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Here are your tools–black pepper, spaghetti, water, salt, butter and cheese–now make something delicious. Ok? Go. Maybe it’s because these ingredients are so unglamorous that I shied away from spaghetti cacio e pepe for so long. Sure, it’s a classic Italian spaghetti dish, but I’ve always favored the ones with garlic and anchovies (see my…

There it was, in the pan, ready to eat. A big panful of fusilli, coated in a sauce I’d improvised with bacon, red chile flakes, tomato paste and a can of tomatoes. I’d let the sauce cook down until it was nice and thick and then boiled the fusilli until just al dente, lifting it…

Last we spoke, we made an eight-pound brisket. Here’s the thing about making an eight-pound brisket. If you make it? You’re going to have leftovers. And then you have to ask yourself: “What should I do with those leftovers?” That’s why I’m offering you this follow-up post, a quick recipe for leftover brisket ragu.
There are certain readers of my blog–and I know they exist, I’ve met them in real life–who see the food I make as aspirational. Instead of thinking, “Oooh, that’s easy, I can make that” (as many of you think when you read my posts), they think, “Oooh, that looks tasty, I wonder if someone will…

There are certain dishes everyone should know how to make; Spaghetti & Meatballs is one of them. It’s funny, though, because even though I’ve been cooking consistently for the past six years, cooking my way through the staples (here’s my favorite chili, my new standard roast chicken, my go-to chocolate chip cookie) I’d never really…

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You may recall a post, back from September 15th, 2008 called “How To Cook For A Group.” In that post, I whined about how I wasn’t good at cooking for a group: “The truth is that to impress a large group of people, you’ve got to cook large. Some folks are better at cooking large…