It was the eve of the New Year, and we were stay-at-homes again, at least in part because we love the opportunity the holiday offers for enjoying simple dining pleasures (after all, the star of the show is the midnight hour itself).  I continue to think of this evening as very grownup, and yet pretty magical. …

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‘midnight pasta’, but this time without the pasta   We had been to a holiday party, and although we had enjoyed some terrific hors d’oeuvres (Chinese-Portuguese tapas, actually), when we arrived back home we both felt we could use a little more substance. I had anticipated the probabliity by defrosting two crab cakes earlier in the …

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This is another example of the stock Italian guy’s ‘midnight pasta’, or spaghettata di mezzanotte, but I’m thinking more and more that it’s not just a dude thing, and not even just an Italian thing. Everyone needs a go-to, at-home dinner concept, and this is a pretty good one. This is one version, published by the …

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