Erica De Mane

The Chairman, possibly not on Election Day.

I’ve always felt it best to vote on an empty stomach. It makes me feel feisty. But this year I fear the lines will be long, hours may pass, and my feistiness may turn to impatience and then rage. That’s not good. My solution will be the before-voting cocktail. I’ll still be hungry, but I’ll be subtly lulled, just enough to allow me to stand with my neighbors for a prolonged period of time. I recommend it to everyone.

Something strong but vibrant seems best, a drink that sings but will let one stay grounded. I recommend the Limoncello Martini, made with the Southern Italian lemon liqueur limoncello. It’s a wonderful drink. It’s not a brooder’s drink, like a traditional martini. It’s a drink for optimists (and we’re all voting for hope, aren’t we?).

The Limoncello Martini

Chill a martini glass. Have ready chilled bottles of vodka and limoncello (I keep mine in the freezer).

Cut a long strip of lemon zest, and hold it under a lit match for a few seconds so it can release some of its beautiful sharp oils. Drop the lemon zest into your martini glass. Fill the glass with 2 shots of vodka. Add a tablespoon of limoncello (or a little less to taste). Stir briefly. Drink very cold.

Go out and vote.

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The maid who became a saint in Pasolini’s Teorema.

Tomorrow is All Saints’ Day, or Ognissanti, as it’s called in Italy. It honors all the holy departed (it first took off around the time the church came to have more saints than there were days in the year to assign to them). It’s an important holiday in Italy, but it never has outshined the even older one a day before, now known as All Saints’ or All Hallows’ Eve, but with pagan origins from before the Christian era. It’s a good holiday—primarily, for me, because it serves to celebrate the fall harvest, and does so with food and wine.

Many years ago my husband and I were in Assisi on November 1. We wandered into one of those strange cave restaurants, the religious-themed tourist traps that Assisi specializes in. The place was damp but had a big wood-burning fire. Everyone was eating roasted chestnuts, a longtime symbol of the fall harvest, and drinking young red wine. The wine, called Novello, is Italy’s answer to France’s Beaujolais Noveau. The pairing, we found out, was an Ognissanti custom. The warmth from the fire, the ritualistic peeling of the chestnuts, their smoke tinged, sweet starchy insides mingling in our mouths with the sharp wine was overwhelming. My husband actually started to weep with joy.

You may not have a dark cave in which to enjoy that culinary experience, but it’s well worth trying anywhere you are.

To prepare the chestnuts all you need to do is: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Make a little cross on the flat side of each chestnut with a sharp knife. Lay them out on a large sheet pan, and roast them until they smell fragrant and the skin at the cross mark has started to pop out a bit, about 30 minutes. Pour them  into large basket, and cover them with a towel to keep them warm. Peel them while they’re still warm. Their insides should be soft and almost creamy. They get harder to peel as they cool, but that shouldn’t be a problem, since they’re so addictive you’ll want to eat them one after another.

As far as wine goes, I don’t often find Novello here (the Italians don’t have the marketing down the way the French do), and when I do, it’s often acidic and even a little sickening. I’d rather get a good bottle of Dolcetto from Piemonte, which is light and fruity and tastes more like the wine I drank in Assisi (at least according to my recollection). I recently sampled an excellent Dolcetto Langhe made by Eraldo Viberti. If you can get a bottle of that you’ll be in saints’ heaven (is there any other one?).

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Recipes:

Farfalle with Burst Tomatoes, Sweet Vermouth, Rosemary, and Goat Cheese
Broiled Chicken Breast with Walnuts, Garlic, and Parsley, Served on Bibb Lettuce

Can a boneless chicken breast be delicious?

Boneless, skinless chicken breast has long been one of my most hated foods. It’s almost always dry, boring, stiff, and lifeless. I completely ignored it in my grocery store until recently when, trying to fashion a make-ahead second course to serve after pasta, I decided to cook some up. Eating pasta as a first course is something I used to frown on, not only because I preferred to eat disgustingly huge loads of pasta, as a real American, but also because I didn’t want to have to get up after the meal began to prepare another course, as a cook. That was annoying. I really don’t know how Italians do it. Maybe they all have maids, or maybe the women are all still slaves, or maybe, just maybe, they make things ahead. What a concept.

I decided that chicken breasts might be an easy thing to prepare and serve after a small dish of pasta. But I knew I would have to do some major rethinking before I could love them. First off I de-dieted them a tad by—horrors—leaving the skin on. The truth is, a little chicken skin isn’t going to hurt anybody, and it makes all the difference, since the skin protects the delicate white meat by enveloping it in its fat of choice, its own. Not only that, but you can stuff deliciousness under the skin, adding garlic, leeks, herbs, pesto, or cheese, creating a personalized chicken breast with amazing taste. Cook it quick over high heat and you wind up with tender, juicy (moist, in fact, I kid you not) Italian-seasoned chicken encased in deliciously crisp skin. That’s about as good as a chicken breast gets. I chose a walnut pesto, which makes this easy dish taste really rich, as if you had put a lot of time into it. You hadn’t. You had only put a lot of flavor in it. And it all gets made ahead and served just warm, after you’ve eaten your pasta, so all you need to do is bring it to the table. I like first-course pastas that are simple and clean. Try this one flavored with tomato, goat cheese, and rosemary. It cooks in about ten minutes.

Farfalle with Burst Tomatoes, Sweet Vermouth, Rosemary, and Goat Cheese

(Serves 3 as a first course)

½ pound farfalle pasta
Salt
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 pint grape tomatoes
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 large sprig rosemary, the leaves chopped
Freshly ground black pepper
A generous splash of sweet red vermouth
2 tablespoons soft, unaged goat cheese, at room temperature
A small handful of flat-leaf parsley, the leaves lightly chopped
A small chunk of Grana Padano cheese for grating

Put up a pot of pasta cooking water and bring it to a boil. Add a generous amount of salt. Drop in the farfalle.

In a large skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium-high heat. When hot, add the grape tomatoes, and sauté, shaking them around for about a minute. Now add the garlic and rosemary, and season with salt and black pepper. Continue shaking the skillet until the tomatoes start to burst and give off juice, about another 4 minutes. Add the vermouth, and let it bubble for a few moments.

When the farfalle is al dente, drain it, saving about half a cup of the cooking water, and add the farfalle to the skillet, tossing quickly to coat it well. Transfer the pasta to a warmed serving bowl. Add the goat cheese, the parsley, a few more turns of black pepper, and a drizzle of fresh olive oil, and toss well, adding a few splashes of pasta cooking water if needed to loosen the sauce. Serve hot with a little Grana Padano grated over each bowl.

Broiled Chicken Breast with Walnuts, Garlic, and Parsley, Served on Bibb Lettuce

(Serves 3 as a second course)

Game plan: If you prepare the chicken about an hour ahead, you’ll deepen its flavor. Throw the chicken in the broiler when you start boiling the pasta, and they’ll both be ready at about them same time. Then your chicken can rest, getting tender and perfectly cooked while you enjoy your pasta.

2 large chicken breasts, boned but with the skin left on
½ cup fresh walnuts, lightly toasted, plus a handful for the salad
1 large garlic clove
2 anchovy fillets
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon softened unsalted butter
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
A handful of flat-leaf parsley leaves
2 small heads bibb lettuce, separated into individual leaves
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

In a small food processor, combine the walnuts, garlic, anchovies, 1 tablespoon of olive oil, the butter, a little salt, and a more generous amount of pepper. Pulse until you have a rough paste. Add the parsley, and pulse once or twice more, just until the parsley is roughly chopped. Lift the chicken skin up with your fingers, and work as much of the walnut mixture as you can under the skin of both breasts. Season the chicken breasts well on both sides with salt and black pepper, and place them on a baking sheet. Drizzle them with a little olive oil.

When you’re ready to cook the chicken, turn on your broiler and place the chicken about 6 inches from the heat source (if it’s too close, the skin may burn before the chicken is cooked through). Broil about 8 to 12 minutes, checking after 8 minutes. The skin should be well browned, and the meat should feel firm but with a little give at the center, indicating that there is still a touch of pink inside. If you’re unsure, cut into one and take a peek. Take the chicken from the oven, and let it sit. It will continue cooking gently.

Now enjoy your pasta.

When you’re ready to serve the chicken, lay out a large serving platter, and scatter on the bibb lettuce and the reserved walnuts (do this ahead if you like). Whisk the lemon juice together with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and season it with salt and black pepper. Use about three quarters of it to dress the lettuce. Slice the chicken widthwise on an angle in thick slices, and arrange them over the salad. Drizzle the remaining vinaigrette over the chicken. Serve right away.

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Orange cauliflowers at the Union Square Greenmarket.

Recipe: Orecchiette with Orange Cauliflower, Raisins, Pine Nuts, and Saffron

I stand in my kitchen holding an orange cauliflower, and I think, this has to be one of the most beautiful vegetables I’ve seen in a long time. It looks like a cauliflower drenched in creamy cheddar cheese. In fact it is sometimes called cheddar cauliflower. I was told by the upstate farmer I purchased it from that the orange color remains after cooking. I was skeptical, since I’ve cooked up bright green and deep purple cauliflowers, and they both faded to pale beige-gray when blanched.

I knew this cauliflower was destined for a pasta sauce. I love cauliflower with pasta, especially when I prepare it in Sicilian fashion, with noble additions such as pine nuts, almonds or pistachios, raisins, saffron, bay leaf, and sometimes wild fennel or anchovies, sometimes capers. I thought about all these opulent Sicilian possibilities and picked quite a few for this dish. And, more important, I can report that the orange color remained after cooking, even becoming more orange. The taste is about the same as that of the more standard white varieties, but when the little orange florets are tossed with pasta, they don’t blend into one big bowl of off-white the way traditional cauliflower does. The orange prettily pops out at you. It’s a happy look. We get a little free beauty in our bowl, which is fine with me. I’ll take beauty wherever I can get it.

Cauliflower with pasta is a very delicious and very healthy dish, as anyone who reads this blog knows, but too much pasta is still too much pasta. I’m really trying to get into the habit of eating pasta as a first course, in true Italian fashion. The Italians have got the thing worked out, and they know that pasta won’t make you fat if you do as they say: Make every pasta dish beautiful and delicious, and savor every bite. Then take it away and move on to something lean and something green. I’ve come up with a few excellent dishes, mostly meat or fish preparations, that I put together while I’m preparing a pasta and serve just warm or at room temperature, along with a green salad. A small bowl of perfect pasta, a small protein course, and a gorgeous green salad—that’s my idea of a great meal, and one that won’t have you running back and forth into the kitchen all night when you should be relaxing and enjoying your dinner with friends or family. I’ll be posting recipes for some of these post-pasta dishes soon. In the meantime, enjoy your pasta.

Orecchiette with Orange Cauliflower, Raisins, Pine Nuts, and Saffron

(Serves 6 as a first course)

1 small orange cauliflower or ½ a larger one (or use a white, green, or purple one), cut into small florets
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 large Vidalia onion, thinly sliced
4 anchovy fillets, chopped
1 fresh bay leaf
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 pound orecchiette
½ cup pine nuts, lightly toasted
½ cup black raisins, soaked in ¼ cup dry white wine
A generous pinch of saffron threads, dried, ground to a powder, and soaked in a few tablespoons of warm water
6 large thyme sprigs, the leaves chopped
A handful of Italian parsley leaves, lightly chopped
A chunk of Moliterno or another aged pecorino cheese for grating

Set up a big pot of pasta cooking water, and bring it to a boil. Season generously with salt, and drop in the cauliflower. Blanch for about 3 minutes. Scoop the cauliflower from the pot into a colander with a large strainer spoon. Run cold water over it to stop the cooking and to set its beautiful orange color. Let it drain.

Choose a large skillet, and get it hot over medium flame. Add two tablespoons of olive oil and the onion, the anchovy, and the bay leaf.

Bring the water back to a boil, and drop in the orecchiette.

Sauté the onion until it’s soft and fragrant, about 5 or 6 minutes. Add the cauliflower, and season with salt and black pepper. Sauté until the cauliflower is just tender, about 3 or 4 minutes longer. Add the raisins and wine, the pine nuts, the saffron water, and the thyme, and let everything simmer for a minute or so.

When the orecchiette is al dente, drain well, saving about a cup of the pasta cooking water. Pour the pasta into a large, warmed serving bowl. Add the parsley, a few more turns of black pepper, and a generous drizzle of fresh olive oil, and give it a toss. Pour on the cauliflower sauce, and toss again, adding a little of the pasta cooking water if needed to loosen the sauce. Serve hot.

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Recipe: Peperonata with Almonds, Thyme, and Pimentón, Served on Ricotta Bruschetta

Peperonata, the roasted sweet pepper dish so popular throughout Southern Italy, is one of my favorite things to eat, and early fall is the best time to make it, when the sweet peppers are warm and ripe and piled high at the Greenmarket. So of course here I am making it now, as every year at this time. Like most dishes I cook a lot, it has evolved through the years to reflect my ever-changing culinary outlook.

When I first started making peperonata I used a lot of sharp and salty flavors, such as capers, anchovies, and olives. That was how I’d often had it served to me in Southern Italy, and it was how my family usually cooked up a batch. Over the years I’ve found I prefer mellower and richer ingredients in it. The peppers themselves provide enough sharpness. In my newest incarnation, I include toasted almonds, fresh thyme, and just a hint of the smoked Spanish chili called pimentón, which adds sweetness and smoke but not much heat. Pimentón comes in both sweet and hot versions. Use the sweet one for this.

Peperonata makes a lovely pasta sauce—I sometimes add it to a simple tomato sauce and toss it with spaghetti—but my favorite way to eat it is on grilled bread, with a  smear of ricotta serving as a gentle, luscious base, a flavor juxtaposition that for me encapsulates Southern Italy’s culinary style at its most brilliant.

Try these bruschetta with a glass of Cerasuolo di Vittoria, a bright red, pleasantly acidic wine made from a mix of Sicily’s frappato and Nero d’Avola grapes. Valle dell’Acate is a very good producer to look for.

Peperonata with Almonds, Thyme, and Pimentón, Served on Ricotta Bruschetta

(Serves 6 as an appetizer)

5 bell peppers (a mix of red, orange, and yellow will look pretty, but all red will give you the deepest flavor)
Extra-virgin olive oil
A handful of sliced almonds
1 garlic clove, thinly sliced
Salt
A pinch of sugar
A larger pinch of Spanish pimentón de la Vera, preferably the sweet variety
A few drops of Spanish sherry vinegar
5 large sprigs of thyme, the leaves chopped

Plus:

1 1/2 cups ricotta (for link to my homemade ricotta recipe, clicca qui)
12 thin bread slices from a long Italian loaf

Preheat the broiler. Place the peppers on a sheet pan, and broil them about 4 inches from the heat source, turning them as they blacken until they’re well charred all around. Let the peppers cool for a few minutes, and then peel and seed them and cut them into slices.

In a medium skillet, heat a tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat. When hot, add the pepper slices, almonds, garlic, sugar, and pimentón, and season with salt. Sauté until everything is fragrant and the almonds are lightly golden, about 4 minutes. Turn off the heat. Add a few drops of the vinegar, the thyme, and a drizzle of fresh olive oil, stirring it all to blend well. Transfer the peperonata to a small bowl. Serve it warm or at room temperature. It’ll keep about 3 days refrigerated, but bring it back to room temperature before serving.

To make the bruschetta:

Toast or grill the bread slices on both sides. Spoon on a heaping spoonful of the ricotta, and top with a spoonful of the peperonata. Serve right away.

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. . . As you can see in this photograph.

Recipe: Penne with Butternut Squash, Speck, and Leeks

Every year around this time, when the New York weather changes seemingly overnight, my sister Liti starts to crave pasta with butternut squash or pumpkin, and I always oblige her by making it for her, doing a slightly different version each time. In my book The Flavors of Southern Italy I have a recipe for pasta with pumpkin, tomatoes, and basil. I remember being surprised to discover that tomato blended so well with pumpkin as I stretched my imagination to come up with interesting things to do with the big squash. What really made them fit together was the addition of a mild pecorino, which miraculously brought all the sharp flavors into harmony. Usually I don’t add tomato but just let the squash stand more or less alone—more or less except for the pancetta or guanciale or Italian sausage I can never resist slipping in. Pork fat and fall squash make a heavenly combination, though usually not a lean dish by any stretch of the imagination.

I’ve been trying to cut down on my intake of saturated fat, sadly, especially pork fat, which is something I can eat, to my horror, in fairly large quantities. But sometimes pork fat seems to be just the thing, and no substitute is truly appropriate. Speck is a perfect product to reach for when you need some pork but just can’t bring yourself to surrender again to that fatty salami or fresh sausage quite yet. Speck is a cured and smoked boneless prosciutto from the Alto Adige region of Italy. It has about the same ratio of lean to fat as regular prosciutto, but its delicate smoky taste, with an underlying hint of juniper and bay leaf, makes it a great element in a hearty fall pasta.

In Southern Italy pumpkin pasta often includes garlic. I don’t love the combination, preferring shallot or the leeks I use in my most recent incarnation of the dish. I also include Marsala wine and sage, two flavors that always crop up in my culinary head when the weather turns cold.

Try to serve this as a first course. It’s rich and filling, so a small amount is really perfect. Afterward, a few slices of cold roast chicken sliced and serves over a green salad, maybe with a caper vinaigrette, would be great, in which case you wouldn’t need to run back to the kitchen to finish cooking anything (a big problem when you serve pasta as a first course, but not an insurmountable one).

Penne with Butternut Squash, Speck, and Leeks

(Serves 6 as a first course)

Extra-virgin olive oil
2 medium leeks, well cleaned and cut into thin slices, using only the white and tenderest green parts
1 small butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into small dice
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 whole allspice, ground
2 juniper berries, ground
1 pound penne
½ cup dry Marsala
½ cup chicken broth
6 or 7 slices speck, cut into thin strips, with any excess fat removed
10 sage leaves, cut into thin strips
A chunk of Montasio cheese for grating

Set up a large pot of pasta cooking water over high heat.

In a large skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Add the leeks and the butternut squash at the same time. Season with salt, black pepper, and the ground allspice and juniper berries, and sauté until the vegetables are well coated with flavor and are just starting to soften, about 4 minutes.

When the water comes to a boil, add a generous amount of salt, and drop in the penne.

Add the Marsala to the skillet, and let it boil out for a few minutes. Add the chicken broth, cover the skillet, and continue cooking until the squash pieces are just tender when poked with a knife, about another 5 minutes (you want them soft but still holding their shape). Turn off the heat, and uncover the skillet. You should still have a little liquid in the skillet. Add the speck and the sage, a generous drizzle of fresh olive oil, and a few more grindings of black pepper.

When the penne is al dente, drain it into a serving bowl, saving about ½ cup of the pasta cooking liquid. Pour the squash sauce onto it, and toss gently, adding a little of the cooking water if it seems dry. Serve right away with a little Montasio grated over the top of each portion.

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Pink beets, roasted and peeled, smooth and shiny.

Recipes:

Roasted Beet Salad with Pistachios and Basil Vinaigrette
Roasted Beets with Black Olives, Orange, and Anchovy

Just about every recipe for beets I’ve run across in the last ten years has paired them with goat cheese. There’s nothing wrong with that—in fact it’s a fine combination—but I’m sick of the taste, and the combination of textures isn’t the greatest. I’ve especially had it with the stacked beet and goat cheese “lasagna” appetizer thing that so many restaurants have kept on their menus for years. It’s weird when such a chef creation takes off and spreads around the food world, running amok.

I do love beets, with their sweet but curiously bitter undertone, which, for me, prevents them from ever being boring, and of course they’re outrageously beautiful in shades of pink, purple, yellow, orange, red and white stripes, and pink and white stripes. I saw all these colors at the Union Square market a few days ago. I closed my eyes and grabbed a bunch, and they turned out, after roasting and peeling, to be that amazing shade of pinkish reddish orange that Matisse often used for wallpaper.

What should you do with beets? Roast them, for starters. Their sugars concentrate and fill your kitchen with a strange, unique sweetness, like no other sweetness, since it’s tinged with a root-vegetable aroma (maybe a little like a roasted sweet potato, but deeper and more complex). Roasting contains juices, so the colors and flavors of your beets aren’t lost to a big pot of hot water. In markets in Italy you can buy preroasted beets. Isn’t that something? Nobody would think of doing that here. If you want to try the things, you’ll have to cook them yourself.

What should you do with roasted beets? Bathe them in Italian flavors is my answer. Anchovies, just a touch of them, are an amazing match, believe it or not. I borrowed an odd Sicilian combination of anchovies and orange to flavor one of these two beet salads, It’s something I first encountered years ago in an artichoke dish I ate in Palermo. For the other salad I relied on basil, which is pretty much the perfect beet herb, much better than the more typical and more strident choice dill. Pancetta, capers, and olives, all salty, are good bets too. (I find you don’t often go wrong pairing salty and sweet. Think of salted caramels.) You also can add nuts of all types with confidence. Pine nuts, walnuts, almonds, or the pistachios I’ve chosen for one of these recipes add rich flavor and protein, and their textures seem right against the slipperiness of the beets. So as I rummaged through my head for appropriate Italian flavors to add to my two beet salads, I found myself using quite a few.

Here are beets, beautiful and delicious, for your viewing and eating pleasure.

(Both salads serve 4 as a first course or light lunch)

Roasted Beet Salad with Pistachios and Basil Vinaigrette

4 medium beets
Salt
2 small bunches watercress, well stemmed
A handful of unsalted, shelled pistachios
1 shallot, thinly sliced
A small chunk of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese

For the vinaigrette:

1 cup basil leaves
1 small garlic clove, roughly chopped
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon lemon juice (or a little more to taste)
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Place the beets on a big sheet of aluminum foil. Sprinkle them with a little water, and close up the foil tightly around them. Place the package on a sheet pan, and roast for about 40 to 45 minutes, or until the beets are tender and fragrant. You’ll smell their sweetness, an indication that they’re getting there, but if you’re unsure, poke one with a thin knife. It should pierce through with little effort. When they’re done, run the beets briefly under cool water, just to cool them. Peel them and cut them into small cubes (they’ll look like big rubies (don’t you wish)), and place them in a bowl, seasoning them with a little salt.

Blanch the basil leaves in a small pot of boiling water for one minute. Drain the basil, and run it under cold water to stop the cooking and to bring up its green color. Squeeze out all the water. Place the basil in the bowl of a food processor. Add the garlic, olive oil, and lemon juice. Season with salt and black pepper, and pulse several times, until the mixture is smooth.

Place the watercress in a salad bowl. Add the beets, pistachios, and shallot, and pour on the vinaigrette (you may have a little extra, so just eyeball it). Toss gently. Divide the salad out onto four plates, and shave a few sheets of Parmigiano Reggiano onto each one. Serve right away.

Roasted Beets with Black Olives, Orange, and Anchovy

4 medium beets
1 medium head frisée lettuce, torn into pieces
1/2 a small red onion, very thinly sliced
A handful of black Nicoise olives
A handful of flat-leaf parsley leaves

For the vinaigrette:

1 anchovy, minced
The grated zest from 1 small orange
1 garlic clove, smashed with the side of a knife
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon Spanish sherry vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Place the beets on a big sheet of aluminum foil. Sprinkle them with a little water, and close up the foil tightly around them. Place the package on a sheet pan, and roast for about 40 to 45 minutes, or until the they are tender and fragrant. You’ll smell their sweetness, an indication that they’re getting there, but if you’re unsure poke one with a thin knife. It should pierce through with little effort. When they’re done, run the beets briefly under cool water, just to cool them. Peel them, and cut them into not-too-thin rounds, thick enough that they don’t break apart too easily.

Whisk all the ingredients for the vinaigrette together in a small bowl.

Place the frisée in a salad bowl, and drizzle it with a little olive oil and season it with a bit of salt. Toss it, and divide it out onto four salad plates.

Add the beets to the salad bowl. Add the olives, red onion, and parsley. Pour on the vinaigrette, and toss gently. Divide the beets out onto the frisée. Serve right away.

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Sophia and the stuff she’s made of (although what is that lumpy mess hanging in the middle?).

I had an extremely enlightening conversation with a friend  while we were preparing dinner together a few nights ago. The subject was pasta, and what he matter-of-factly said shocked me—me the pasta queen, who really thought I knew pasta and the habits of pasta eaters inside and out. He said that when he makes pasta for himself and his boyfriend, one pound easily and almost always serves two. Okay, these are two fairly big guys, but that is a huge amount of pasta, and with all the sauce and bread to sop it up, that is a tremendous amount of calories. I’ve never heard of eating so much pasta. Then I started asking around, and it seems other people do this too, and not just men. Pasta happens to be one of the good carbohydrates, one that digests relatively slowly, not like potatoes or rice, but if you eat enough of any good carb it will turn into a bad carb from the act of gluttony alone. I don’t mean to embarrass anyone, and coming from someone who can down an entire bottle of Chianti in about 15 minutes, I’m not one to judge.

I guess what I want to say here is more of a reminder than a reprimand. One pound of pasta traditionally serves six as a first course, in true Italian style. If you want to serve pasta as a main course, a pound should  serve four, or sometimes  five if you have a protein-rich sauce, such as a ragù. I understand Sophia supposedly said that everything you see she can attribute to pasta, but she couldn’t possibly be eating that much. I mean, she does still have a waistline.

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The finished product and the raw ingredients.

Recipe: Tomato Tart with Pecorino and Rosemary

My friend Barbara, of Patron Saints and Holy Cards fame, has a house with a vegetable garden in Delaware County, New York. She grows gigantic, lumpy deep red tomatoes, and also really delicious grape and cherry tomatoes, all from Italian seeds she gets from www.growitalian.com. In mid-September she has a ton of tomatoes. They are a lovely gift. Just when you start feeling sad about summer’s end, out pop all these gorgeous summer tomatoes. She dropped a big bag of them off at my apartment a few days ago. They made me extremely happy. The big ones are varieties called Red Pear and San Marzano Redorta. I’m not sure what the cherries are, but I believe they’re Puglian. Growitalian.com has a slew of Italian tomato varieties and has seeds for every imaginable Italian vegetable and herb. If you’re a garderner and love Italian food, that website is for you.

When I get a bunch of warm-from-the-garden cherry tomatoes, I usually do one of two things. Either I make a burst-cherry tomato sauce for pasta or I make a tomato tart. This time I had enough tomatoes to make both. I love the completeness and tidiness of a savory tart, and it’s always a special offering for friends, since it looks like you put some thought into it—which you did. Cherry tomato tarts can look especially beautiful, with the little globes arranged in rows or circles, all red and glistening. I published a cherry tomato tart recipe in my book The Flavors of Southern Italy; it is really good but really rich, written before my health and diet kick kicked in. It has a sweet buttery crust, cream, ricotta, and lots of cheese. Sounds good, right? I’m trying to forget about it now.

For my new healthier but I hope no less alluring version, I use a classic Italian olive oil crust, which really is perfect for tomatoes, better than butter, I’m now convinced. I marinate the tomatoes briefly in garlic, mustard, and rosemary to enrich their flavor, and I lighten up considerably on the cheese and cream. The flavor is much more tomatoey than my original recipe, deeper, less custardy. I seriously like this one much better. You can serve it as an appetizer, with a glass of Dolcetto. Or serve it as a lunch or light dinner, alongside an arugula salad.

If you’d like to make a pasta with burst tomato sauce, all you need to do is get a large sauté pan really hot over high heat, add a generous amount of olive oil and the cherry tomatoes (about 2 ½-3 pints for a pound of pasta), and sear them, shaking the pan around a fair amount, until they just start to burst and brown slightly, about 5 minutes or so. Once they’ve begun to burst and let off some juice, you can add garlic, salt, hot chilies, whatever you like (a few chopped anchovies are good). Add a hit of white wine to loosen up all the caramelized tomato on the bottom of the pan, and finish with a handful of fresh herbs and a drizzle of fresh olive oil. Toss with pasta. That’s it.

For the tart, you’ll want to have on hand a nine-inch tart pan with a removable bottom, ideally a pan with smooth, not fluted, sides. Or you can use a tart ring.

Tomato Tart with Pecorino and Rosemary

(Serves 4 as a lunch or light dinner, or 8 as an appetizer)

For the crust:

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 sprigs rosemary, the leaves well chopped
Salt
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
¼ cup water
1 large egg

For the filling:

About 20-25 cherry tomatoes, cut in half
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 large garlic clove, peeled and smashed with the side of a knife
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 sprigs rosemary, the leaves well chopped
1 teaspoon sugar
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
½ cup grated young Pecorino Toscano cheese
¼ cup heavy cream
1 large egg

In a large bowl, mix the flour with the rosemary and a little salt. In a small bowl, stir the egg, olive oil, and water together, and pour the mixture over the flour. Stir to blend everything, and then dump the resulting dough out onto a work surface. Knead it very briefly, just until it holds together in a more or less smooth ball. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap, and let it rest, unrefrigerated, for about an hour.

Place the tomatoes in a bowl. Add the mustard, olive oil, garlic, rosemary, and sugar. Season with salt and black pepper, and toss well. Let the tomatoes sit at room temperature, tossing them around a few times, while the dough is resting.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Coat your tart pan with a little olive oil. Roll out the dough, and drape it into the tart pan, cutting off any overhang. Sprinkle half the cheese into the tart shell. Line the tart with the tomatoes, in slightly overlapping circles. Save the juice left from the tomato marinade. Sprinkle the tomatoes with a little extra salt and black pepper.

Whisk together the remaining cheese, cream, egg, and about a tablespoon of the tomato marinade liquid. Season with a little salt and black pepper, and pour evenly over the tomatoes. Bake until browned and set, about 35 to 40 minutes.

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Recipe: Fig and Celery Salad with Walnut Pesto Crostini

Walnut pesto is a lovely thing, but it’s quite a load in the calorie department when used for its intended purpose, being tossed with pasta. I’ve found a new way to enjoy the rich paste in small doses where it can still make a big impact: on warm crostini (which work really well with whole-grain bread, if you’re so inclined).

Walnuts and fresh figs are an exquisite combination, and now is the time for figs. Not local New York figs; such things don’t exist unless you’re an old Italian-American living in Bay Ridge and stubbornly trying to keep a fig tree alive through the winter by wrapping it in swaddling clothes. The figs in the markets now are flown in from California and arrive in pretty good shape. Corner fruit vendors are now selling pints of black-skinned figs. I actually prefer green-skinned ones, but I take what I can get, and if you make sure they’re perfectly ripe, the black-skinned kind can be delicious, especially tossed in a salad. My only gripe with them is that sometimes their skins are thick and taste bitter. But if they’re really ripe, that isn’t usually a problem.

A simple vinaigrette really compliments the funky sweetness of figs, especially one well seasoned with salt and fresh black pepper. I tossed a few ripe figs with Boston lettuce (which is very underrated, in my opinion) and a handful of thin-sliced celery and a few celery leaves (also underrated, and a great flavor boost when added to a soffrito, for instance). Then I made my walnut pesto crostini and plopped them around the salad. I really liked the way the flavors came together. There is nothing really sweet about the salad, even though it contains fruit. Somehow the celery, shallots, and walnuts take it forcefully in the direction of savory. It is practically an entire meal (though I did make a roast chicken with garlic and fennel to go with it).

Buying walnuts can be a problem. I don’t know about you, but I often find that the shelled walnuts I get at most food shops are stale and bitter. This is really a drag, especially since they come in those little sealed-up plastic containers, so you can’t exactly taste-test them. I think you do better buying them in Italy or France, where they’re considered a luxury item, not just some dusty thing you throw into a trail mix. I’ve found ones that are usually very good at Buonitalia at the Chelsea Market (whose website is buonitalia.com). They are imported, shelled Italian walnuts, and they’re vacuum-packed. Buonitalia sells all its nuts this way, and it keeps them very fresh.

If you can get your hands on some very fresh walnuts and a few figs, this is a good early fall salad to throw together.

Fig and Celery Salad with Walnut Pesto Crostini

(Serves 4)

For the pesto:

1 cup very fresh shelled walnuts
1 garlic clove, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons grated Grana Padano cheese
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
A handful of flat-leaf parsley, the leaves chopped
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 baguette, whole-grain if you like, cut into 2 thin slices per serving

For the salad:

1 large head Boston lettuce
A handful of watercress
2 tender inner celery stalks, thinly sliced, plus leaves from about four stalks
1 small shallot, very thinly sliced
12 ripe, black skinned figs, cut in half lengthwise
Freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon walnut oil
1/2 tablespoon red wine vinegar
Salt

To make the pesto, place the walnuts and garlic in the bowl of a food processor, and pulse until you have a rough chop. Add the Grana Padano, olive oil, parsley, a little salt, and a few grindings of black pepper. Pulse a few more times, just until you have a fairly rough but amalgamated texture. Scrape the pesto into a little bowl.

Put the Boston lettuce and watercress in a salad bowl. Add the celery and leaves, shallot, and figs. Season the salad with a generous amount of fresh black pepper. In a small bowl, whisk together the olive and walnut oils and the vinegar. Season with a little salt.

Toast the baguette slices on both sides, and spread them lightly with the pesto.

Toss the salad with the dressing, and serve it onto four salad plates. Place two crostini on each plate. Serve right away.

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