continue to gently and gracefully settle into his dotage. I love the style of life my wife of 38 years and I have crafted for ourselves. And without a doubt the part of our lives that I most cherish is Michelle’s repertoire of recipes that result in what we’re having for dinner tonight. Each of them is driven by our love for specific ingredients that Fairway offers every single day, in every single store. Cauliflower, for Michelle’s classic orecchiette con cavolfiore, a beloved Pugliese recipe combining the superstar pasta cut, often handmade, from Puglia’s remarkable and centuries-old pantheon of pastarelated dishes. Artisanally packed anchovies are also key to this recipe, as is fine olive oil and dried hot red chile flakes. No cheese allowed here. Spinach, whether it’s boxed, fresh ‘baby’ spinach or frozen spinach, for
Michelle’s patented (though blithely stolen from Marcella Hazan) lumache (snail shell-shaped pasta) con spinaci e ricotta di pecora. A literal sandstorm of fresh, at-table-grated Parmigiano is highly necessary here. High-end tuna – I import gorgeous glass-jarred fillets of bonito tuna from Escala on the Catalan coast of La Costa Brava – for Michelle’s glorious salades niçoise, and for her essential and scrumptious fusilli con tonno e pomodoro. Olive oil, garlic, flat-leaf parsley, San Marzano tomatoes and tuna stewed together and then tossed with corkscrew pasta, or some other interesting cut. No cheese is added to this dish. Spanish onions Michelle slices superthin, at least two huge ones in order to accommodate four big eaters with leftovers. She puts the sliced onion into a large pot with olive oil, garlic,
at least an entire Peugeot pepper grinder full to the brim with tellicherry peppercorns, and sometimes half of another grinderful. A LOT of freshly ground black pepper. A long glugglug of whatever white wine we’re drinking at the time. The pot is given plenty of time to reduce those onions down to a gorgeous compote that we then toss with whole wheat spaghetti for another Marcella-purloined masterpiece called spaghetti alle cipolle. A blizzard of freshly ground Parmigiano is key to this dish. And these recipes are just for worka-day weekdays. Imagine what she serves on the weekends! So you see, I have set for you a goal: Grow old in a civilized manner. Get your priorities straight. There is no higher priority, or at least there should be no higher priority for any of us other than ”What are we having for dinner tonight?” -ƒ
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