History, Philosophy, and Penne with Arugula

A very nice young woman asked me yesterday morning what my philosophy of food is. Having not thought about the matter in quite that way before, I sort of stumbled through an answer. At dinner, when I told Keith about how I'd had some difficulty with the question, he said, actually, I think that's easy. You like real food. And do you know, I think that sums it up nicely. Fresh food prepared simply is my thing. This probably stems from my Sicilian mother and the enormous pleasure she took in eating the simplest things: a slice of excellent capicola (which she pronounced gob-a-gole) with a hunk of fresh bread and Provolone cheese; a steamed artichoke leaf dipped in lemon butter; a succulent broiled lamb chop.

Thus, I am pronouncing this pasta dish to be an example of my philosophy of food! I found the following recipe, wherein you cook arugula along with pasta and then serve it with fresh tomato sauce, in my old The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Italian book (published in 1993; Flora's got it at Jane Addams, by the way). Having just gotten arugula from farmers' market, and 9 or 10 Roma tomatoes, I decided it was the dish I needed to accompany Keith's grilled ribeye steaks.Jeff Smith (a.k.a. The Frugal Gourmet) got this recipe from Carlo Middione of Vivande Porta Via deli-restaurant in San Francisco.

Carlo's Macaroni with Arugula and Fresh Tomatoes
From The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Italian, by Jeff Smith

1/4 cup virgin olive oil
1 small yellow onion, very finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 pounds fresh tomatoes, cored, peeled, and well crushed
1 pound short pasta such as penne, small rigatoni, fusilli, etc.
1 bunch (approximately 2 cups) arugula, washed and cut into 4-inch pieces
1 1/3 cups grated Pecorino cheese

Heat the oil in a large frying pan until it is quite hot, add the onion, and cook it until it is just transparent. Add the garlic, and fry it until is is golden and fragrant. Add the tomatoes, and stir the mixture well. Cook the tomato sauce for about 30 minutes or so.

Boil about 6 quarts of salted water in a large pot. Add the pasta, and after about 2 minutes, add the arugula. When the pasta is al dente, pour it into a colander to drain. Put the pasta and arugula mixture on hot plates, and ladle on some tomato sauce. Sprinkle plenty of the grated Pecorino cheese on the pasta, and serve it immediately, very hot.
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Some notes on ways that my preparation varied from the instructions in the recipe:

• I didn't use onion in the sauce, only garlic, and I didn't let it become "golden," only fragrant.
• I didn't core or peel the Romas; I just whizzed them a bit in the processor (I usually just cut them in quarters for this kind of sauce).
• I didn't add the arugula to the pasta-cooking water until about a minute before the pasta was done.
• I mixed the sauce, pasta, and cheese in a bowl before serving.

I sprang for RAO brand penne from World Harvest market on University Ave., and I got the (very tasty) Pecorino Romano from there as well.

FYI: Prairie Fruits Farm is now producing Pecorino Romano (they've been getting sheep's milk from an Amish farmer). It's quietly aging at the moment; Leslie told me it will be available this fall.

Now, if only some local farmer would start making capicola . . .