Someone once asked Marcella Hazan, the revered queen of Italian cooking, what she has never been without in her kitchen. She replied: a sharp knife, a hunk of Parmesan Reggiano cheese and good olive oil. That was certainly true in our house as well, except maybe for the good knife! As for the olive oil, I think of it as the lifeblood of my mother’s kitchen. It touched almost everything we ate.
Growing up in the 1950s and ’60s, we made our regular trips to the two Italian grocery stories in town: Galdino’s “On the Hill” and Del Piano’s, a small shop on Chestnut Street. There, my parents bought olive oil in large metal cans, certainly a gallon or more at a time. The can sat in our pantry on a dish layered with paper towels (to catch the drips) and was carried regularly to the kitchen counter by my mother who then filled small containers for cooking. We used a lot of olive oil.
My mother always told a wonderful story about my father when he was a little boy in Italy. His father was a shoemaker in Vieste, and the family was poor. As was often the custom in those days, somewhere around 1910, an uncle took my father, then 2 or 3 years old, to live with him and his wife for a couple of years. The uncle was a sea captain and, according to my mother, traveled throughout Italy during that time and perhaps beyond. I have a photo of my aunt and uncle standing with my dad, who dressed in a sailor suit, standing on a little pier and looking very proud.
As the story goes, however, my grandmother, Victoria, was horrified when little Nickie came back home. His aunt and uncle had exposed him to, of all things, butter. And he liked it! She apparently considered him forever spoiled saying, “Look at him! Now all he wants is butter!” Nevertheless, aside from his buttered morning toast, my father saw very little butter in his lifetime.
Gone are the days when a trip to an Italian market or grocery store is necessary to get fairly good olive oil. There are several brands I choose from at the supermarket, which seems to expand its selection every year. I always buy extra virgin oil, either Berio, Carapelli or Bertolli (my mother’s brand). These are good oils and are not overly expensive. Once a year, I treat myself to a wonderful imported olive oil from Peggy’s Sliver Spoon at the West Shore Farmer’s Market. It comes in an ornate bottle and is very green and cloudy. It comes from the first olive pressing and requires slow rotation between the hands to disperse the sediment from the olives before using it. It has a peppery bite to it and is best used with salads or crusty Italian bread for dipping.
I guess I could talk about olive oil for a long time. But I wanted to share with you a quick recipe that requires little more than good oil and fine imported pasta. On a cold winter night, when you are tired from work and perhaps don’t have much left in the refrigerator to cook, remember this quick dish and forget the fast food, dried-out pizza and frozen dinners.
Better than Fast Food Pasta
- Boil a pound of pasta in rapidly boiling water. This dish works best with spaghetti or linguine. Drain the pasta and keep it warm.
- In a large skillet, gently heat a cup of olive oil and several cloves of chopped fresh garlic. Don’t let the garlic brown or burn. Remove from the heat when the garlic becomes fragrant.
- Toss the cooked pasta with the garlic oil until well combined. Chefs often do this step right in the skillet, tossing the pasta with tongs until glistens.
- You have two choices from here: add freshly ground black pepper (lots of it) or dried breadcrumbs, adjusting the amount to your liking. Or try using both.
That is all there is to it. Some Italians refer to this dish as “Midnight Pasta,” something to be whipped up late at night after a night of reveling. Well, at my age, there’s not a great deal of reveling going on. But this is a great quick dinner. Remember: This dish will shine only with very good semolina pasta and high quality oil. These few basic ingredients are the stars. Serve with some steamed broccoli or asparagus, and you will have a great dinner in 30 minutes.
I hope you enjoy it. And save the butter for your toast.
