Those hues are real.  This meal clearly screams color even more than yesterday’s, even if it is completely monochromatic.  Michele Scicolone‘s “Spaghetti with Rubies” makes one of the most spectacular presentations I’ve come across anywhere, and it’s really very easy to put together.

Characteristically, Scicilone takes no credit for the original recipe.   In her “A Fresh Taste of Italy” she describes her delight in seeing a waiter in a lively Adriatic beachtown restaurant walk past her with “steaming bowls of vivid red spaghetti”.   The cover photo featuring this dish was alone enough to get me to buy the book years ago, but not long after I ran into the warm and generous author herself in the Union Square Greenmarket and I feel like we’re friends and gustatory conspirators every time I prepare this dish.

• Afeltra spaghetti, from Buon Italia in Chelsea Market, mixed with beetroot from Race Farm which had first been roasted and peeled, cooled, then roughly chopped and mixed with some chopped garlic from Phillips Farm and a generous pinch of dried peperoncini from Buon Italia, both warmed in olive oil until fragrant, the whole then warmed along with some of the pasta cooking water
• the wine was a northern Italian white, Cascina dei Ronchi (Giordano Lombardo), Gavi 2012