The book in question is Heat by Bill Buford and it is an amazing read if you get the chance. Short version is that Buford gave up a lucrative writing career in order to work (for free!) with Mario Batali at Babbo's (his restaurant) in New York. During the multi-year residency/travelogue Buford learned a lot more about cooking than simply how to tell when pork chops are done. He received a master's degree in pain, hard work and serious cooking. Coming on the heals of my reading of Catching Fire, this book went down very easy. Along the way Buford did several things that I fully and completely approved of. First off he taught me the most basic recipe for pasta known to man:

The second thing Buford did was teach about Small Food versus Big food. Big Food is any food that is produced on a production line as a commodity. Big Macs are certainly big food as are anything produced by a chain restaurant. Especially if cooked by some kid just doing his 8 hours on the line to get his paycheck. Contrary to that small food is... well... anything else. Small food is the stuff you make by hand, the things made for a small group of people out of love and concern. Small food is what really feeds us. Its the difference between simply slapping a couple hundred calories of whatever on the table versus having a meal where your son talks about joining the Navy after college and your daughter talks about joining up as well. (Hello Steve and Lyssa!!) And the whole time the family is enjoying a batch of pork chops that you've let age in the fridge until nicely tender then sprinkled with dry rub and cooked out on the grille.

Well, the third thing the book did definitely lands squarely in Small Foodvile. Buford talks about how Babbo's did Linguine alle vongole, or Linguine with Clams. It would have been nice if Buford had listed out a detailed little recipe, but he talked about the process more. In fact he never once gave strict quantities for this at all. Honestly, his description of the process so intrigued me that I had to give it a shot. The strangest thing is that the clams are not there to be eaten. Sure, you can wrestle the 1/4 ounce of clam meat out of its shell if you really want to, but its real purpose is flavoring for the noodles.

The way Batali does pasta is that the dish is always about the pasta first, the sauce is just a garnish. For me (and a lot of American cooks) this is backwards. I've always seen the pasta as a transport for the sauce which is front and center. This topic definitely will require more delicious experimentation. :) The second thing about this dish is that I decided to do it plate-by-plate. This means I only prepared one serving at a time. Yes, the family survived the wait, and I daresay the anticipation whetted their appetites rather well. It was a great time with everyone hanging around sipping on wine or soda depending on their ages and chatting up while I worked some small magic in the kitchen. Since the whole thing is assembled on the stove all at once I couldn't really set this up so someone else could help me out. Maybe your kitchen is laid out differently and you can enlist some aid.

As you can see from the pics I started early in the day (about 2:00) and did my first ever pasta from hand. Yes, those linguini look an awful lot more like fetuccini, please feel free to direct any feedback to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . :) Hey, I had a blast setting up this meal and it was a complete hit. Thanks Milt for taking the pics for me! It's good to hang with you again, man!