pasta with guanciale, ramps, fiddleheads, cress, parmesan

orecchiette_ramps_fiddleheads_cress

This meal included a good number of my favorite things: proper artisanal pasta, guanciale, fiddleheads, ramps, watercress, Parmesan cheese, an excellent wine, and great new music.

  • nine ounces of an artisanal Puglian dried pasta, Benedetto Cavalieri ‘Single’ Orecchiette, manufactured in a factory in Otranto and purchased at Eataly, cooked al dente, then tossed with a sauce produced by sautéing 2 ounces of chopped guanciale from Buon Italia in a medium hot pan until slightly brown on the edges – and slightly crispy – when they were joined by chopped ramp bulbs, sautéed until softened, a few blanched fiddlehead ferns from Lucky Dog Organic Farm, and eventually the green leaves of the ramps, heated only until they had wilted, and finally some watercress from Lucky Dog Organic, the vegetables lightly seasoned before they were combined with the Pasta and placed in 2 shallow bowls, sprinkled with shaved Parmesan cheese from Whole Foods
  • the wine was a great Italian (Piedmont) white, Ferrando Erbaluce di Caluso La Torrazza 2013, from Chelsea Wine Vault
  • the music was The Living Earth Show’s album, ‘High Art‘, with composers Samuel Carl Adams, Timo Andres, Adrian Knight, and Jon Russell, and performers The Living Earth,  Show, Andrew Meyerson, and Travis Andrews