because I keep fixing the formatting of this post… and it will not stay fixed!
March 4th, 2007 at 7:06 am
Don’t know if you’re using Blogger… but I had a format problem the other day too. Some gremlin kept stealing my paragraph returns! Loved this post BTW. Sure would be nice to have the recipe…. Oh, and I’ve never heard of that garlic. Out here in the hinterlands it’s hard to come by diversity.
March 5th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
I’ve been a huge Altman fan since I was even younger than you are; was it my imagination or did he just keep getting better and better? I thought “Short Cuts” was brilliant, every bit as good as anything he ever made.
I’m going to be in your neck of the woods later on this month, for a family wedding and a short visit with Leland; maybe I can get me some of that garlic.
March 5th, 2007 at 3:41 pm
It’s been so long since I saw “Short Cuts” — the only thing I really remember from it is wishing Julianne Moore would put some goddamn pants on and then finishing having that argument.
The garlic is from Keith’s Farm, which will, sadly, not be back to the Greenmarket until May. It’s definitely worth coming back again this summer to get some.