Roasted Garlic & Mushroom Pasta

Second date: farmers market, then cooking at the Pilsen apartment. He came at nine AM on Saturday — he brought coffee from the place on 18th Street because he had been there once before, the last time he came through the neighborhood, and he remembered it was good. He remembered specific things. This is a quality I am cataloguing.

We went to the market together and I watched him choose vegetables. He picked up everything and considered it, not randomly — he smelled the tomatoes, he flexed the corn to test the husk. He said "My sister grows tomatoes in Bridgeport. You can tell by the smell whether they're real." He bought a bag of cherry tomatoes and some zucchini and a bunch of basil and paid for them before I could, which I let go because there was something to it, the buying of the vegetables.

Back at the apartment, he looked at the kitchen carefully — the cast iron on the stove, the jar of rice, the Dutch oven, the recipe notebook on the shelf. He picked up the notebook and asked if he could look at it. I said yes. He read two pages. He said "This is Babcia Rose." I said how did you know. He said "You mentioned her on the blog three times." He was reading carefully. We made a simple pasta together — garlic and olive oil and cherry tomatoes from the market and the basil, everything in the cast iron, quick and hot. His job was the garlic. He sliced it thin.

We ate at the table by the east window. After dinner he asked about Jess. He had read about her on the blog — not the name, but the shape of the loss. He asked how long ago. I told him September 2016. He said "I'm sorry. That's terrible." He did not try to fix it. He did not say "she's in a better place" or "at least you have the memories" or anything that people say when they are filling silence. He said: that's terrible. And he meant it. I said thank you. He said "Do you want to talk about it or not?" I said maybe later. He said "Okay." He poured us each more wine. Some people know how to leave room. He leaves room.

This is the pasta we made that Saturday — or close enough to it. The version I’ve written out here adds mushrooms for depth, because the farmers market had them and I’ve made it both ways since, but the heart of it is the same: garlic sliced thin in good olive oil, cherry tomatoes gone soft and a little blistered, basil torn at the end. It’s the kind of recipe that doesn’t need much from you, which is maybe why it felt right for that morning — there was already enough happening in the room.

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

Ingredients

12 oz spaghetti or linguine
1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
8 oz cremini or button mushrooms, sliced
6 cloves garlic, sliced thin
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for finishing
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for pasta water
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 cup reserved pasta water
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, torn
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan, for serving

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, reserve 1/2 cup of pasta water. Drain and set aside.
Warm the garlic. Heat olive oil in a large cast iron skillet over medium-low heat. Add sliced garlic and cook gently, stirring occasionally, for 4—5 minutes until golden and fragrant. Do not rush this step — the garlic should soften slowly, not brown quickly.
Add the mushrooms. Increase heat to medium-high. Add mushrooms and cook, undisturbed for the first 2 minutes, then stir and cook another 3—4 minutes until golden and the moisture has released and evaporated.
Add the tomatoes. Add cherry tomatoes, red pepper flakes, salt, and black pepper. Cook 4—5 minutes, pressing lightly with a spoon, until tomatoes blister and begin to collapse into a light sauce.
Combine. Add the drained pasta to the skillet along with a splash of reserved pasta water. Toss everything together over medium heat for 1—2 minutes, adding more pasta water as needed to loosen the sauce and coat the noodles.
Finish and serve. Remove from heat. Drizzle with a little extra olive oil, scatter torn basil over the top, and toss once more. Serve immediately with Parmesan grated over each bowl.

Nutrition (per serving)

Roasted Garlic & Mushroom Pasta — The Night Someone Left Room