Orecchiette with Sausage and Broccoli Rabe ...
The garlic crusher debate, cookbooks redux, a Michael Koryta writing craft talk, movies, books, and links ...
We’ve had the luxury of being home, zero travel, for two full weeks and so have had the good fortune to be cooking at home. One of the dishes we made is so easy and satisfying I wanted to write about it here.
Whenever Ann and I are out for lunch, and I see orecchietti with sausage and broccoli rabe, I know what Ann will be ordering. I’ll usually order it as well. It’s the perfect meal, with pasta, tasty protein, a green vegetable. Seasoned with garlic and chili flakes, and enriched with grated cheese, it never fails to satisfy.
While this same dish can certainly be made with broccoli, the bitter broccoli rabe truly makes this dish. Broccoli rabe, sometimes called rapini, is not broccoli, but it is in that family. It’s a leafy, stemmed vegetable with buds that resemble broccoli and is exceptionally versatile. Stir-fry it with some garlic, add a little water or white wine, cover and steam for a few minutes—a great side dish. Add it to a pot of white beans. I had it on a pizza at Rubirosa the other night. Or make this fabulous quick meal, which Ann threw together the other evening in about a half hour.
Above: Cook the sausage. Add the raw broccoli rabe. Add a cup of pasta water (or white wine instead, if you wish); the water helps to cook the rabe and also brings the flavors together; you’ll cook most of the water off.
Stir in the cooked pasta. Add cheese (freshly grated is best, but for a simple weekday meal store-bought grated is fine); the cheese blends with the remaining liquid to create a creamy sauce.
Sausage, rabe, ear-shaped pasta, cheese—hard to go wrong.
Related: To use a garlic press or not?…
The above recipe uses three cloves of garlic. When I was considering whether to mince it or crush it with a garlic press in the recipe, I was reminded of
recent post considering not the merits of a garlic press but rather the perennial backlash this 1950s invention causes.People love to hate the garlic press, writes Emily Timberlake on TASTE. She seems to want to dispel the belief that using a press is “cheating.” Bon Appetit wrote “In Defense of the Garlic Press.” Food52 asks “Why do we hate the garlic press?”
And Felicity Cloake, a writer for The Guardian whom I admire, asks “are they tools of Satan or the victims of ignorant snobbery?”
My guess is that the garlic press went out of fashion here with the rise of the celebrity chef—chefs almost invariably decry the device. Bourdain famously remarked,
I don’t know what that junk is that squeezes out the end of those things, but it ain’t garlic.
Here’s what I know:
In culinary school, not only did we mince garlic, we were taught to remove the germ first, as this would give the minced garlic an off flavor.
When I was writing about Michael Symon, he expressed his disdain for the garlic press. He grabbed a clove of garlic, smashed it hard, twice, with the flat side of his knife, and rocked the blade through it for two seconds and he had coarsely minced garlic in two seconds. He looked at me and held out his hands as if to say, How hard is that?
In all my years of hanging out in professional kitchens I never once saw a garlic press.
So what are my convictions?
I say unto you: use a garlic press if you wish and don’t apologize!
Yes, sometimes whether to crush or mince depends how you’ll use the garlic. If I’m making spaghetti aglio e olio, where it’s featured, I’ll mince it for the best flavor. But if it’s going into a dish with several other components, where it will cook indistinguishably into the sauce, it’s fine to crush it.
Want one? I use the cheapo version above, but OXO makes an excellent one I recommend.
Cookbooks redux …
In the last newsletter, I addressed the NYTimes list of the 25 most influential cookbooks of the past 100 years. You readers responded with uncommon enthusiasm. Here are some of the books you called out for attention that weren’t on The Times’s list. (The Moosewood Cookbook, which a couple people suggested, was not mentioned in the post, but it is on The Times’s list.)
The following does not include every cookbook from the comments, but rather some of the shout-outs that spoke most plainly to me. I think the reason Ina/Martha/Nigella (one reader noted Nigella) wouldn’t be on the list is that, good and popular as they are, they haven’t really changed the way we think about food.
Here are some of the cookbook authors readers wished were on the list:
A reader named Anne mentioned Richard Olney and his book Simple French Food, which is a great call; not to mention his magisterial Time/Life series, The Good Cook. In that vein, Caroline Edwards noted famed British writer Elizabeth David, who is up there with MFK Fisher.
Two readers would have added Barbara Tropp’s China Moon to the list, two Paul Prudhomme, two Paula Wolfert, and three people wrote about Craig Claiborne’s NYTimes Cookbook (that was a go-to in my early years).
John Augustine named, among others, Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Food Lab (which I blurbed when it came out). A fabulous book about why food behaves as it does. Highly recommended.
I was delighted to see that John B noted Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone, which showed readers how diverse and interesting vegetarian cooking can be.
I was happy to be reminded of John Thorne (thanks Gabriel Salazar) and am grateful that
, who writes about the cuisine of southwestern France, noted a book I’d never heard of, Goose Fat and Garlic. What a great title!Now, I have one last question for you passionate cookbook lovers: Do we need more cookbooks? If so, why?
Writer’s In Paradise: Craft Talk 2
In the last newsletter I wrote about Writers In Paradise, a stellar writers’ conference held each January in St. Petersburg, FL. One of the pleasures of being part of this gang is hanging out at the lovely house we stay all together. This year, I was able to sit with a few of the faculty for a speed craft-talk—words to aspiring writers. Last week was
.
Today, the craft talk is from Michael Koryta, who, for more than 20 years has been writing best-selling, award-winning crime and supernatural fiction (though he’s just 42). Here he is on writing.
The first things Michael teaches in his class:
Plot is what happens, and story is what happens to the character when they bounce off the plot. Plot is about events and the sequence in which they happen and story is how the characters respond emotionally to those events. As Michael Connelly said, “It’s not about how the detective works on the case, it’s about how the case works on the detective.”
Every word counts.
The delete key is your best friend. You need every key on the board, they can all improve your book, but the only key that can save your book is the delete key.
Those are my top three, day one lessons.
But wait—I pressed him—there’s more:
I love stories that can grab you with one sentence. Where you feel the emotional dynamics right away: “We’d just crossed the state line when Red made me get out and paint the truck a different color.” [The Death of Sweet Mister, Daniel Woodrell.]
Routine: You build muscle memory, in the same way repetition in anything does that. Anything athletic, training for anything. Trying to be there at the same time, for the same amount of time. It allows the unconscious to kick in. I have a minimum of 1500 words but if you go longer, go longer. On a good day I’ll keep between 200 and 500 of those words. I don’t teach that in classes because everyone’s different.
I would like to underscore the “at the same time for the same amount of time.” I learned that in college and it works. But also: everyone is different. Ann, who wrote her first novel on TWA jump seats at 30,000 feet, didn’t have the luxury of routine and this ability to write anywhere serves her well.
Story is character and character is action, Koryta continued. And in classes I try to back them down from action being big, not a car chase, it doesn’t need to be a fight. Curiosity is an action.
My favorite thing to teach are the macro moments and micro moments. The tiny thing that reflects the bigger theme of the book, the exterior thing that reflects the character’s interior state. We talk about The Shining. You come into the interview and from the first line of The Shining, Jack is trying to control his rage. And we know that his temperament and his drinking are problems that he must keep an eye on or they threaten to undermine him. And we know his prioritization of his own life, and his vanity and his artistic ego, are things that threaten the safety of his family and his own survival. He goes to tour the hotel, and the guy warns him about the boiler; he says, it creaks, but it’s fine if you always keep an eye on it, and as long as you keep an eye on it, it’s going to be fine, but if you forget it, it can blow this fucking thing sky high.
What happens over the course of the novel, the reader remembers but Jack forgets, and it’s great symbolism and it’s a promise that never goes away. He gives you the ending, but you don’t know when it’s going to happen, how, to whom, at what cost. So you have all that great suspense, making you look forward, but also making you look backward, because we know that Jack has damage. And the obvious question is when did he lose his temper before and why?
Thank you, Michael Koryta, not least, for traveling with a headlamp; you never know when you’ll need to clean up blood by a fire pit at midnight.
Wait! First line: “You never know when you’ll need to clean up blood by a fire pit!”
Last, for the next newsletter, will be the poet, Major Jackson, on writing poetry.
What we’re drinking …
I’m finishing this newsletter in San Miguel de Allende, where Ann is teaching at the annual writers’ conference here. (We had the great pleasure to hear John Irving read from his forthcoming novel, and last night
gave a steller presentation, talking, reading from her memoirs as well as her Paris novel.) So when we’re here we drink mezcal margaritas or just straight mezcal.
Typically, mezcal is served with orange slices that have been dusted with red salt—salt, ground chilis, and sometimes worms. This tequila I ordered near the Jardin de Allende came with tomatoes. It’s citrus season, isn’t it? Why use crappy tomatoes for anything?
Mezcal is almost always better than tequila. Tequila is by definition made from the nectar of the blue agave plant and blue only. By law, it must contain at least 51% agave nectar. The rest can be any neutral spirit made with cane sugar.
Mezcal is made from any of two dozen different plants grown in eight states here. It is almost always 100% agave, and therefore the purist expression of the plant. The core of the agave plant is smoked in deep pits before being pulverized to release the nectar, which is then fermented and distilled. For those who don’t love smokey spirits and buy tequila instead, be sure it is 100% agave.
What we’ve been watching …
September 5: An excellent recreation of the 1972 Olympics terrorist attack, it portrays Roone Arledge as head of the ABC sports crew covering the Munich Olympics and the decision to tell the story themselves rather than turn it over to the news department in New York. Great performances, especially from the always excellent John Magaro. We loved all the period detail and all the analogue equipment. Really brings back the era (I was nine and sitting cross-legged on the floor of our den smack in front of the TV watching Jim McKay and Mark Spitz and Olga Korbut).
I’m Still Here is a remarkable true story of an upper middle-class family in Rio de Janeiro, Reubens and Eunice Paiva and their five kids. The year is 1970 and Brazil is still under military dictatorship. Reubens is arrested and brought in for questioning. The movie revolves around Eunice (Fernanda Torres) keeping her family safe and together in his absence. Riveting story and a harrowing look at life under dictatorship. Torres’s performance is extraordinary—we’ll be rooting for her in the Best Actress category at the Oscars.
The Last Show Girl is a tender story of an aging showgirl in a vanishing Las Vegas, starring Pamela Anderson in an excellent performance as the showgirl and Jamie Lee Curtis as a former showgirl and current casino cocktail waitress.
The Clock, now showing at the Museum of Modern Art. This is a mind bender! Created in 2010 by the artist Christian Marclay, The Clock splices together thousands of film clips depicting virtually every minute, 1,440 of them, in 24 hours. Whether it’s Harold Lloyd hanging from a clock (Safety Last, 1923), Humphrey Bogart at the train station in the rain below a clock (Casablanca, 1942), to Robert Redford smashing a homer into the scoreboard clock (The Natural, 1984).
Ann and I visited in the afternoon, took a seat in one of 2 dozen three-seater couches (very comfy!). Shortly thereafter, Big Ben appeared on screen reading three o’clock. I checked my phone. It read exactly three o’clock. The movie time is synced with real time. The pleasures: the meditation on time itself; the importance of time in movies; recognizing clips that go by (or not recognizing them—was that Billy Bob and Frances McDormand? How did we miss that movie?).
We stayed until the museum kicked us out at 5:30. We were so mesmerized we’d have stayed all night. The Clock was scheduled to close this month but I see it’s been extended till 5/11. See it.
What we’re reading …
OK, so I finished Miranda July’s All Fours—the most stable position, one character says. But it is also, of course, a sexual position—and there is a LOT of sex in this book. I’ve never watched a narrator masturbate this many times in a 300 page book. The story is about a quirky woman, mid-forties, mom of a gender-nondescript elementary school child, and wife in a marriage with blurry boundaries. When she falls hard for a 30-year-old Hertz rental car agent, her life unravels. Her re-raveling is the hero’s journey. This is one quirky artist, let me tell you.
Over to our Promiscuous Reader,
:Confessions, the debut novel by Catherine Airey, is a big, sprawling, shaggy novel that reminded me of how brave and daring first novels are. This one has multiple points of view, 9/11, video games, unwanted pregnancies—three!—betrayals, secrets, letters and diaries, and more. It made me positively giddy! It’s impossible to describe the plot, so let me just say Cora’s father dies on 9/11 (her mother committed suicide years before), and she goes to live with her aunt in Donegal, Ireland. Let me just say, read this book.
After reading Julia Phillips’ fabulous debut novel Disappearing Earth, about two sisters who disappear in northeastern Russia, I couldn’t wait to see what she would write next. Her new novel Bear is just as mesmerizing and original. Two sisters on an island off the coast of Washington struggle with poverty and taking care of their dying mother when a bear shows up at their house and upends their dreams of escaping to a new life.
I was choosing five books about WWI for a website for my novel The Stolen Child and couldn’t remember the name of a mystery series I’d loved (it was A Test of Wills by Charles Todd). Looking for it, I came upon another series by Rennie Airth and immediately bought the first book, River of Darkness. I was the happiest passenger from JFK to Leon, Mexico, reading this novel about a brutal murder in rural England after WWI and the war damaged Scotland Yard detective sent to solve the crime. Boxes checked: WWI, England, murder mystery, feisty love interest.
Thank you, Ann, as ever!
Links we’ve loved …
This is a fascinating take on The Great Gatsby, and how we misread it, from the editor of this year’s Cambridge Centennial Edition of The Great Gatsby.
A group of Italian physicists attempt to make an unbreakable cacio e pepe. Will Italian cooks—uncommonly dogmatic about what can and cannot be in any traditional recipe—embrace … cornstarch? (shareable link from the NYTimes).
Also from The Times, this is a good portrait, the occasion of his latest book, of the legendary journalist Gay Talese, still working at age 92. (Sidenote: While I was writing The Making of a Chef, I wrote to Talese with admiration and questions. I had read he typed and mailed responses to reader mail. He did not write back. After many weeks, he called me to apologize and we had a long discussion of how he reports, files notes, and writes. I’ll never forget his generosity.)
I mentioned the Substack
earlier in this letter, created by writer Sari Botton, featuring writers exploring the experience of aging. She writes:
Oldster Magazine is about people (of all genders) getting older. (I’m using the term “oldster” subversively, because I want to question who we consider to be “old” as we move through life.) Oldster Magazine applies a magnifying lens on the milestones we celebrate, then grieve as we move past them, beginning in childhood and extending to old age and death. It reconsiders life’s many shifts from phase to phase, and what those shifts mean to us as we transition through and past them.
Read in Oldster Cheryl Strayed on being 54 on Oldster, or answer Sari’s open question, What is the secret to lasting love? Unusually, Sari pays her writers. It may be a small fee but the symbolism is big.
Buzzfeed polled older readers for beloved dishes that have all but vanished. It brought back for me memories of French dressing, lobster Newberg, a glass of tomato juice served as an appetizer, spinach salad with a warm bacon vinaigrette.
Have money to burn? Enjoy a “life changing” cocktail for 1,000 pounds at The Merchant hotel in Belfast, Northern Ireland. (The Guardian)
Here’s a handy streaming guide if you want to catch more Oscar nominees before they’re awarded March 2nd.
And I’ve updated my website, ruhlman.com. It includes all my books and a new section on cooking tools I recommend. Have a look and tell me what you think, please—it appears different on varying devices.
And finally …
If you’re in NYC any time before May 11, go see The Clock! I’m so thrilled they’ve extended the run, I wanted to post this video about the film itself.
That’s all for this week. See you all back here in two weeks (or earlier with a Below 14th Street letter for paid subscribers). I am grateful to you all. Please heart this if you liked it, leave a comment for us, or share this post with someone who might like it! Thanks for reading.
—Michael
Yes, the garlic press could probably be called the most divisive cooking tool ever invented. I gave mine up in the last century, but surprised myself wanting to try one again. Mostly it was for convenience; I was always washing the cutting board, and even though I'd dedicated one cutting board in my kitchen to garlic and onions, I'd find my partner using the same board to cut fruit one - no matter how many times I reminded him not to. (I even bought a bright yellow cutting board to keep it separate, which only helped...marginally.)
But people should cook (and outfit their kitchens) as *they* cook - not necessarily as someone else tells them how to cook, and not necessarily listen to others who want to dictate what tools to use. I have a food mill but doubt most people do. I got a mini-chopper, which is great for small tasks. Yes, I can chop nuts with a knife, but I can chop them in seconds in the chopper. A lot of people don't cook or don't have time to cook (which happens to me, too), which is a shame, but if something can make home cooking and baking more enjoyable, or easier, why not use it?
This is my favorite newsletter! Thank you for always giving the best suggestions regarding food/cooking along with Ann’s great book ideas. My husband and I love cinema, literature, and great food! You always manage to hit all three in the newsletter plus more!