If you don’t make pasta for dinner at least a couple of times a week, you’re an idiot. Or you don’t have a day job.

It’s the only food that can take so many variations, so many sauces, pairs so brilliantly with nearly every food (meat or veg, and that includes potatoes), and can be prepared so quickly.

Nearly every cuisine has an equivalent of a starch with some delicious topping, but pasta is simply my favorite. And since I’m taking Italian classes on Mondays now, and I arrive home late and starving to death, it’s the ideal Monday dinner: fast, easy, Italian, delicious.

You’ve read that you can make a pasta sauce in the time it takes to boil the water. Well, that’s absolutely accurate. Here’s a good one to try when you need something quick and punchy. Vary at will.

Linguine with Sun-Dried Tomatoes

large handful of sun-dried tomatoes (dried, not the ones packed in oil)
2 large cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
a shake or two of chile flakes, or a crushed dried chile
3 medium slicer tomatoes (or a few more plum tomatoes)
olive oil (quarter cup or so)
handful of parsley, chopped
1 lb dried linguine
freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (fresh only)

Set a large pot of water to boil. Now we steal an idea from the brilliant Mark Bittman: Mince half of your sun-dried tomatoes, and cut the others in half so they’re more or less bite-sized but not too hard to fish out of some boiling water.

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat, then toss in your minced tomatoes, garlic, and chile. Turn the heat to low so the garlic starts to soften but won’t burn. While that’s cooking, dice your fresh tomatoes. When the garlic has turned golden, add the fresh tomatoes to the pan — juice, seeds, and all — and a pinch or two of salt.

When your water comes to a boil, drop in the large pieces of tomato. Let the tomato pieces float around for a couple of minutes, then fish them out and add them to the skillet (that’s the other part of the Bittman technique).

When the water comes back to a boil, salt it heavily, then cook your linguine. When it’s nearly done, save some of the cooking water (in case your fresh tomatoes were dry), then drain the pasta and add it to the skillet, tossing with your now insanely delicious-smelling sauce and a little of the cooking water, if needed, plus the parsley and some Parmigiano-Reggiano.

(I used to forego parsley in many recipes, since I didn’t always have it on hand, but the parsley is really a beautiful touch here, adding both freshness and some lovely contrasting color. Try not to skip it.)

Serves 2–4, depending on how hungry you are.

PS: I would have included a picture, but I decimated the dish almost immediately.

radicchio

My deep love for radicchio may have something to do with its glorious color or some feeling that I’m doing my body good, but I chalk it up more to my undying love for all things Italy. Some of the farms around here grow the very Italian radicchio di Treviso, which I buy unfailingly at the market whenever it appears, generally with a quarter pound of pancetta in the other hand.

If you’ve never tried it, let me be the first to tell you that radicchio wrapped in a salty cured meat is one of the best goddam things you’ll ever put in your mouth.

So here’s tonight’s absolutely ravishing, surprisingly quick, and thankfully not-too-bad-for-you dinner (you’ll be glad when you’re licking your plate clean). You’ll need to run to the store for this one, but with only a few ingredients, the trip won’t take long.

What you’ll need for you and a friend:

about 1 cup of polenta
a pat of butter
freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
one or two heads of radicchio
3–6 oz. very thinly sliced prosciutto or pancetta
2/3 c. balsamic vinegar
extra virgin olive oil

Part 1: Make some polenta. I am not fond of the instant variety, and handmade is so, so easy: Just boil some water and salt it. Add the polenta (rough cornmeal) in a slow stream, whisking constantly, then simmer over medium heat, stirring often with a straight-bottomed spoon, for 20 minutes or so. You want it soft, so go with a ratio of 4–5 parts water to 1 part polenta. Add a little milk if you like, and always, always finish with a pat of butter and a good handful or two of Parmigiano-Reggiano. You’ll have more than enough for two.

Part 2: Quarter your radicchio. I prefer the tubular Treviso, but if you can only find round Chiogga radicchio, that will do just fine. Wrap each quarter tightly in a piece of prosciutto (if the pieces are narrow, use two). Heat a little olive oil in a pan and place the wrapped radicchio in the pan, seam-side down. Turn the radicchio often until the prosciutto crisps up. Remove the quarters from the pan and give them a nice sprinkling of pepper.

Now add another tablespoon of oil and the balsamic to the pan and boil it until it has reduced and thickened up a little bit. This is your sauce — wonderful on the food, but don’t hold your face over the pan, or I guarantee you’ll start sneezing.

Time to eat: Spoon some polenta onto your plate, then a couple of quarters of radicchio. Spoon some sauce over both…then eat quickly before your friend steals it off your plate.

These last few weeks have been so busy, I haven’t even made time to call my mother, and my eyes are now so sunken I look like I’m 60. My boyfriend Zinedine Zidane got himself thrown out of the World Cup finals, but I couldn’t be upset when my want-to-be-adopted homeland of Italy took the trophy home, and they lit Rome on fire. (I love Roma, but it looks even better with firecrackers.)

In any case, the cooking bonanza began. In unintended deference to the French soccer captain, or perhaps in honor of Ty’s favorite part of Barcelona, the Crepe Man, I’ve been on a serious crepe kick.

Ty’s favorite:
The crepe man

July 4th, Independence Day, I was manning the fort at home, watching the Italy-Germany game on the Spanish channel, with the 30-second delayed ESPN feed going on the computer, and developed a burning urge for blintzes. I had already made some ricotta, which would last only another day or two, so why not? I lifted a recipe for whole-wheat crepes from the Williams-Sonoma site, and off we went. Blintzes with sweetened ricotta, lightly hit with some cinnamon, then pan-fried in butter. Yum. And so good for me, too.

A batch of crepes produces about 10, which means leftovers! In a self-proclaimed masterwork of refrigerator scavenging, I put together Wednesday dinner with bits and pieces from the fridge: A bit more ricotta made pink with some bolognese I’d frozen a few weeks earlier, mixed with some spinach, then wrapped in crepes and baked like cannelloni — or, more accurately, crespelles — honoring my newly championed Italian boys.

My crepe obsession (which likely started when I was six, and Mom and Dad first took us to The Magic Pan) went a little nutty when Traci and I decided to throw a birthday brunch for Kevin at my house. I don’t give parties much, and when I do, I go a little overboard. OK, fine, a lot overboard, but it’s always fun to cook like a maniac for a week, and plans menus, and arrange invites, and crepes! It was a brunch, after all.

When I see our pal Chris’s photos, I’ll recap the menu. (The man is a photo genius, and he snapped shots of the food! I’m hoping for lessons.) But the crepes were key:

Blintzes, of course. I made a rather dry batch of ricotta, so I mixed that with about half as much cottage cheese plus powdered sugar, a dash of cinnamon, and egg. (I hate cottage cheese, by the way, but if used creatively and very well seasoned, it actually makes a brilliant cream sauce, and lightens some heavy cheese concoctions beautifully.) The honey-wheat crepes came straight from my Tyler Florence book, Real Food, as did the fig-orange compote I served alongside. A hit.

The pièce de résistance, however, was Tyler’s smoked salmon torte. I blew a rather large wad on about a pound of smoked salmon, which was by far the toughest part of this misleadingly complicated-looking dish.

To construct: Spread a buckwheat crepe (a fantastic recipe, by the way) with a thin layer of softened cream cheese, then a layer of salmon. Top with another crepe and some cream cheese and sprinkle with chopped red onion, capers, dill, and ground pepper. Repeat about 5 times, then chill, wrapped in plastic in a springform pan and topped with a plate. Just before serving, I spread a last layer of cream cheese on its top and decorated the “cake” with extra onion, capers, and dill. Because the cream cheese had set in the fridge, the torte proved astonishingly easy to slice, so the layers stayed intact — and with all those fixins, how couldn’t it be good? Ty polished off the leftovers before nightfall.

Back a week from our decadently long trip to Barcelona and Italy, and though I haven’t had any time to think since I’ve been home, never mind cook, all I can dream about are these outrageously beautiful strawberries. Our produce is amazing, but seriously, Italy is like another planet.

torta della nonna

Listening to early-’90s punky stuff while stuffing my face with homemade popcorn tossed with cheese and white truffle oil and trying futilely to focus on writing sensible documentation for the hosting world about blog tools…lordy, what have I become? Yet I find myself wondering, What is Plaid Retina doing right now?

The link between music and food is obvious and has been discussed at great length, certainly, but I’m not convinced that the relationship between, say, Jawbreaker and chopping greens for soup, or Nuisance and a lovingly rolled-out pie dough have been fully examined.

Speaking of which, I finally decided to go for it and, though giving up my aspirations to ever make one like Lino’s, put together a homemade torta della nonna. Honestly, the ubiquitous pie can’t really ever be that bad, loaded as it is with lemon and pine nuts and (dreamy) ricotta.

(Actually, a side note: This pie is, I believe, often made with pastry cream, which may explain why some tortas have a puddinglike texture, while mine is fairly dry. Also, I may love photography, but I do not know how to take pictures of food. Side image is for reference only. If you want food porn, visit Nordljus.)

I can’t get enough ricotta, so I don’t know why I don’t make it weekly, but the time is certainly right when it’s the star of the plate. (I also forget that when made with cream, especially, homemade ricotta takes no more than a couple of hours to cook and drain.)

Mario Batali includes a recipe in Molto Italiano that asks for pine nuts in lieu of what I thought were standard wheatberries, which worked for me, since I didn’t have either time or inclination to schlep over to Rainbow in the rain for said wheatberries The dough is a lovely-feeling pasta frolla made with butter, olive oil, egg, vanilla, flour, salt, and sugar, though I’m convinced that Mario’s measurements are short on liquid — it wouldn’t come together without an additional sprinkling or three.

Rest the dough, mix together your ricotta, egg, lemon, and sugar, roll the dough, and line the pan. If you have a removable-bottom tart pan, this is the time to use it — I looked to a nonstick springform for straight sides, and found it simply too slippery and way too high to grip the bottom layer while it awaited filling (I also probably overheated the dough). A royal pain in the ass, in any case.

Still, after a short fight, the crust was laid and filled, and the delicate top layer placed and crimped. A short bake revealed a beautiful golden crust (thank you, olive oil) and puffed filling, just sweet enough to enjoy with coffee but restrained enough to pair brilliantly with some of that dessert wine languishing in my cabinet. (It also works well with framboise, I learned last night….)

But the best praise of all came unexpectedly when Ty, who doesn’t even like sweets, accepted a sliver and announced that that he loved it. (And as an excellent post-script, I brought the rest to work and appeared to make some coworkers happy, other than poor Justine, who made the mistake of asking me for advice on cheesecake. I talked her ear off.) It’s no Lino pie, but that’s not bad.