eat great food. meet great people.
What’s for dinner tonight?
If it’s Wednesday and you’ve just watched the classic American TV ad above, for the first time or thousandth time, you know it’s spaghetti day. And if your heart beats for pasta, like Anthony Martignetti, its 12-year-old hero, I would expect you to run, not walk, to the inaugural SpagWednesday pop-up on February 23th. Francesco Mazzei of London’s L’Anima will be preparing his definitive version of spaghetti alle vongole. [Read more...]
For my first young&foodish event, Linguine Vongole: The Finer Points of a Perfect Pasta, I organised a “why do you love linguine vongole? competition on twitter. You were asked to describe why you love linguine with clams in 140 characters or less. Hundreds of you responded with passionate snippets of poetry and prose. Thousands more of you tweeted votes for one of the 5 short-listed finalists.
Sadly, one response was a few characters too long and a few days late for consideration. It arrived in a facebook message from Marcella Hazan, the high priestess of Italian cooking in American kitchens and a few British ones, too. Fergus Henderson cited Marcella and her Essentials of Italian Cooking as one of three food writers and books which greatly insired him: “Life in the kitchen changed with the arrival of Marcella Hazan’s classic Italian cuisine”.
So tell us, Marcella, why do you love linguine vongole?
Dear Daniel,
I am sorry I haven’t been able to respond sooner. I have grown weary of rapturous and adjective rich food prose. How do you communicate the thrill of a sunset on the Gulf of Mexico to someone who has never seen it? Linguine ( I prefer spaghettini) with vongole is one of the pinnacles of culinary wizardry. To understand it you need to know the sweet, peppery, tender, tiny clams from either of Italy’s main seas, the viscosity and depth of central Italian olive oil, the firmness of high quality Italian pasta, and you must have experienced the light sure hand of a Neapolitan cook in the dosage of garlic and peperoncino. When you already know all these things, all you need to do to stir raging longings is to pronounce the words, linguine (I prefer spaghettini) con le vongole.
Buon appetito.
Marcella
Marcella’s words will serve as an inpiration for my new event series, SpagWednesday, which naturally comes after BurgerMonday and PizzaTuesday. Follow @SpagWednesday on twitter for updates about my first pasta pop-up, which will take place in February. I don’t have a firm date yet. But given that it has to take place on a Wednesday you can narrow it down to four possibilities.
In part 6 of linguine alle vongole – the finer points of a perfect pasta, Francesco Mazzei prepares a creamy emulsion by tossing the linguine with its starchy cooking water and the clam sauce. [Read more...]
In part 5 of linguine alle vongole – the finer points of a perfect pasta, Francesco Mazzei of London’s L’Anima says you should open the white wine BEFORE you open the clams. But should you pour 1 glass of wine into the pan and another, more slowly, into your mouth as you cook the vongole? Francesco does not say, but I think he would approve. [Read more...]
In part 4 of linguine alle vongole – the finer points of a perfect pasta, Francesco Mazzei stresses the importance of cooking with an understated extra virgin olive oil that won’t overpower the vongole. [Read more...]
In part 3 of linguine alle vongole – the finer points of a perfect pasta, Francesco Mazzei explains why he and his vongole sauce cling to a bronze-cut pasta that’s been pushed through a bronze die. [Read more...]
In part 2 of linguine alle vongole – the finer points of a perfect pasta, Francesco Mazzei explains why it is essential to use a pasta that’s long, slender and dry.
For Taste of London to merit its self-bestowed title of WORLD’S GREATEST RESTAURANT FESTIVAL, two things need to happen: First, the annual food fest must prove itself superior to the nightly one in San Sebastian’s Parte Vieja. Second, the organizers, Taste Festivals Limited, must stop making the same grandiose claim for Taste of Edinburgh. [Read more...]
