Half citrus pasta, half fettucine alfredo, this recipe is a delicious mash up. Inspired by the bright, cool spring we’re having–sunny days cut through with crisp wind–a pound of fresh lemon pepper pasta, a carton of heavy cream, two older recipes (here and here), and the bag and bags of lemons we continue to harvest.
It’s everything the paradox of a spring evening wants: fresh, vibrant flavor, and a warm, rich cream to take the edge off the chill. For a few minutes, we gathered around the counter, slurping noodles in silence, soothed and energized all at once. Sometimes, there’s balance.
Lemon Pepper Pasta with Parmesan Lemon Cream Sauce
1 lb fresh lemon pepper pasta, or fresh fettucine
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons butter
zest of one eureka (or meyer) lemon
3/4 cup grated parmesan or grana padano
While waiting for pasta water to boil, pour cream into a large, heavy bottomed skillet.
Zest the lemon into the cream, add butter and heat slowly until butter melts and cream thickens slightly. Turn off heat and let rest.
When pasta is done, drain and add it to the lemon cream along with the parmesan.
Over medium-low heat, toss the pasta in the cream for about a minute to mix thoroughly and let pasta absorb the sauce. Serve immediately with additional parmesan, if desired.
Our terrific editor over at Roost Books sent us this link because…well, she’s awesome and likes to think and talk and read about food just as much as we do. It’s a bunch of chefs you might have heard of, who happen to have kids, talking about how they feed said kids. You do have to wonder what it’s like inside a home where a parent cooks for a living. What do chefs cook for their kids? What do chefs’ kids eat? What do they do differently from the rest of us? What can we do to be more like them?
I have to admit, as much as I adore my children, and as good as they are at eating out, it’s rare that Tony and I eat dinner alone at a restaurant and I think, “I wish the kids were here!”
But that’s exactly what I thought when Tony and I first ate at Zero Zero, a pizza and cocktail place in downtown San Francisco, and I saw their mix-and-match dessert menu. You pick a base (ricotta donut, warm chocolate cake, or sticky toffee pudding), you pick an ice cream (chocolate, vanilla, or swirl); and then you pick from the glorious toppings: hot fudge; chocolate bacon bark; olive oil and sea salt; vanilla poached cherries; chocolate-orange-hazelnut shell. It appealed to me, but I knew it would really delight the kids, and I’d been trying to think of a way to get them to this dessert ever since.
The problem is that neither of the boys really likes pizza, and I am too cheap to spend $10 a plate on the plain pasta they would likely order as an alternative. I considered taking them for brunch, but couldn’t imagine letting them order dessert after an order of deep fried French toast with caramel bananas. You see my dilemma. I bided my time, hoping the right opportunity would arise eventually.
It took a few years, but recently the planets aligned just right. Friends of the boys had slept over, and the kids had all enjoyed their typical breakfast followed (after some LEGO spy games) by a big waffle and fresh fruit brunch. Then we all headed downtown to the California Historical Society’s exhibit on the Golden Gate Bridge (which you really shouldn’t miss). We went over to Yerba Buena Gardens afterward to run around, walk through the MLK, Jr. Memorial, and climb trees.
The boys’ friends went on home with their parents at that point, and we found ourselves downtown in the late afternoon, a bit hungry, not ready to head home yet. I remembered Zero Zero. “Salads and dessert?” I suggested to Tony. And off we went.
The boys read peacefully while Tony and I had cocktails.
We all ordered salads: Caesar for Eli and Tony; mixed greens with shaved artichokes, fennel, green olives and herbs for Ben and me:
And after that, felt free to go to town with the dessert menu. First Ben:
Ben's menu choices
And then Eli: Eli's all-chocolate dessert selection
They ate happily, of course:
At various points along the way, our plan could have gone awry: the restaurant might have been closed, or crowded, or the kids not interested in salad, or unable, after the busy day, to sit and make salad a good meal. But the planets aligned for us in that way, too, and our time at the restaurant just capped off a lovely, rare day, so I didn’t even mind when I asked Eli to share a bite and he laughed and answered like this:
I remember so vividly helping my dad lay out his orchard. I was around ten years old, and my dad hadn’t entirely finished clearing the area, so we both had to tramp through lots of briar and brambles. Dad positioned me where he wanted the first tree and gave me the end of a spool of twine to hold; then he paced off thirty or forty steps in a line, unspooling the twine as he went. After he marked the spots for each tree, he dug the holes and planted the trees, staked and fenced them, and then we watered each one, hauling buckets of water over from the swampy area that’s now a pond. There wasn’t any house on my parents’ land yet — nor even a road to the property — just their vision of what this place could be.
Now Ben is the ten year old, and yesterday he and Eli planted their first trees in my parents’ orchard: a nectarine for Ben (the first on the property!) and an apple — one of many varieties here — for Eli.
they dug with a mattockthey dug with a shovel
they checked the depth of the hole they stomped the dirt down around the roots
they staked and fenced each onethey wateredand now we wait
I think back on the day when my dad and I planted this orchard’s first trees and I wonder, was I patient? Did I complain about the heat (or was it cold?), or about the briars, or about the long walk back to the car? I’m sure I didn’t see what my dad saw that day: a clearing in the woods, an orchard asserting itself, children and grandchildren fed from its trees. It’s an easier vision for my kids –- the orchard is established now, as well as the kitchen in the house in which we cook and eat its fruits –- but still, it takes a certain optimism and a certain patience to plant a tree. I’m glad they’ve shared that with my dad.
Last weekend was the annual limoncellobrewing party. The ingredients were familiar: bags full of lemons…
a table of citrus drinks…
a pile of zesters, a stock of Everclear, a row of juicers…
a table full of food…
Friends brought panzanella, mortadella-wrapped grissini, fig covered bruschetta, lemon bars, lemon sauce, vanilla ice cream, fresh berries. They brought daffodils. We had rice salad with mint and peas and lemon zest, and grilled pork tenderloin with capers. There was sunshine and prosecco and jars filled with curling golden rinds, looking a lot like liquid sunshine.
But this year? Mostly I want to tell you about a group of women who can sweep into your home with delicious food, help you cook even more food, help set up your yard and house, pack gift bags, enjoy themselves all afternoon , and then? Before you know it, they have cleaned up the dishes, swept your floor, pulled down the folding tables, hand washed the dishes.
There is an art to this kind of generosity, to the gift of time and energy, to being able to pitch in, and do what needs to get done, and to knowing how to treat your friend’s house like your own. It’s like this every, single time. More than teaching my kids how to make limoncello, or a good tenderloin, or set the table or throw a good party, I want to teach them this: how to walk into a friend’s home and treat it like their own. How to be generous.
Ladies, thank you.
Grilled Pork Tenderlon with Mustard and Capers
Pork tenderloin
Cumin
Salt
Dijon mustard
Red wine vinegar
Honey
olive oil
Salt
2 garlic cloves, smashed
For dressing:
2 Tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 Tablespoons mustard
1 smashed garlic clove
about 3/4 cup olive oil
1 Tablespoon capers
Light salt pork tenderloin, then season with a couple of teaspoons of cumin. Cover lightly with mustard and about 2 teaspoons of honey. Put seasoned pork in a ziplock bag and sprinkle with about 1/8 cup vinegar, then cover with olive oil. Add smashed garlic cloves to bag and let marinate a couple of hours in the refrigerator.
In a glass measuring cup pour vinegar on top of the garlic clove and let sit to flavor vinegar for 20-30 minutes or longer. Fish out the garlic cloves, then add an equal amount of mustard and whisk together, then add olive oil slowly in a stream. You should have about 3x the amount of olive oil as mustard + vinegar. But do it to your taste. Whisk in capers.
Heat grill on high, then turn down heat to medium high and grill pork until cooked, about 10 minutes total. The pork will cook very quickly. It’s done when the meat springs back nicely when poked. If it’s mushy or flabby when poked, it’s not done. Be careful not to overcook.
Let the pork rest about 10 minutes, then carve in thin slices and serve with vinaigrette.
