By Lisa

It has been no secret that my house has been upended by the release of my new book. It’s all been good–lots of fun and excitement. But there are a million little parts to promoting and marketing that fill my head and my days with noise, and I’m just exhausted at the end of the day.   We have been eating, and I have been cooking, if with less creativity than usual. I’ll be blogging in the coming weeks about what I stocked and the standard dishes I used this time around in order to keep food on the table. But we’ve also eaten out a lot more than we ever have before, because one of the things that’s been driven home during this period of professional intensity is that the cooking is not always the problem: the cleaning up.  With all the moving parts in my workday, on some nights (ok, very many nights), I just don’t want to face the chaos of the dirty pots or pans or even dishes.

To give you a sense of just how upended our my routine has been, Yesterday was the first time I made it to the farmers market in 3 weeks. Which is longer than I have gone without a visit in 10 years.

Which is why it was especially nice to sit down to dinner altogther last night. We had a tablecloth, and artichokes, and fresh salad, and tulips, and a bottle of wine, and good bread and this pasta dish, which is fast and satisfying and endlessly adaptable.

Spaghetti with Fried Egg. Garlic, and Herbs

Serves 4

  • 4 eggs
  • 4 cloves garlic (or to taste), finely chopped
  • 1 tsp dried herb (whatever you like & have on hand: oregano, thyme, marjoram…)
  • red chili pepper flakes (optional, to taste)
  • 1-3 T butter
  • olive oil for frying
  • 3/4 pound pasta
  • grated cheese for serving
  1. Bring a large pot of water  to boil.  Cook pasta according to package directions.
  2. In a large frying pan, melt butter with a good amount of olive oil, about 1/4-1/3 cup, depending on amount of butter you use. It’s okay to omit butter and just use oil.
  3. Add garlic & chili pepper and sautee for 1-2 minutes
  4. Gently add eggs, one at a time, to oil and garlic mixture.
  5. Sprinkle each egg with salt and herbs.
  6. Fry, sunny side up, spooning oil/garlic over egges until whites are set but yolks are still runny.
  7. Divide pasta into 4 bowls.
  8. Top each portion of pasta with one egg and a few spoons of garlic oil.
  9. Serve with grated cheese. The yolk, when broken will form a sauce to coat the pasta.