Pici Pasta with Spicy Tomato Sauce

Oh man, this pasta.

I’m going to warn you right off the bat today that yes, I am telling you to make your own pasta. And yes, I know that conjures horrific ideas in some minds about time commitments and needing special equipment and eating gluten.

I can’t do anything about the gluten, sorry, but I can promise you that I’m not asking for anything here that requires special equipment beyond a knife, or an excessive time investment. All this recipe really requires is some prior planning, but even then, not so much prior planning that it’s easier to just not do it at all.

But, anything you need to do here is totally and completely worth it, if you like chewy, almost dumpling-like pasta and spicy, flavorful sauces. Hopefully we are all in agreement that both of those things sound fantastic?

Great!

Now, a little backstory. Up until a few months ago I had never heard of pici pasta. I’d never seen it on a menu or sold in stores. Well, I am now angry at the powers that control my micro-universe, because I was missing out!

When I went to London’s Padella, I hadn’t really considered what I would order, because I was mostly concerned with achieving the crucial goal of being seated in the tiny restaurant at all, and in any event, I was sure there couldn’t be anything bad on the menu, if the line was any indication. Once I sat down, the cacio e pepe was calling to me, so I ordered it, not really paying much attention to the pasta shape. When a plate of thick, almost wormy-looking noodles was set in front of me, I hesitated slightly. I had been expecting spaghetti or something similar. What was this? But I took a bite and forgot my expectations instantly. Turns out, cacio e pepe, a rich preparation of mostly cheese and butter, works so well with thick, chewy noodles! Bucatini move over!

But the truth was I became so enamored of the noodles themselves. Yes, they were slightly alarming, visually, but they were perfectly al dente, almost still-doughy, which gave them a pleasant, chewy, texture. Was it closer to noodles or dumplings? Kind of somewhere in between, really.

When I got home, I immediately set about trying to find a recipe, and luckily, I’m not the only person out there who fell in love with Padella’s pici. But by this point, it wasn’t winter anymore, and cacio e pepe sounded too heavy to me. I could lighten it up with veggies, but that wasn’t what I was after this time. I just wanted pasta! But then, because I was obviously still living in London mode, I cracked open my copy of the Ottolenghi cookbook, and tried out the kosheri recipe. It was good kosheri, but the tomato sauce that went on top blew me away. It was spicy and cuminy and just the right level of acidic, yet still rich. I took one bite and decided to make it just to toss with my future pici pasta.

The combo is fantastic! The sauce is like a perfect spicy tomato sauce, like arrabiata, but with a slight flair from the cumin and the cilantro that takes it out of the ordinary. And it just coats those thick, chewy noodles in the best way. You have to give it a try.

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Pici Pasta with Spicy Tomato Sauce

Pasta adapted from Food52 and tomato sauce adapted from Ottolenghi.

For pasta:

• 1 1/4 cup semolina flour

• 1 3/4 cup all purpose flour

• 2 tbs olive oil

• 1 cup water

For the spicy tomato sauce:

• 4 tablespoons olive oil

• 2 large cloves garlic, crushed

• 2 jalapenos, seeded and finely diced

• one, 28 oz can whole peeled tomatoes, drained and chopped

• 1 1/2 cups water

• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

• 1 tbs kosher salt

• 2 tsp ground cumin

• packed 1/2 cup cilantro leaves, chopped

• salt and pepper, to taste

1. Make the pasta dough: Whisk together the flours in a mixing bowl, then add the oil and water and stir everything together. Knead the mixture together with your hands, then turn out onto a flat surface and continue kneading until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. Wrap dough tightly in plastic and let rest for 1 hour or chill overnight.

2. Make the spicy tomato sauce: Heat the olive oil in a sauce pan over medium-high heat. Add garlic and jalapeno and cook for two minutes, until fragrant. Add the tomatoes, water, cider vinegar, salt and cumin and bring to a simmer. Cook until thickened a bit, about 20 minutes.

3. Add cilantro and remove from heat, let cool a bit, then blend with an immersion blender or regular blender until smooth (a few remaining chunks are ok). Taste and adjust for salt and pepper.

4. Bring the mixture back over medium-high heat and continue to simmer, keeping warm until ready to add to the pasta.

5. While the tomato sauce is simmering, shape and cook your pasta. Heat a large pot of salted water to a boil. Form dough into a rectangle and using a bench scraper or a knife, cut the short end into thin slices. Roll each slice out as evenly as possible into long ropes, about as thick around as a pencil. Store on a baking sheet dusted with semolina while shaping remaining dough.

6. Add the pasta to the boiling water and cook, about 5 minutes, until al dente and nicely chewy. Drain, then add back to the pot and add as much of the sauce as you like (you may have extra sauce). Toss to coat and serve immediately.

Charleston & Savannah

Another week, another travel post! Sometimes lately I feel like this site is becoming a travel blog, but it’s just the way the first half of the year turned out, with way more traveling than cooking, and that is reflected here, in this space. Not that I really mind. I’ve had so many good meals over the last few months, I just didn’t cook them! Maybe that’s why my jeans are getting tighter?

But don’t worry, I plan to be home for the summer, cooking with my own crappy oven and finally scheduling a haircut. So, unless I use a summer Friday on my weird, insistent desire to go to Boise, this is the last travel post for the near future!

Anyway, sometime in between London and Prague and Iceland, I spent a long weekend in the south, in Charleston and Savannah, and I fell in love a little bit with both cities. Well, not so much with the oak tree pollen, but that is the boring part of the story that ends with me coughing for three weeks, so I’ll mostly skip it (that was your health update, Grandma. I am now recovered).

The more relevant thing is that Charleston and Savannah were both astonishingly quaint and beautiful, with gorgeous downtowns, and, in the case of Charleston, plenty of panoramic water views. The food in both is obviously great, and I indulged in plenty of grits, biscuits, and fried things. And open containers!! When in the South, and all that.

Charleston was up first, where I met my friends Ginny and Melissa for a mini college roommate reunion (you may not be able to tell Melissa was there from the photos, as the only ones I have of her from the entire trip are blurry, which I’m sure was a planned effort on her part. She’s sneaky like that). Ginny and I arrived first, and within a few hours I had consumed the most giant biscuit sandwich of my life, a bloody mary, and oysters. Now, the biscuit I blame on the South, the bloody mary because it was hot outside and I was on vacation, but the oysters? I don’t know what came over me.

I mean, I know why Ginny ordered them. Charleston is on the water and you should order oysters! It’s definitely the place for that. But I shocked both Ginny and myself by asking for an oyster to try. If you’ve read any history on this blog, you know raw foods are not my thing, but I figured, hey, I’d give it a shot. So I piled a ton of horseradish on an oyster and after a couple false starts, slid it out of the shell. And you know what? It wasn’t bad! I immediately ate another one, and then four more later in the day when Melissa arrived, so I guess I turned a corner. I mean, I’ve now eaten a grand total of 6 oysters in my life and I’m not exactly craving oysters now, but I’d definitely have them again if I’m with people who want to order them.

After my big moment of personal growth, we spent the rest of the day wandering through downtown, stopping for drinks and snacks at various bars and pubs when we got hungry, and ending with an impromptu photo session at the pineapple fountain (the previously mentioned blurry photos, sorry, not pictured!).

Charleston is a great town for random wanderings: if you get hot, stop for a snack and a beer, cool down, walk more, repeat. I highly recommend!

Plus, if you somehow get bored of the beautiful architecture and scenic streets, there is a different bachelorette party every few feet that you can watch for free entertainment. They can be easily recognized by their impractical heels (hello, cobblestone!), matching t-shirts with slogans like “Bride Squad,” and various “wooooo!” sounds emanating from their mouths. Honestly, I have nothing against bachelorette parties, but it was comical how indistinguishable they were from one another and kind of absurd how many there were, considering that we were not actually in Vegas.

By Saturday, our last day there, I already felt full of grits, alcohol, and biscuits, but I woke up eager to do it all again anyway. We jumped in full throttle, going for a long walk along the water, on the less than scenic side of the peninsula where it’s pretty exposed to the sun.

And, I died.

I find it bewildering that after spending almost every summer of my childhood in Georgia, I can now barely handle springtime in the south. The sun came out eventually, and my spoiled San Francisco body calibration could barely handle it. I think it was probably about 85 degrees, but with the humidity and the sun, I actually got to a point where I thought I might pass out. Most likely I was just dehydrated (hello, all that drinking!) but it was still a relief when we made it up to a rooftop bar and I sat in the breeze and shade and…had another drink.

I’m not saying I’m not stupid sometimes! But, it was another bloody mary and I hear tomato juice is very hydrating!

But Karl the Fog has weakened me irrevocably, and age is a bitch. At a certain point we tried to cut ourselves off in order to be hungry for dinner, but since dinner was a 10:30 pm reservation at Husk, we pretty predictably miscalculated our efforts, and rather than going back to the hotel for a nap, we went back to an oyster bar we had liked and spent about 3 hours there drinking more and eating too many fries. That meant by the time we got to Husk, none of us wanted to drink anything alcoholic and even with sharing plates, we had to make a herculean effort to get through dinner and dessert. It made for a pretty cheap meal, but if you aren’t European, I think 33 is too old to be eating dinner at 10:30 at night.

In all, Charleston was fantastic, though, from reading through my notes on the weekend and thinking about those previously mentioned bachelorette parties, you might be surprised to know it’s called the “Holy City.” I think that, however, is to do with all the churches, and not necessarily the behavior of the visitors. I did recently read an article where the locals are fretting over the identity of the city, but I don’t think they need to worry. Yes, the party atmosphere at night is a lot, but the indulgent drinking and eating is fun!

But in my mind, two months later, Charleston is marshy sea views, pastel houses and cute, quaint energy, not the party atmosphere. I’d go back tomorrow, or maybe in hurricane season. I’m sure there’s plenty of cloud cover then!

Good Eats in Charleston

Hominy Grill RIP, and sorry to include it here, but it deserves a eulogy. We went for brunch, and even though it was about 10:30 am on a Friday, it was packed, probably because they had recently announced they were closing, but even so, it was a weird experience to wait so long for a table on a Friday morning. But we made the best of it, buying cold drinks from the take out window in Hominy’s patio (so, so, so smart of them!) and walking to a nearby bakery to grab some pre-brunch cupcakes to tide us over. I’m glad we got to try this Charleston institution before it shuttered.

Callie’s Hot Little Biscuit The biscuits are massive, but the sandwiches are awesome, the mint tea is refreshing (unsweetened, please) and it’s a cute, tiny little shop right in the middle of King street, so it’s such a convenient stop. The little nuggets of cream cheese in the biscuits were something I’d never encountered before and added a nice tang that helped cut through the pile of pimento cheese on my egg sandwich.

FIG We headed to FIG around 5 pm to try to walk in for dinner. We ended up sitting at the communal table in the bar, with five of the most fantastic dinner companions I’ve ever had, hands down. It was amazing! It was everyone’s first time at the restaurant, and we were all committed to having a good time and being friendly, which worked out well for us, since one man kept sharing dishes that we hadn’t ordered, so we got to try a huge chunk of the menu.

The Darling Oyster Bar We kept returning to this place, first for oysters then for the drinks and the atmosphere, which was very relaxed despite the hipness of the place and the inevitable crowd. Also, I think they have a minimum attractiveness requirement for their servers. That place is staffed with some of the prettiest people I’ve ever seen. Apologies to Dylan, who I’m sure we tortured over our three-hour stay on Saturday.

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If Charleston was hot weather and indulgence, Savannah felt like the complete opposite of that. Well, maybe there was some indulgence.

I was, after all, there for a wedding. On that Sunday, I drove down from Charleston to meet up with my mom and her family for my Uncle David’s wedding in Forsyth Park. The rain held off, everyone said “I do,” and I partied for a bit before collapsing in bed.

But on Monday, the weather was absolutely perfect, sunny but breezy and cool, and I was thrilled to need a jacket again after sweating through my jumpsuit in Charleston. It was such a gorgeous day, and my mom and I ventured to downtown and River Street, where she gave me a tour of her city, showing me the theater where her parents took her to see Gone With the Wind as a girl, and all the places she used to go out to in college as an adult .

DID YOU KNOW that people literally used to go to River Street and just drive slow loops around the blocks, stopping every now and then so someone could jump out and grab a round of beers for the car??? Today, we’d call that drinking and driving, but in the 70s, it was just Friday night, apparently. Now, you can’t even drive a car down most of River Street, but to my delight, you can still get a drink to go!

We walked the length of the river front, as I tried to navigate the cobble stones and keep the giant, top-heavy stalk of celery from falling out of my bloody mary.

We stopped in a SCAD-owned cafe for high tea, and then headed over to the Crystal Beer Parlor. I couldn’t get enough of the oak trees with their beautiful, parasitic Spanish moss. All day, I insisted we detour through most of Savannah’s historic squares. We walked through them, blissfully oblivious to the devil’s pollen drifting off of the trees and into our lungs. By the end of the day, we both sounded like we were on death’s door, and the pollen proved hard to shake. Like, weeks later hard to shake.

But even so, I really, really, loved Savannah. I’d been there before, but it was amazing to walk around with my mom, who partially grew up there and lived there for years as an adult. Growing up as an Army Brat, I didn’t really get much of a sense of where my parents grew up outside of brief visits in the summers to my grandparents, so it was a new, if enlightening experience (still can’t stop thinking about the drinking and driving thing).

I just might have to wait to return some time in the future after the oak trees have died from a sudden and tragic blight.

Iceland

Today is my birthday!

That exclamation point is a bit misleading, since 33 doesn’t feel like a big deal, really, or worth getting too excited about. But still, a birthday is a birthday, and always feels a little bit more special than the other 364 days of the year.

Of course, today is Claire’s birthday too. And in 2.5 months it will be our mom’s birthday (or, Michelle, as she signed her birthday card to me. We are on formal terms now apparently). This year is a big one for her! I hope she doesn’t mind me mentioning she’s turning 60 this year. She doesn’t look it, and though she always tries to pull the “I’m old” card when I make her walk too far or up too many stairs, I’m sure she doesn’t really feel 60, either. After all, Claire does the same thing and she’s only 33 today!

But, since 60 is kind of a big deal, we decided to do a trip this year to celebrate. “Michelle” initially suggested an Alaskan cruise, since August is the perfect time for that, but Claire and I don’t have summers off like she does, so we counter-offered the 7-night minimum Alaskan cruise with a 4 day weekend in Iceland over Memorial Day. Not a bad trade! Similar climate, shorter flights, larger accommodations. Everyone was pretty excited about Iceland.

So, we flew overnight across the North Atlantic, arriving in Iceland in the early morning, and headed straight to the Blue Lagoon. Now, I don’t know if you know too much about the Blue Lagoon. Chances are you do, as Iceland has exploded as a travel destination in the last few years and the Blue Lagoon seems to be all over Instagram as most people’s first stop, since it sits about midway between the airport and Reykjavik. But in case you are asking, “what is the Blue Lagoon?” I will tell you.

The Blue Lagoon is the most genius thing to ever be invented. It is a magical place where you can soak in a giant hot tub filled with blue water, swim up to a bar or a to a counter to get a mud mask, and generally just sit and stew in mineral waters until you are pruney and ready for lunch. It is the only thing I want to ever do now after a red eye, and whoever the genius was who decided to turn geothermal plant waste water into a tourist attraction, I salute you!

I would happily have stayed in the Blue Lagoon’s warm water for days, but eventually we did get out and see more of the country. We walked around Reykjavik for a day, and on Sunday took a day trip out to the south coast, for a whirlwind tour of waterfalls, black sand beaches, a glacier lagoon, and Diamond Beach, where giant boulders of ice sit melting after washing up on shore. The view changed every 10 minutes, each landscape more weirdly alien and beautiful than the last, and so refreshingly empty of people and buildings. Even Reykjavik, the capital city and home to 1/3 of the population, seemed more like a bustling village than a city, with hardly any traffic to combat and the only noise pollution coming from drunk tourists taking advantage of the near-constant daylight. Congratulations to the man who recited “Bohemian Rhapsody” at 4am, that is quite a feat, even when sober.

And how was the food? Well, the food alone would be enough to bring me back. We basically gorged ourselves on seafood. I had mountain char, crab, perch, and cod, and that was just the first dinner! I also tried the local meat soup and the local puffin. I had no idea such a cute, fluffy exterior was hiding red meat, which was so bizarre to behold when I was fully prepared for an “it tastes like chicken” experience. Puffin does not taste like chicken! It tastes like lean, red meat unlike anything I’ve ever tasted before. I don’t think I’d eat it again, but I’m glad I tried at least one variety of the local fauna. It was either puffin, whale, or horse. I’m good with our choice of puffin.

We also stuffed ourselves with pastries and bread, as every meal came with a bread basket and whipped, salted butter, meant to be spread on as thickly as possible and eaten without fear of carbs and fat. And, of course, Reykjavik is also home to at least two outstanding bakeries, with the lines to go with.

We also had to stop by the famous hot dog stand. It was pretty good for a hot dog, and I’m grateful to BBP for erasing the memory of the truly terrible hot dog I had at Levi’s Stadium a few weeks ago, so that alone was worth the short wait in line and heavy hand with the mayo sauce.

I heard before we went that Reykjavik is obscenely expensive on the ground, given that almost everything is imported. I live in San Francisco so it’s hard to shock me with prices, though I did notice the markup on alcohol. We didn’t get too celebratory with the drinking because of this, but there are ways to offset some of the cost. Buying alcohol at Duty Free when you land is a good move (also stock up on giant bags of Haribo). You can always hope that the universe helps you out too. At dinner our second night, our server brought us a bottle of wine, on the house, for “the most freckles at one table.” Whatever works, I guess!

We only had a whirlwind 4 days in Iceland, but it was an excellent intro to the country, and May seems like a great time to go. It wasn’t warm, but it wasn’t cold, either, and experiencing Iceland as lushly green was an unexpected delight. I’d love to go back in another season, and for longer.

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Good Eats in Reykjavik

Sandholt This bakery was right across from our hotel, and yet we only stopped in on our last morning. The pastry case a was an array of temptation, but I limited myself to a brown sugar roll and a french waffle and polished both off by the time we landed back in Boston. Highly recommend.

Braud & Co. This bakery was also very close to the hotel, and the one Claire insisted we go to, as she had tried their cinnamon rolls on a previous trip. Definitely eat those and any other of their revolving selection of pastries. This place smells like heaven.

Reykjavik Roasters I don’t drink coffee, but I’ll recommend this place based on the constant line out the door, and the fact that it seemed to be the defacto next stop after Braud & Co, based on all the people munching on giant cinnamon buns in the little parklet between the two shops.

Reykjavik Kitchen I can’t promise you free wine if you try this place, but even the food we paid for was excellent. I tried the local, omnipresent meat soup, a hearty bowl of lamb and carrots, and we all tried the puff pastry wrapped cod, which was like Fish Wellington, and more delcious than that might sound.

Baejarins Beztu Pylsur or BBP as I heard all the tourists referring to it, is THE hot dog stand in Reykjavik, not to be mixed up with many imitators, so I hear. It’s a pretty standard hot dog, though if you get all the toppings, it comes with two preparations of onion, mustard, and mayo, which all take you beyond the standard hot dog and mustard (never ketchup!) game.

Grillmarkadurinn This place was where we ate our first dinner in Iceland. It can be a little tricky to find, but when you do, it will be hard to pare your order down to something manageable. We feasted on seafood here, and also tried puffin, which luckily comes in a tiny serving and it’s dark enough in the restaurant that I barely noticed it was only seared, not cooked all the way through.

Public House Gastropub We must have walked by this place 10 times during our trip, and Claire had already been here before on her previous trip, but when we got back from our day trip to the south coast, ready for dinner at 11 pm, the kitchen was open, so we went. And it was pretty excellent! The menu is kind of like an Asian fusion variation on Tapas, with excellent dumplings and their own spin on the ubiquitous cod. Also, happy hour from 11 pm to 1 am, so there’s that.

Lava We ate lunch at the Blue Lagoon, and considering how just outside the restaurant, tourists are sitting in a giant hot tub, and half the guests were dining in bath robes, it still felt on the fancy side, with prices to match. But our meal came with a free glass of sparkling wine and then menu was excellent, so it’s a great option after a morning spent soaking in the geothermal waters. I’d make it the last part of your Blue Lagoon experience before heading to the city though, so you don’t have to dine in a damp swim suit and deal with the showers and locker room after relaxing over a meal.

Early in the Morning Reykjavik stays up late on the weekends, since Midnight feels like 9 pm, and so not much opens early. But this little pop up cafe in a wine bar opens early enough that they stop serving breakfast around 10 am, though they didn’t seem to be that strict with the cutoff time when we arrived at 9:45 asking to be fed. They have a charming, small menu of mains that are complemented by the included table plate of fruit, mini pots of overnight oats, and the ubiquitous bread basket. Like the man leaving when we arrived told us, “the food here is excellent.”