Cherry Tomato Pasta

August. The month of harvest and heat and the slow, golden descent toward fall. In Duluth, August is the best month — the lake is as warm as it gets (sixty degrees, which southerners find laughable but which we find exhilarating), the gardens are at peak, the blueberries are ripe, and the evening light lasts until nine. I spent Saturday in the garden. The tomatoes are coming so fast I can't keep up — I picked two baskets and more are ripening on the vine. The Romas are perfect for sauce — meaty, low-moisture, exactly what they were bred for. I'll make marinara next week. The cherry tomatoes go into salads and into Paul's mouth directly, unwashed, warm from the sun, which he eats standing in the garden like a man at a buffet and I pretend to disapprove and I don't. Paul's specialist appointment is next week. I haven't mentioned it because he hasn't mentioned it and we've developed a mutual agreement to not discuss the hand until there's something to discuss. His hand has been — the same. Not worse. Not better. He still drops things occasionally. The fasciculations still happen. I still watch. I went to the Damiano Center on Thursday. Gerald was there. He was wearing the coat I left for him last winter, which in August is unnecessary but which he wears anyway, as if the coat is not about warmth but about something else. He said, "Linda, your soup is the best thing in my week." I said, "Then you need a better week, Gerald." He laughed. It was the first time I'd heard him laugh — a real laugh, surprised out of him — and the sound was so unexpected and so normal that I almost dropped the ladle. I made corn chowder this week — fresh sweet corn from the farm stand, potatoes, cream, bacon, a touch of cayenne. It's not a Scandinavian dish and it's not a Johansson tradition but it's August and the corn is so sweet it barely needs cooking and the chowder is thick and golden and it tastes like the middle of summer, which is where we are. Paul ate a bowl on the porch. He held the bowl in his left hand and the spoon in his right and I watched — I'm always watching now, I can't stop watching — and the bowl was steady and the spoon found his mouth and everything was normal and I told myself again: carpal tunnel. Carpal tunnel. A brace or a minor surgery and we move on. The blueberries are almost ready. I can see them on the trail — still green, but starting to darken, a week or two from ripe. I'll pick them with Paul, like always. He'll carry the buckets. I'll pick. We'll come home purple-fingered and sun-warm and I'll bake pie and he'll eat a quarter of it and everything will be the way it's always been. That's the plan. The plan is: everything stays the way it's always been.

Paul ate the corn chowder on the porch and everything was steady, and afterward I stood in the garden with a basket still half-full of cherry tomatoes and thought: these need to become dinner too. The Roma tomatoes will wait for marinara next week, but the cherry tomatoes — sweet, thin-skinned, practically bursting — want to be eaten now, while August is still August. This pasta is barely a recipe; it’s more like an agreement between the garden and the kitchen to just get out of each other’s way. I made it the next evening and we ate it at the table, and it tasted exactly like the plan: everything staying the way it’s always been.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

12 oz spaghetti or linguine
3 tablespoons olive oil
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 pints cherry tomatoes (about 4 cups), halved
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for pasta water
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup reserved pasta water
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, torn
1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan, plus more to serve
1 teaspoon lemon zest (optional)

Instructions

Boil the pasta. Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil. Cook pasta according to package directions until al dente. Before draining, scoop out 1/4 cup of pasta water and set aside. Drain and set pasta aside.
Soften the garlic. While pasta cooks, heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the sliced garlic and red pepper flakes and cook, stirring frequently, for 1—2 minutes until the garlic is fragrant and just beginning to turn golden. Do not let it brown.
Blister the tomatoes. Add the halved cherry tomatoes to the skillet along with the salt and pepper. Increase heat to medium-high and cook, stirring occasionally, for 8—10 minutes until the tomatoes have softened, collapsed, and released their juices into a loose, jammy sauce.
Combine. Add the drained pasta to the skillet along with the reserved pasta water. Toss everything together over medium heat for 1—2 minutes until the sauce coats the noodles and the liquid is mostly absorbed.
Finish and serve. Remove from heat. Stir in the torn basil, Parmesan, and lemon zest if using. Taste and adjust salt. Serve immediately with extra Parmesan at the table.

Nutrition (per serving)

Cherry Tomato Pasta — When the Garden Gives More Than You Can Hold