Spaghetti with All of the Cherry Tomatoes

Plus: These Corn Fritters Burned Me, I'm a Pie Idiot, and Dinners at Houseman & Jr and Son.

Hey everyone,

I have a secret and I’m bad at keeping secrets. I was told not to talk about this until I get the official go-ahead but on the off chance that you’re watching Bravo tonight and stumble upon Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, you may recognize the bartender…

And that’s all I can say for now!

Moving along, yesterday we hosted some talented new friends for dinner, including recent Tony-Award winner Sam Pinkleton (Oh, Mary!) and his playwright/director husband Andrew Russell, plus our pals Ryan and Jonathan.

For the main event, I made this incredible cherry tomato pasta from Joshua McFadden’s Six Seasons, one of my favorite cookbooks.

We bought the cherry tomatoes at the Carroll Gardens farmer’s market:

And then I got busy making the sauce. Step one: cook half of the tomatoes with toasted garlic and lots of olive oil and basil. Step two: cook the spaghetti, add it to the pot with the cooked tomatoes, and then add the rest of the fresh uncooked tomatoes. Let’s go to the tape:

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I was really surprised at how bright and summery it tasted; but also, how keeping the tomatoes whole really worked. Little flavor bombs in every bite.

From the same book, I also made the corn fritters which were super easy to make except for one small problem…

Here’s the thing: I watched a video on YouTube of America’s Test Kitchen making them (I love America’s Test Kitchen) but I found their recipe too busy where you blitz kernels in a food processor (one extra thing to clean) then cook them down in a dry skillet (a weird step) before mixing with more fresh kernels. What I liked about the Six Seasons recipe is they’re more like hush puppies with corn meal and a cinch to make in one bowl.

But the thing that I took away from the ATK video was that they fried them in a non-stick skillet which seemed more ideal than cooking them in two inches of oil in a deep pot.

My arm will tell you: this is not a great idea! As I fried the fritters, I felt like I was in that scene in Boogie Nights where Alfred Molina is doing a deal with Mark Wahlberg and his pals while a kooky guy in his underwear is setting off firecrackers:

Every few seconds a piece of fresh corn would explode and splatter scalding hot oil all over my arm. A smarter man would’ve switched vessels. I am not a very smart man. Still, those fritters were good and I have the scars to show for it!

I’m also an idiot when it comes to pie. (Really, why do you subscribe to this newsletter?)

I’ve been singing the praises of Nicole Rucker’s pie crust every since I made her new recipe from her fantastic Fat and Flour cookbook:

Only, this morning, I saw a comment from a reader who said: “You say use one stick of butter but that it’s 8 ounces of butter… isn’t that two sticks?”

Record scratch moment.

Yesterday I made the caramel peach pie from Nicole’s book and it came out gorgeous…

The combination of caramel and fresh peaches? Sublime.

But if you look at the crust it seems more like a cracker than pie dough and now I know why. I was reading “8 ounces” as “8 tablespoons” and while I did think it was very strange to only use one stick of butter in a pie dough recipe with that amount of flour, I thought it was some nifty newfangled trick. Nope! As mentioned earlier, I am an idiot.

But it speaks to the power of pie that this was still delicious… especially with vanilla ice cream.

Finally, we had two great restaurant meals this past week.

One was at Houseman, a restaurant I’ve been eager to go to ever since I bought the cookbook by the chef/owner Ned Baldwin.

The tomatoes on toast with house-made mayo was homey and decadent all at once.

And the fresh peas, both sugar snap and regular unleaded, were a perfect pairing for the goat sausage. Yes you heard that right: goat sausage.

On Saturday, we went with our pal Lucie to Jr. and Son and had a blast.

Imagine your favorite Italian-American red sauce joint taken up to an eleven and you’ll get the idea. The garlic bread was dreamy, the salad with arancini (fried rice balls) brilliant, and this chicken parm was epic:

But my favorite dish — and this will come as no surprise to anyone who already knows my favorite cookie — was this rainbow cookie cake:

I spoke to Helen Rosner about it when I saw her at a party (she wrote a great review of Jr and Son in the New Yorker) and she said the most controversial thing about this cake is that it has a coconut flavor instead of almond. I was weary but I totally loved it. So moist (sorry, I said moist) and rich and satisfying. Rainbow cookie fans, get thee to Jr. and Son.

Before we look at some links, I thought I’d share my recent media diet:

• Billy Joel: And So It Goes. I grew up loving Billy Joel for many, many reasons including the fact that I’m also from Long Island and I also play the piano. I thought I knew everything there was to know about the Piano Man, but this documentary opened my eyes to so much more… including his complicated relationship with his father who, along with his grandparents, escaped Nazi Germany. A must-watch.

• Ta-Da by Josh Sharp, directed by Sam Pinkleton. This show at The Greenwich House Theater is a magic trick on many levels. For starters, Josh grew up doing magic, so there’s that. Then there’s the fact that he memorized two thousand slides that he clicks through as the play goes along (it’s the greatest Power Point presentation you will ever see). Three: despite all of the hilarity and riot — you will cackle at various points — there’s a raw beating heart at the center of the whole thing. That’s the biggest trick of all: you’ll be deeply moved.

• The Loves of My Life: A Sex Memoir by Edmund White. I know this is a funny thing to say about a book with this title but Edmund White’s sex memoir is one of the least sexy books I’ve ever read. Instead, it’s a portrait of a brilliant novelist and writer who’s had sex with thousands of men. The writing is exquisite but the picture it paints is — at least to me — kind of lonely? I have a hundred pages left.

• The Gilded Age, Season 2. Haven’t seen the most recent episode, so no spoilers! But I am eating this show up with a spoon. How could a Broadway geek like me not fall at the heels of a show that features Audra McDonald, Christine Baranski, Kelli O’Hara, Donna Murphy, just to name a few. The plots are sweet and soapy and the costumes and set designs are exquisite… but most of all, it’s just a pleasure to watch. I know what I’ll be doing this afternoon.

Okay, now let’s look at some links:

• Is the Bread in Europe Better for You? (NYT Gift Link);

• This conversation between Amanda Hesser and Christine Muhlke is a must-read (XTine);

• Lemon Meringue Bombe Alaska with Pistachio Cake… sign me up! (The Guardian).

That’s all for today, folks….

Until next time!

Your pal,

Adam