Nothing Better

Dear Boo,

Let's be honest. I like to toot my own horn for being an adventurous eater with a sophisticated palate and a few neat tricks in the kitchen. But when it comes down to it, is there really anything better than pasta with sauce and cheese? I'm gonna have to say no.

Unless, that is, it's pasta with sauce and cheese that's been baked to piping perfection, with spots of melted creamy mozzarella and bechamel swirled messily into the chunky rich tomato sauce, alternating with spots of crunchy, crispy, burnished crust of salty parmesan and bread crumbs, eaten at a table shared with good friends, alongside a delicious velvety glass of wine (or two), on a late Sunday afternoon right when those Sunday blues you've known since the age when life began to organize itself around Monday mornings and deadlines and homework, during a long, cold, gray month when apparently someone forgot to send a memo to the northeast letting us know it's actually SPRING and has been for quite some time.

Yup, nothing better.

Love,

The Mouse

Mario Batali's Ziti Al Telefono (or rigatoni, as is the case in the above photo) Makes 4 Servings (Ha. I was afraid this wouldn't be enough to feed us all, but we ended up sending some home with our guests, and eating it for days after. Don't fret.)

1 pound ziti
2 cups Basic Tomato Sauce (recipe below, or use your own)
2 cups Besciamella (recipe below)
1 pound fresh buffalo mozzarella, cut into 1/2 in cubes
1/2 cup freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano
1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs

Preheat the oven to 425. Bring 6 quarts of water to a boil in a large pot, and add 2 tablespoons salt. Cook the ziti for 2 minutes short of the package instructions; it should be too al dente to eat. Drain and rinse under cold water until cool. Drain a second time and place in a large bowl. Add the tomato sauce, besciamella, mozzarella, and Parmigiano to the ziti and stir to mix well. Place the pasta into a casserole dish (or divide into 4 individual gratin dishes as Mario would have you do) and sprinkle with the bread crumbs (I sprinkled also with a bit of parmesan and drizzled some olive oil over the top.)
Bake for about 20 minutes, until bubbling and crusty on top.
Serve with Ina Garten's Roasted Broccoli if you know what's good for you.


Basic Tomato Sauce
Makes 4 cups

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 spanish onion, cut into 1/4 in dice
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
3 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme
1/2 medium carrot, finely shredded
2 28-oz cans whole tomatoes
salt

In a 3 qt saucepan heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook until soft, about 8-10 minutes. Add the tomatoes with their juice, and bring to a boil, stirring. Lower the heat and simmer until thick, about 30 minutes. Season with salt.


Besciamella
Makes about 3.5 cups

5 Tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup all purpose flour
3 cups whole milk
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the flour and stir until smooth. Cook, stirring, until light golden brown, 6 to 7 minutes. Meanwhile, in another medium saucepan, heat the milk to just under a boil. Add the milk to the butter mixture about 1 cup at a time, whisking constantly until very smooth, and bring to a boil, whisking. Cook, whisking, until thickened, about 10 minutes; remove from the heat. Season with the salt and nutmeg. Transfer to a bowl and let cool, then cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

A Heart Full of Broccoli

"Well... you're still married to him, even if his Facebook status says you're not."

- woman I overheard on the 7 train, on her cell phone, for serious.

Dear Mouse,

Sometimes, in moments of greatest darkness ... a Chef is Born.

roasted broccoli and tiny orange cauliflower in heart-shaped pan.

his-and-her S&P shakers.

I'll probably never forget the evening I spent with The Mayor last week. Now, that's saying a lot, considering all we did was meet up with our college friend JotaJota at his bar, catch up over several thousand beverages, insult each other and unfortunate strangers, sing loudly, and go home to a mighty hangover (ok, just me).

I mean, many, many evenings in my life fit this description. Sure, the location has varied, and our identities have morphed in several unpredictable ways... most notable of these the Mayor's transformation over the years from mild-mannered graphic designer to NYC's reigning King of Burlesque, who regularly appears on stages wearing glitter and not much else. But the cast and itinerary stay the same.

We were meeting to discuss our upcoming **live band burlesque project ** (oh yeah, JULY 8 at this fabulous venue) and catch up. This is not why the evening will go down in history. Nor was it simply because we showed up in matching red denim outfits with zippered pockets -- seriously!! --though that sure is part of it . I'll say it was a night to remember for two reasons: 1) the fact that -- oh, I'll just call her Mrs. Mayor, why go there - asked The Mayor for a divorce not five min before we sat down at the bar, and 2):

... The Mayor. Is Writing. A Food Blog. ...

wait for it

... chronicling his rocky relationship (now breakup), one meal at a time. It's not open to the public, so you'll have to trust me on this.

Now, when did this happen? Back in the day i'm pretty sure The Mayor existed only on grain alcohol and Snyder's pretzels. Since then, we have been through a LOT of things together, but I'm gonna go ahead and say that a nice home-cooked meal (or even a restaurant excursion!) has been one of them ... never. I think I tried to feed him chicken soup the last time he came over, and he just leaned over the pot and inhaled appreciatively.

So, two pisco sours, a round of beer, and an ill-timed cabaret full of love songs at the Duplex later, we met up with Jota to make a Plan. Not for our show (which is JULY 8!) but, for cooking dinner. Which, I am thrilled to let you know, happened, and looked like this:

L to R: roasted broccoli, shrimp wok-cooked with garlic, chiles, and red pepper, 'lime-scented rice' w/ cilantro. To drink: Negra Modelo beers.

In times of soggy despair I think two things are important in the kitchen. One is simplicity -- forgiving recipes that nourish without taxing an exhausted bodymind. The other is Heat - the kind from chiles, not burlesque. I believe a little spice in the food balances the, let's say humors, and rejuvenates. The shrimp went into the sizzling pan with a (gloved) handful of both thinly sliced jalapeno and anaheim chiles, all red and green and orange. At the same time, the other flavors of the meal were really subtle. I exhort you to make this fresh, delicate, "lime-scented rice" sometime. (You have to like cilantro though...you boil the rice with a bunch of the leafy fragrant green right in there, then remove it just before serving. Beautiful.)

Finally, cooking in crisis offers a rare opportunity for insight into one's life. So the Mayor has this bag of shrimp he's frozen, which he wants to build the meal around. He's frozen them after they sat 4 days in the fridge. I, as will not surprise you, came down on the side of "let's not eat them", while he felt more in the "they're fine" sort of camp. We defrosted them, and somewhere during the deveining process, our dinner guest weighed in on my side, due to the impossible-to-ignore pungent-ness that was not going away. Democracy reigned. Gnashing his teeth in protest, The Mayor set out with Guest to buy new shrimp.

This is them.

They were delicious. And we ate them with a clear conscience and worry-free stomachs. But the thing is, I understand the teeth-gnashing. Who wants to go back to the store? Who wants to admit that the shrimp in your fridge, in which you invested many dollars, and in which you have faith and around which you based the whole meal, for pete's sake, just might have gone bad? You certainly don't want to even think about giving up on them, especially not when there's so much good there, and it's totally possible that the shrimp is fine! But there's a point where, no matter where you stand on the 'four days' issue, you have to acknowledge that they just smell really, really terrible, and let them go. Go out and get yourself a new bag of crustaceans. See the future... and then stir-fry it with garlic and chiles. Get out your cutest heart-shaped pan, your most X-rated cookware. You'll get through it.

With love and broccoli to brave men in thongs everywhere,

The Boo