The Meal:
Pasta Fagioli– Cavatappi with beans, sausage, and tomatoes
Instead of a salad, we had a toppings bar! Bacon, celery tops, mixed herbs, cheese, Calabrian chilis and fresh jalapeños
Homemade cheesy garlic knots
The Story:
I really didn't think anyone was gonna show up this week. It was the day after Thanksgiving. I mean, who wants to eat a bowl of carbs the day after the biggest feast of the year (besides me, of course)? Turns out, I had 18 friends who did! And 10 of their children!
So I love Pasta Friday because I get to see and connect with my friends, face-to-face, instead of just giving them a thumbs up on facebook or some love on instagram. We get real, old-school interaction, just like our grandparents. BUT, and this is a big but, I'm on my phone a lot during the night. I'm taking photos, videos, posting on social media, everything I wanted to get away from. I do it in an attempt to spread the word and get other people to eat together like we do every week (although I have a long way to go. Last week I had a total of FOUR people tune in to my Instagram live video. If one of them was you, hi! Thanks for watching!) I'll get there, I have faith. But hopefully as I get better at this I'll be able to step away from the screens and fully immerse myself into the crowd. And into the wine. I'd like to fully immerse myself in the wine.
The Food:
I swear, this was going to be the healthy week. A light, cleansing pasta (is that even a thing though??) to make up for the double serving of mashed potatoes. And what's more cleansing than soup? Nothing! So I immediately thought Pasta Fagioli (pronounced pasta FA-zoo in my family). But, I didn't want to go out and buy compostable soup bowls, so I reconfigured my recipe to make it more like chili, less like soup. And to do that, I wanted some meat. I'll add Italian sausage! Oh, and I'll have a toppings bar, with bacon! And I'll add the bacon fat to the pasta to make it even heartier! You can see I was very excited about this. It was way more exciting than soup. And so, light and cleansing went out the window. That's what Mondays are for anyway.
And because I felt guilty for not making a salad this week, homemade garlic knots made it to the menu. And I stuffed cheese inside them, because, why not?
But let's talk about the toppings bar for a minute. A good variety of tasty toppings is the key to turning pasta fagioli into a feast. You need fresh, you need spicy, you need fatty. The bacon and grated cheese covered fatty. For spicy, minced Calabrian chilis in vinegar and oil, and thinly sliced jalapeños. For fresh, a bowl of chopped parsley and mint tossed together, and another of chopped celery leaves. Adding a pinch from each little bowl felt so communal. Everyone looking around, commenting on the unexpected visit from the celery tops (but they were delicious!).
For the knots, I had mixed feelings. My memories of garlic knots weren't all peachy. Biting into a fat, raw piece of garlic is kind of traumatizing. And you have to relive the horror all day long, because it's impossible to get that rancid taste out of your mouth. I couldn't do that to my friends. My knots were going to be different. To combat garlic-mouth, I pound the garlic into a paste with a mortar and pestle and a little salt. When it's completely pasty, mix in some olive oil and brush it on the pizza dough. Add some diced mozzarella, tie the knots, and sprinkle on some grated parm (super grated, the kind that looks like powder. It adds that old school texture). Bake for about 15 minutes, and voila. You have knots without the emotional turmoil.
The Wine:
Every week my lawyer comes to Pasta Friday. We had an entire year of talking to each other almost every day, so you know, I can say I know him pretty well. And even though that was not by choice, I am happy now that I can chat with him and not get charged for it.
Quite the opposite in fact, because he brings some of the best wine to Pasta Friday. Every week he's carrying with him a bottle from Hendry in Napa. Alejandro and I try to be all slick and stick it in our wine fridge, swapping it for a bottle we probably picked up at Safeway earlier in the week. Sometimes it works. This week, someone popped open the red blend from Hendry before I could snatch it. By the time I realized the bottle was close to empty. Not close enough though. I still filled my glass. And damn was it good.
That's a wrap for this week folks! Don't forget to follow along on Facebook or on Insta. And more importantly, don't forget to eat together this week.