Orecchiette with Broccoli Rabe

Plus: Recipe Testing, Guisados, Friends Leaving, and Panzanella.

Hey there,

It’s completely not the season for pasta with broccoli rabe, but for some reason, when I got back from Provincetown, it’s what I was craving. I think it’s because I always make pasta when I’m back from a trip — I almost always have dried pasta in my pantry — but then I had to run to the grocery store for coffee and milk, and while I was there, I spied broccoli rabe and figured orecchiette would be a nice shape to go with it and before I knew it, this is what I was making.

Here’s how simple: boil water, salt it well. Drop in your chopped broccoli rabe (just the heads, two bunches), meanwhile sauté 6 cloves of sliced garlic in lots of olive oil (1/4 cup) with an anchovy and some red chile flakes, then after you’ve blanched your broccoli rabe for a minute, add it to the garlic pan (it’ll sizzle and spatter). Drop your orecchiette into the boiling water, cook according to package directions, and if your broccoli rabe pan gets dry, add some pasta water. Fish out the cooked pasta, add to the pan with the broccoli rabe, stir all around, and off the heat add lemon zest, lemon juice, and a bunch of grated Parmesan. You could even add a pat of butter, but that’s kind of overkill. Spoon into bowls and grate more cheese and sprinkle more chili flakes on top. So good.

Hey, guess who’s on Lunch Therapy this week? Seven Spoons cookbook author, Tara O’Brady.

Our conversation covers lots of ground, but the most compelling part is when she talks about the institutional racism she faced when her cookbook came out. I was a bit taken aback by the stories she told of the questions journalists asked her that had nothing to do with her book and everything to do with her race. CLICK HERE to listen and, if you enjoy the talk, please leave a nice review in iTunes.

So the Broadway cookbook is due October 1st, and I’ve been racing against the clock to test all of the recipes. Here’s a cod (okay, really halibut) with mussels and cherry tomatoes (I'm not giving away the puns yet):

And a tuna casserole with fried onions on top:

Almond cupcakes with chocolate ganache frosting (with Winston looking on):

And hot-out-of-the-oven biscuits with homemade apple butter:

What else is going on?

Well, at some point last week I was craving tacos for lunch, so I took myself to Guisados and ordered a chicken mole, a pork in salsa verde, and one with beans and cheese.

All three were so expertly made, on handmade corn tortillas, I could’ve probably eaten ten more. But the line was too long to go back for a second round, so I accepted the three that I had.

Some of our closest friends are moving away in the next month or two. Diana, who you hear about all the time on here, is moving with her husband, our other close friend, Mark and their three kids to Irvington, New York on September 1st. So here’s my lunch with Diana and her daughter Pheobe… we’re sort of in denial about this whole moving business:

And our friends Harry and Cris are moving to Bordeaux in October.

They had us over for dinner last night, and Cris made a delectable moussaka.

And Harry made a peach cobbler for dessert (it was in response to me teasing him for saying he doesn’t really like dessert in Ptown):

It was also delish.

Now that I think about it, I should’ve led this post with the panzanella I made for lunch last week — that’s much more seasonal.

What went in here? Toasted bread cubes (sourdough tossed in olive oil and toasted in the oven at 425), lots of heirloom tomatoes, a nectarine, more olive oil, white Balsamic, salt, pepper, fresh basil and dill and some crumbled blue cheese. It was the ultimate summery lunch.

Okay, here are some links that caught my attention last week:

• Nigel Slater’s recipe for hot and sour summer soup (The Guardian);

• I live in Atwater Village and Bill Addison just declared it home to some of the best sushi in L.A. (L.A. Times; paywall);

• Is the Arclight reopening? Please make it so (Eater LA);

• Unripe fruit? Make fritto misto (Taste);

• Melissa Clark’s almond cake update looks incredible (NYT);

• So does Deb’s baked farro with summer vegetables (Smitten Kitchen).

In case you missed Thursday’s paid subscribers only dispatch, I wrote about Where We Ate in Provincetown. If you’d like to read that and other Thursday dispatches, here’s a discount code to become a paid subscriber. You also get access to the full archives:

Until next time!

Your friend,

Adam