Dinner

It seems I owe you a recipe. I didn’t mean to be so slack about posting one, but I couldn’t very well give you the recipe for, um… spoonfuls of peanut butter and marshmallow fluff straight from the jar. Which has sort of been what I’ve been calling dinner lately. Yeah that’s right, I said marshmallow fluff. …What?

Alright, it’s embarassing. I mean, I’m supposed to be a chef! And all I can come up with for dinner is a spoonful (or, ahem, seven) of Skippy and highly-processed marshmallow cream? I feel like a sheep in chef’s clothing. But between my exhausting endeavors at school (yesterday I peeled and chopped ohhhhh, about 40 pounds of beets), my new internship at Liddabit Sweets, and the the fact that it’s now officially dark when I wake up at 6 a.m. (talk about depressing!), come dinnertime it’s all I can do to unscrew the lid of peanut butter and lift the damn spoon.

Fortunately, others I know are not so delinquent when it comes to dinner these days. My Aunt Maggie, for example… thank goodness for her. A graduate of chef school herself (she went to Le Cordon Bleu after college), Aunt Mag (also known as Aunt Babe – she’s the youngest child in my Dad’s family) is undeterred by the 6 a.m. darkness that’s been settling like a thick veil over what’s left of summertime. When the light of summer fades, Maggie knows better than to take solace in a jar of fluff. She makes tomato sauce.

Aunt Maggie’s Summer Tomato Sauce
Adapted from Real Simple Magazine

Instead of moping over summer’s end, Maggie puts summer in a jar, in the form of this tomato sauce, and freezes it. Voilà! The taste of summer, all year round.
Maggie’s tomato sauce parties are famous – she and her friends use 75 (!) pounds (!) of tomatoes – but she was nice enough to give me the proportions for an individual batch. That said, feel free to double, triple, even quadruple the recipe – trust me, this stuff will make you forget all about the impending chill of fall… and the jar of fluff in the cabinet.

Ingredients:

• 8-10 ripe tomatoes
• 2 Tablespoons olive oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 4-5 cloves garlic, thinly sliced or chopped
• 2 Tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1/3 cup chopped basil

Directions:

Bring a pot of water to boil. Score an “X” in each tomato with a paring knife, and drop them in the boiling water for 30 seconds. Remove the tomatoes and immediately place them in a bowl of ice water. Then, peel the skins off each tomato. Cut tomatoes in half, and squeeze out as many seeds as possible. Next, chop the tomatoes coarsely.

Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion and sauté until soft, and then add the garlic and cook for a few more minutes, until fragrant. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, salt and pepper, and simmer, covered, for one and a half hours. Turn off the heat and stir in the basil.

Serve immediately (over pasta! On a pizza! Straight up with a loaf of bread!) or portion into plastic containers and freeze.

Makes about a quart of tomato sauce.

I’m pretty sure today is the hottest day of the year here in New York City. If it’s not, it certainly feels like it. The Weather Channel clocks us in at 93 degrees (with a “feels like” of 98 degrees and close to 50% humidity), which means that, down in the Level 3 kitchen at school, it’s about oh… a million bazillion degrees Farenheit. Which means wilted salad greens and grainy whipped cream and silly, long-sleeved marshmallow uniforms stuck to hot, sweaty skin. Appetizing, no?

To sum things up, it’s hot. Damn hot. It doesn’t help that in our new, more advanced (and more time-sensitive) Level 3 format I’m constantly running around like a mad woman, chopping and filleting and stirring and straining and spooning and tasting and plating and reminding myself to breathe. Today, one of the dishes I was responsible for was grilled salmon with white wine herb sauce. Doesn’t that sound good? It does, until you find yourself sweating over a blazing grill, desperately willing the fish to go ahead and be done already, before you reach your boiling point and actually burst into flames. I wonder if that’s possible. You know, to flambé yourself.

In all honesty, it’s not so bad. I mean, I did sign up for cooking school in August. Mostly I’m just cranky because I lost my camera this weekend at the Union Square Green Market. At least, I think I lost it. It could have been stolen… snatched up by a seedy young thief hidden among the throngs of people buying peaches and tomatoes and fresh herbs. I sort of like that idea better – it makes me feel like less of an irresponsible camera-loser. At any rate, I’m devastated. I’ve been feeling lost and, frankly, naked, since Saturday. Though I did pick up some wonderful heirloom tomatoes and a bunch of small, multicolored carrots at the market. They’re really beautiful – knobbly stalks of purple and orange and white. Not that you’ll get to see them. Or any of the other pretty pictures I took on Saturday – barrels of shiny, purple and white eggplants, wheels of yellow, raw-milk cheese, bunches of plump and pointy red radishes. Sigh. Such a bummer.

Luckily, before my poor camera was seized by a hostile market-goer, I was able to upload a few pictures from the fiery depths of Hades – I mean, Level 3 at school. Take a good, long look, because there’s nothing more where those came from. Sob.

Here’s to a cooler week ahead! And the miraculous reappearance of my camera! …No? Well fine, but one of the two would be nice.

Roasted Rainbow Carrots with Rosemary and Mint

Colorful carrots are all over the farmer’s markets these days – they’re sweet and bright and beautiful, and I suggest that, if you haven’t already, you give them a try. Just keep a tight grip on your valuables – I hear there’s a camera thief lurking around 14th Street.

Ingredients:

• 1 bunch rainbow carrots, whole, scrubbed and trimmed
• kosher salt
• fresh ground pepper
• olive oil
• fresh rosemary leaves, chopped

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350º. Toss the carrots with the olive oil to coat. Sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper, and place them on a sheet pan. Roast the carrots in the oven until slightly wrinkly and fork tender, about 10 minutes (depending on the size of the carrots). Remove from oven and immediately toss with chopped rosemary and mint, to taste. I prefer to use less rosemary and a lot of mint. Serve with a few slices of toasted bread and a hunk of sharp cheese.

Note: I like the look of these small carrots whole, but feel free to slice them up before roasting, if you prefer. Just be sure to adjust the roasting time accordingly (smaller pieces will roast faster than larger ones). Also, you’ll notice I didn’t mention anything about peeling the carrots – peeling removes the pretty, outer purple layer (of the purple carrots, anyway), so I opted to scrub them thoroughly and eat them skin-on. Yum.

It seems I’ve already started week three of chef school. Where did week two go? Time is flying, and I am exhausted. In a really, really good way.

So far, we’ve covered methods of food preservation (includingduck confit and gravlax), mayonnaise, hollandaise, bearnaise (and all of those other ‘naises), simple, mixed and composed salads, vinaigrettes, the potato (apparently there are a gazillion ways to prepare and serve potatoes – it seems baked, boiled, steamed, puréed, sautéed and fried is just the beginning. Yesterday was potato day, and, while “potato day” sounds fun – french fries! potato chips! mashed potatoes! – if I have to wash, peel, shape, boil, fry, sauté, mash or even look at another potato… Ahem. Let’s just say I’d be quite happy to never see another of the pesky tubers again. At least until Thanksgiving). Anyway, there’s also fish. We’ve started to work on fish. Which brings me to today.

Today, Chef S. began our lesson by giving us some sage advice about being a chef. Being a chef, he said, is very hard. “Thees beeznees will squeeze you like a leh-mon.” So, he continued, it is important to remember and appreciate the beauty of the food you’re working with – how it looks, how it smells, how it tastes. “Always reemembehr how beautiful it is, ze food you are working weeth.” He then proceded to scoop out the eyeballs of a fresh striped bass with a melon baller. Hm. A few more chops to the poor bass’s fins, head, spine and entrails, and thus began fish day.

It actually wasn’t so bad. I tried not to think about Nemo and apologized profusely as I took a filleting knife to my own striped bass and, after successfully filleting the little guy and cooking him in parchment (en papillote) with fresh vegetables, I felt very little remorse about gobbling him right up. He was delicious. Sorry, Nemo.

Filet de Truite Sauté à la Grenobloise
(Sautéed Trout with Lemon, Capers, and Brown Butter)

Adapted from The French Culinary Institute, Level 1, Session 11

This dish looks and sounds like it belongs with your best dress, but it’s actually easy enough to make on a weeknight (assuming you don’t have to fillet the trout yourself). In a pinch, this recipe would probably work with any white fish (halibut or chilean sea bass would be nice), but if you can get deboned trout fillets with the skin on, I highly recommend it. I didn’t think I liked eating fish skin until today – as it turns out, crispy trout skin is sort of great.

Note: this recipe asks you to suprême a lemon, which is a fancy way of saying “remove the skin/pith and cut out the individual lemon segments.” If you don’t want to bother doing this, please don’t (I won’t tell Chef S). Just squeeze a liberal amount of lemon juice into the browned butter and onto the cooked fish. Voilà! Still delicious.

Ingredients:

• 4 trout fillets, skin-on, small pin bones removed
• 3 slices of white bread, for croutons
• a few tablespoons butter
• 3 tablespoons canola oil
• 2 lemons
• 2-3 tablespoons capers
• a few tablespoons of chopped, fresh parsley
• salt and freshly ground pepper
• 1 cup flour, for dredging

Directions:

Cut the bread into little cubes, and sauté them in butter until they are golden brown. Drain on a paper towel and set aside.

Peel the lemons and cut out their individual segments (suprêmes). Chop up the lemon segments into small pieces and reserve as much lemon juice as possible.

Cut each fillet in half. Salt and pepper the fish fillets, and dredge them in flour, shaking off the excess.

Heat oil in a frying pan over medium heat and place the fish fillets in the pan, skin side down. The fish should sizzle when they hit the pan – if they don’t, increase the heat. When the skin side is nicely browned and the sides of the fish have turned opaque, flip the fillets and cook until the second side is done, about 1 minute.

Remove the fish from the pan and place them on a clean paper towel to drain any excess oil. Place 2 pieces of fish on each plate and sprinkle the croutons, lemon pieces, and parsley on top of the fish.

Wipe any excess oil from the frying pan (be careful, the pan will still be hot), and place 3-4 tablespoons of butter into the pan to brown. Over low to medium heat, cook the butter, swirling the pan, until it starts to turn brown (warning: this happens very fast, and browned butter doesn’t take long to turn into burnt butter, so be careful and take the pan off the heat as soon as you see any browning taking place). Add the capers to the browned butter and swirl (be careful here, too – the capers will sizzle and some butter may try to jump out of the pan). Immediately pour a bit of browned butter and capers over each plate of fish. Enjoy with a side of rice or veggies, and plenty of wine.

Serves 4.

Well, it’s official. I live in New York City. I live in New York City! Gah. After a week of all that comes with moving – battling with bubble wrap, struggling to carry boxes down the stairs and load them into a moving truck, gripping the wheel of said moving truck as it clumsily hums down I-95, bruising body parts while unloading piles of junk from the truck and, finally, unpacking piles of junk into some semblance of a place where someone might live – I’m not sure I can still write in cohesive sentences. I guess we’ll find out.

So, New York. New York City. The Big Apple. The Center of the Universe. The City That Never Sleeps. And all that jazz. Actually, the New York City I’ve come to know these past few days involves a six block radius from Whole Foods to Bed, Bath & Beyond (or Bed and Bath, as my mother likes to call it. It doesn’t matter, because at this point, I’ve been there so many times that I could navigate the place blind. Need a curtain rod? Downstairs by the throw pillows. Bounce sheets? Don’t bother, they don’t sell them. Is my life in the big city thrilling you yet? I haven’t even gotten to the part where my dad and I put together an entire floor-to-ceiling shelving unit. …For the record, it was awesome.)

I know you probably want to hear more about the shelving, but I’d like to jump straight to the halibut. You know… just for the halibut. (Heyoo! …Sorry.) I had a wonderful group of girls over on Sunday night to help break in my new kitchen, and I’m happy to say that Jane Bursky’s halibut with tomatoes and spinach was my very first home-cooked meal in The Big Apple. At least, it would have been if the supermarket wasn’t out of halibut. We used Chilean sea bass instead, and we ate it while drinking wine from water glasses (apparently wine glasses were the one thing I forgot to buy at “Bed and Bath”), sitting in mismatched chairs around the tiny table in my brand new studio apartment, and I must say it was the best first New York meal I could hope for.

Chilean Sea Bass with Tomatoes and Spinach

Slightly adapted from the lovely Jane Bursky’s Halibut recipe

Though Chilean sea bass isn’t as conducive to clever puns as halibut (just for the… chilean sea bass?), it works beautifully in this dish, surrounded by a thick broth of onions, tomatoes, spinach and white wine. And friends like KGB, KGro, JBursk and Coface. If my first homemade meal is any indication, I think I’m going to like New York.

Ingredients:

• 4 Chilean sea bass fillets
• 2 Tablespoons olive oil
  5 cloves garlic, crushed
• 2 bags baby spinach
• 15 plum tomatoes (or tomatoes on the vine, whichever look best in the market), chopped*
  5 tablespoons capers
• 1 cup white wine
• 1 large onion, chopped
• Salt
• Pepper
  
• Parmesan cheese, for sprinkling
  

*I know this sounds like a lot of tomatoes. It is. But trust me, in this dish, when it comes to tomatoes, the more the merrier.

Heat the olive oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add onions and cook until lightly browned, then add the minced garlic and cook about 30 seconds more until garlic begins to turn golden.

Spoon sauce into the bottom of a bowl or deep plate, and top with the fish. Serve immediately, letting guests sprinkle parmesan on top to taste.

Serves 4, with extra sauce (which would also be fabulous on pasta or chicken).

It seems April is upon us. Boston has been enjoying some delightful rainstorms as of late – we’ve had a few gentle minuets of small watery droplets, some playful showers that seem to pit-pat the pavement with a rhythmic, do-wop beat, and some full-on orchestral thunderstorms. As for me, I’ve taken to curling up with a book by the window to listen to the watery symphony, or else I stomp around in my green rainboots and black umbrella with the duck handle when I’m forced to go outside for some silly reason or another, like to buy milk or pick up drycleaning or, you know, go to work.

The rain has brought with it not just the opportunity for tall rubber boots, but also the delicious smell of spring, of thawed fingers and sweet grass and rich, wet earth. I even saw pair of red breasted Robins and a bunch of pretty purple blossoms pushing through the stubborn ground on my way home today, so I’m declaring Spring officially here. (I know it’s technically been here for a few weeks now – at least, the calendar says it has been – but to me it’s not officially Spring until it smells like Spring. Which it now does. Happy Spring.)

All that splashing and puddle jumping can make a girl hungry, so I invited Megan and Maral over for dinner on Tuesday. I made Ina Garten’s Spring Green Risotto – a fresh, fragrant jumble of chewy rice, crispy asparagus, tangy spring onions, smooth mascarpone cheese and zesty lemon. We ate it sprinkled with chives and a touch of nutty parmesan and, paired with a crisp glass (or two) of Chardonnay and the best vanilla cupcakes in Boston (thanks, Maral), it made for the most wonderful dinner. It was warm and comforting (we ate it while watching Jeopardy and watching the rain bounce off the window sills), yet it tasted light and fresh, flecked beautifully with the green bounties of Spring. And the best part is you don’t even have to wait for a rainstorm to make it. Just make sure it smells like Spring.

Spring Green Risotto
Adapted from Ina Garten

I know some people get nervous about risotto because they think they’ll have to spend a lot of time standing over the stove, stirring away lest the rice burn, but fear not: this recipe is pretty much foolproof. You won’t burn the rice. There’s a bit of stirring involved, yes, but a little stirring never hurt anybody. Have a glass of wine handy and some good music playing. I prefer Nanci Griffith for this particular risotto (I think she goes nicely with rainy days), but you can choose whomever you like. In fact, you don’t even have to use spring onions and asparagus in your risotto – use whatever springy jewels catch your fancy. Try artichokes, or yellow beets, or sweet green peas, or all of them at once! It’s Spring, people! Catch the fever! And wear your rainboots.

Notes:
1. When I say I used spring onions for this dish, I don’t mean scallions. I mean super-scallions. You can find big spring onions in the produce section at most supermarkets and farmer’s markets once the winter weather starts to thaw. They look like scallions on steroids, with large, plump white bulbs and long green stalks. Choose onions that have stiff, vibrant green stems and are free of blemishes.

2. Arborio rice is a short-grained, Italian rice. They look like little rice nuggets, and give off the perfect amount of starch for the risotto. Look for it in the rice aisle at the supermarket.

3. Mascarpone cheese is basically the Italian version of cream cheese. Look for it in any market with a sizeable cheese section. I got mine at Whole Foods.

Ingredients:

• 2 Tablespoons olive oil
• 1 Tablespoon butter
• 3 cups (about 3 large) spring onions, chopped (white and light green parts)
• 1 cup chopped fennel (about half a large bulb)
• 1.5 cups Arborio rice
• 2/3 cup dry white wine
• 4 to 6 cups chicken stock
• 1 pound thin asparagus
• 1/2 Tablespoon freshly grated lemon zest
• salt and freshly ground pepper
• 1.5 Tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1/3 cup mascarpone cheese
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese (plus extra for serving)
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh chives (plus extra for serving)

Directions:

Heat chicken stock in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer. In another medium pot, bring some water to boil (for blanching the asparagus).

Heat the olive oil and butter in a deep pot or dutch oven over medium heat. Add the spring onions and fennel and saute for 5 to 7 minutes, until soft and tender. Add the rice and stir for a minute or two to coat the grains with veggies, oil and butter. Add the white wine and simmer over low heat, stirring until most of the wine has been absorbed. Add the chicken stock, 2 ladles at a time, stirring intermittently and waiting for the stock to be absorbed before adding more. It will probably take about 25 to 30 minutes to add the chicken stock. Don’t feel obligated to add all of the stock – if the rice doesn’t seem to want to absorb any more liquid, stop adding stock.

Meanwhile, cut the asparagus in roughly 1.5 inch pieces (discarding the tough ends). Throw some salt into the pot of boiling water and drop in the asparagus, blanching them for about 4 to 5 minutes, until al dente. Drain the asparagus and cool immediately in ice water or under a cold running faucet.

When the risotto has been cooking for about 15 minutes, drain the asparagus and add it to the risotto with the lemon zest, 2 teaspoons salt, and 1 teaspoon pepper. Continue cooking and adding stock, stirring until the rice is tender but still firm.

Whisk the lemon juice and mascarpone together in a small bowl. When the risotto is done, turn off the heat and stir in the mascarpone mixture plus the Parmesan cheese and chives. Add more salt and pepper to taste, and serve hot with a sprinkle of chives and extra Parmesan cheese.

Serves about 4.

PS: Don’t forget dessert.

So, let’s talk about the elephant in the room. I know you’re all wondering why I failed to write a post to commemorate the very important holiday that took place last Saturday, and I’d just like to take this opportunity to apologize for skipping over such an important day in the calendar year. I’m sorry. Never again will I neglect to document the delicious events of Pi Day.

Pi Day! You know, March 14th! March 14th… 3/14. As in, the appropriate number day to celebrate that mathmatical phenomenon we call Pi: 3.1415blahblahnumbersnumbersuntilinfinity. Pi! It’s a number that goes on forever. Forever! It’s going on right now, actually. This very second. …Whoa.

My appreciation for Pi Day began in the sixth grade. My teachers held a contest on March 14th to see which student could memorize the most digits in Pi. A kid named Matthew won, after memorizing upwards of some 80-odd digits. I guess that’s pretty good, except when you think about the fact that it’s only 80 out of infinity. Not great percentage-wise. Of course, I didn’t get much past 3.1415, but that’s because I was distracted by pie. The dessert, not the number. I mean really, is there much of a contest? There were tables lined with pie to help celebrate Pi Day; there was blueberry, apple, peach, strawberry rhubarb… who cares about numbers when you’re staring at a table full of strawberry rhubarb pie?

There was no strawberry rhubarb this year, but there was a delicious Alsatian pizza pie. I suppose pizza is a different approach to Pi Day, but I think it works just as well. This way you don’t have to wait for dessert to start celebrating. Now then, the Alsatian pizza. Charlie and I ordered one on Saturday night at Picco, one of my favorite restaurants in Boston. It came out of the kitchen piled with gruyere, lardons (a fancy way of saying bacon) and creme fraiche, and it was speckled with woodsy rosemary spears and flecks of lemony thyme. Simply put, it was superb, and it inspired me to make an adapted version for last night’s dinner – a savory Alsatian tart.

Now I know that a tart is not a pie, pizza or otherwise, but I think of tarts and pies as being related. Sort of like cousins, where pie is the hearty, Midwestern, sweet yet rough-around-the-edges gal, and the tart is her sleek, elegant, slightly snooty cousin from France. I often want to hang out with pie and bask in her wholesome simplicity, but occasionally I’m in the mood to spend time with someone a bit more sophisticated. Or at least someone who incorporates more bacon.

Enter, Alsatian tart. With tangy cheese, melty, caramelized onions, and crispy bacon, this (not at all snooty) tart gives strawberry rhubarb pie a run for its money. Happy belated Pi Day!

Alsatian Tart with Caramelized Onions, Bacon, and Creme Fraiche

A word to the wise: you will want to eat more than one piece of this tart. Don’t. I mean, you could if you really wanted to, but you may regret it. Between the butteriness of the crust, the saltiness of the bacon, the sweetness of the onions, and the creaminess of both the gruyere and creme fraiche, this is one rich tart. I had two pieces for dinner last night, and my tummy was scolding me all the way to bed. I suggest pairing one slice of Alsatian tart with a crisp salad of baby greens or roasted asparagus for a delicious and well-balanced lunch or dinner. Your tummy will thank you later.

Note: You could easily make this vegetarian friendly by omitting the bacon (though you may want to add more salt to compensate for the lack of salty meat). If you don’t have a tart pan, you could use a regular pie dish instead.

Ingredients:

For the crust:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 12 Tablespoons (1.5 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cubed
• 1/2 cup ice water

For the filling:

• 6 strips bacon, chopped
• 3 medium yellow onions, thinly sliced
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 cup grated Gruyere cheese
• Salt
• Freshly ground pepper
• 1 Tablespoon fresh rosemary, roughly chopped
• 1/2 Tablespoon fresh thyme, roughly chopped
• A few spoonfuls of creme fraiche

Directions:

First, make the crust. Place the flour, salt, and sugar in the bowl of a food processor, and pulse for a few seconds to combine. Add the butter and pulse about 10 times, until the butter is in small bits the size of peas. With the motor running, pour the ice water down the feed tube and pulse just until the dough starts to come together. Dump the dough onto a floured board and knead quickly into a ball. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Roll out the dough on a floured board and press into the bottom and sides of a 9-inch tart pan. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator to chill while you make the filling.

To make the filling, first crisp up the bacon over medium high heat in a large saute pan. When the bacon bits are sufficiently crispy, remove them from the pan with a slotted spoon and drain them of grease on a plate covered with a paper towel. Cook the sliced onions in the remaining bacon grease over medium heat, stirring often, until the onions are very soft and lightly browned, just beginning to caramelize.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg and milk. Add the Gruyere, rosemary, thyme, and salt and pepper to taste. Stir in the browned onions and bacon bits with a fork, until well incorporated. Pour the egg mixture into the tart shell, and dollop spoonfuls of creme fraiche on top.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, until the filling is set and the tart is beginning to brown.

Makes one 9-inch tart.

Can I tell you what I find troubling about cooking with garlic? Yes? Okay here goes:

Nothing. Nothing at all, actually. In fact, I quite enjoy cooking with garlic. Crackling the plump cloves from their papery package, smashing the fat little boats under the side of a knife to remove their stubborn skin, inhaling that rich, spicy smell that intensifies under a flame, the heat bringing out the tender sweetness of the sharp and tangy bulb…

Oh, sorry. What were you going to say? Garlic breath? No big deal. Don’t kiss me. Or, if smooch you must, just have some yourself. Maybe you were going to bring up the way it’s almost impossible to get the garlicky smell out of your hands? Yeah, I’m not really bothered. I try not to go around smelling my hands that often. I figure garlic hands are a small price to pay for something like, oh I don’t know… Uncle Charlie’s Garlicky Fennel Seed Pasta with Kalamata Olives. For example.

Speaking of Uncle Charlie’s Garlicky Fennel Seed Pasta with Kalamata Olives, I happened to have some for dinner last night. I know! Small world.

There are many things I enjoy about Uncle Charlie, including his affinity for historical sites, good wine, maps, baseball, crossword puzzles, European countries and public transportation, and his aversion to “loud” music and most forms of modern day technology, including automobiles and that crazy newfangled device called the cell phone. I also enjoy when he drops by to visit for the weekend from Chicago, or wherever else his job in the airline industry has taken him – Paris, Hamburg, San Francisco, Berlin. He usually brings me things. Things like wine books, knit hats bearing logos of European soccer teams, old maps, macaron cookies from La Duree in Paris. One time he brought me a ginormous beer mug from Oktoberfest in Berlin. It’s huge and ceramic and has a picture of a pretty blond woman in lederhosen painted on the side. I use it as a vase to hold fresh tulips.

Anyway, this weekend happened to be one when Uncle Charlie came to visit. Besides spending time at the bookstore and drinking thick hot chocolate from a place called Burdick in Harvard Square,

Charlie and I made garlicky fennel seed pasta with kalamata olives. It’s his specialty. I’m going to tell you about it because it’s phenomenal, and I fully expect you to want to vigorously shake my hand as a thank you for sharing the recipe. But, please don’t. I’m still a bit under the weather, and hand-shaking encourages germ sharing. Plus my hands smell like garlic.

Uncle Charlie’s Garlicky Fennel Seed Pasta with Kalamata Olives

Charlie first made this dish for me roughly ten years ago, when I was in high school, visiting him in his studio apartment in Chicago for a few days over the summer. To be honest, I didn’t really appreciate it back then – that was before I wised up and started liking olives. I don’t know what I was thinking, really, because Uncle Charlie’s Garlicky Fennel Seed Pasta with Kalamata Olives is delicious. It’s an explosion of spicy and sweet and salty, which is amazing considering how few ingredients are involved. It’s simultaneously chewy and crunchy, and I just love how the pasta is polka dotted with shiny, round, deep purple olives. However, be warned: this dish is possibly addicting. Uncle Charlie claims to have once gotten addicted to it a few years ago, eating it at least three nights a week for weeks on end. Which really would be fine by me.

As I mentioned, there are very few ingredients involved in this dish, so make sure you buy the best quality olives and cheese you can find. You can find fennel seed in the spice section of most supermarkets. If you’re vehemently anti-pits, you could use pitted kalamata olives instead of regular whole ones, but I sometimes find the pitted versions a bit mushy and overly salty with brine.

Ingredients:

Olive oil
6-7 large cloves of garlic, chopped into thin round slivers
1.5 Tbsp fennel seeds, roughly crushed (with a mortar & pestle or in a food processor)
1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes (or more, if you want to go for extra spicy)
1-2 cups fresh kalamata olives, rinsed of excess brine
1 pound dry penne pasta
juice from 1/2 lemon
A good hunk of parmigiano-reggiano cheese

Directions:

Add the penne to a pot of salted boiling water, and let cook for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, slice up your garlic and crush your fennel seed. When the pasta is almost done cooking, coat the bottom of a large, deep skillet or dutch oven with olive oil, and place over medium high heat. When the oil is hot, add the garlic slices and fry gently until the slices start to turn light brown, about a minute or two. If the garlic is browning too quickly, lower the heat accordingly – do not burn the garlic. Add the red pepper flakes and crushed fennel seeds and let cook, stirring, for about a minute. Stir in the olives and splash of lemon juice.

Drain the pasta and add it to the garlic skillet. Stir the mixture so the pasta becomes coated in olive oil, pepper, garlic and fennel seeds. If the mixture seems dry, add a splash more olive oil.

Serve with heaps of parmigiano-reggiano cheese and a glass of fruity wine. (And don’t forget an empty bowl for the olive pits).

Serves about 4.