Rigatoni with Sausage and Butternut Squash
Over my twenty years of doing The Amateur Gourmet, I’ve been approached by fans a handful of times. Usually the exchange is quick and pleasant: I feel a thrill for being recognized and hopefully they feel a thrill for meeting their favorite nerdy, gay, old-school food blogger. However the exchange goes, I’m always on the same side of it; until a few months ago when the roles reversed and I fan-girled out over meeting my favorite food influencer, Hailee Catalano.
Pasta e Fagioli
The cookbook that I wrote almost fifteen years ago (!), Secrets of the Best Chefs, has a lentil soup in it so good, Smitten Kitchen wrote about it. That soup, which was taught to me by the late Gina DePalma, will live on in perpetuity as one of the great combinations of sausage, lentils, and tomatoes ever to exist in human history.
Spicy Cauliflower Pasta
Whenever I’m asked “what’s your favorite cookbook?” my instant response is always The Zuni Café Cookbook by Judy Rodgers. What’s funny about that is that as much as I adore this book — it’s a constant presence on my most prominent cookbook shelf — I rarely, if ever, cook from it.
Bucatini with Swiss Chard, Raisins, and Parmesan
Sometimes sharing a recipe is like playing a game of telephone. Take, for example, this recipe for Bucatini with Swiss Chard, Raisins, and Parmesan. It’s based on a recipe that I saw on Nigella Lawson’s website; but it turns out that she got the recipe from Joshua McFadden’s Six Seasons. I’m sure Nigella changed the recipe after it got whispered into her ear, and now I’ll do the same.
