Red Brie Pasta Sauce

The Fourth of July was quiet — no fireworks, no parades, no neighborhood barbecues. Just me and Marvin on the porch with a plate of corn on the cob and a view of the Bermans' lawn, which is the extent of our patriotic celebration this year. I am not ungrateful. I am on a porch, in a country that let my grandparents in, eating corn with a man I love, and if the love is now a one-directional river — flowing from me toward Marvin without a clear sense of what comes back — it is still flowing, and flowing is what rivers do, and I am not going to stop being a river because the ocean doesn't answer.

The tomato ripened. The first one. I picked it on Thursday morning and held it in my palm and it was warm from the sun and red as a sunset and I bit into it standing in the garden, juice running down my chin, and it tasted like every summer I have ever lived in this house and every tomato I have ever grown and the specific triumph of a woman who put a seed in the ground and waited and was rewarded. I made a caprese salad. I made a tomato sandwich — white bread, mayonnaise, thick slices of tomato, salt, pepper, nothing else. A tomato sandwich is not cuisine. A tomato sandwich is an argument that simplicity is the highest form of cooking. I stand by this argument.

Marvin ate the tomato sandwich and said nothing, which I took as approval, because Marvin's silence around food is a different silence than his other silences — it's the silence of eating, of tasting, of the body doing what it does regardless of what the mind has forgotten. He chewed. He swallowed. He reached for the second half. The reaching was volition. The reaching was Marvin deciding, somewhere in the remaining architecture of his mind, that this sandwich was worth continuing. I live on these reachings now. They are my evidence that he is still in there, still making choices, still hungry. Still here.

After that first tomato sandwich — eaten standing in the garden with juice on my chin, then shared with Marvin in silence and a reaching for the second half — I still had tomatoes left on the vine and an evening to fill. I wanted something that honored the tomato the way the sandwich had, but stretched it into something that felt like a proper supper, something warm on the stove while the porch light came on. This Red Brie Pasta Sauce is what I made: the same sun-ripened tomato, given a little richness, a little softness, a little company — because sometimes the simplest thing deserves to be dressed up, and sometimes what you love deserves a second act.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 25 minutes | Total Time: 35 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 medium yellow onion, finely diced
4 large ripe tomatoes, cored and roughly chopped (about 3 cups)
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 ounces brie cheese, rind removed, cut into small pieces
1/4 cup fresh basil leaves, torn
12 ounces pasta of choice (linguine or pappardelle recommended)
Reserved pasta cooking water, as needed

Instructions

Cook the pasta. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook pasta according to package directions until al dente. Before draining, reserve 1/2 cup of pasta cooking water. Drain and set aside.
Build the base. While pasta cooks, heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook 1 minute more until fragrant.
Add the tomatoes. Add the chopped tomatoes, red pepper flakes, sugar, salt, and black pepper to the skillet. Stir to combine. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally and pressing tomatoes gently with a wooden spoon as they soften, for about 15 minutes, until the sauce has reduced and thickened.
Melt in the brie. Reduce heat to low. Add the brie pieces to the tomato sauce and stir gently until fully melted and the sauce is smooth and creamy, about 2–3 minutes. If the sauce seems too thick, add a splash of reserved pasta water to loosen it.
Finish and toss. Add the drained pasta directly to the skillet and toss well to coat every strand in the sauce. Adjust seasoning with additional salt and pepper as needed.
Serve. Divide among bowls and top with torn fresh basil. Serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Red Brie Pasta Sauce — The Tomato That Earned Its Moment