My Mom's Famous Summer Pasta

The Italian flag in a bowl

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The summer I turned 13 was my peak awkward era. I had braces and glasses. I had not figured out how to deal with my recently-curly hair, which had always been wavy, but now formed ringlets. I was very excited about my new bathing suit, which was Campari-red with black trim, extremely high cut, and had actual working zippers that ran vertically from the highest point of my hip to my under-pits. The first time my dad saw me in it, he told me to go change into a different one. I would not, which he tolerated, mostly because when I wore it to the lakeside beach, he barely looked up from the stack of newspapers, books, and magazine copy that he was consumed with all day.

What my dad saw, but worser.

The lake was in a Connecticut town called Salisbury, where my parents had rented a summer house. It didn’t have a pool, so we went to the lake every weekend day. Unlike the colonials that surrounded us, our rental was modern, boxy, and little; we only ever called it the Mouse House, then and now. I can barely remember a single thing I did last week, but I remember the tall plate-glass windows and sloped skylight that ran alongside and above the (little) kitchen, which had an L-shaped counter onto the living room. As this was a time very pre-cell phone, there is almost no way to verify my visual recall, which is fine, because memories are weird and untrustworthy anyway.

Food memories, though, are very specific and completely transporting. What I remember clearly is the big bowl of chopped high-season tomatoes and diced mozzarella that sat on the kitchen counter all day whenever my mom, Carole, was bringing a side dish to a friend’s place that night. The tomatoes and cheese were essentially submerged in extra-virgin olive oil, seasoned with thinly sliced raw garlic and lots of salt and pepper.

My mom would prep the tomatoes and mozz in the morning and then let the mixture sit all day in that warm and sunny spot, where the tomato juices mingled with the mozzarella liquid, and the olive oil was absorbed into both. It was my habit to cruise through the kitchen at regular intervals to peel back the plastic wrap and snag a bite of cheese from the bowl, keeping secret my absolute delight in the bouncy texture and fatty juices. On its own, that mixture would make an unbelievable bruschetta topping.

This is Carole, who is never awkward.

An hour or so before serving, or packing up for the car ride wherever we were going, she would put on a pot of water and turn it into an actual dish. I’m sure sometimes she couldn’t find radiatore, the (yep) radiator-shaped pasta that were first choice for this recipe. But the radiatore are the Proust madeleines in this story. After draining—and never rinsing—Carole would pour the steamy pasta right onto the tomato-mozz situation along with a big handful of fresh basil. Then she would toss, scooping everything up from the bottom of the bowl and spooning it over the top, until the tomatoes were warm and even softer, and the mozzarella started to melt into long skinny strands. This was the cheese pull of my youth.

I could have just made exactly that dish for this week’s video. But you don’t really need a recipe to recreate it, so for my version, I added some elements inspired by the cooking things I’ve learned in the years since. There are anchovies for oomph (and they’re eternal besties with tomato and mozz), a few extra herbs because I always overbuy in the summer, and a splash of vinegar to make this feel a little more salad-y.

For the record, Carole signed off on those changes, because she also loves to Spin It. I don’t have a big plate glass window in my galley kitchen in Brooklyn, but the first bite I took of my recreated recipe took me right back to one of the sweet and joyful feelings I got to enjoy during a very cringey time. The bathing suit, though, is retired forever.

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Margherita Pizza Pasta Salad

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Recipe 6/14/23

Pizza Margherita Pasta Salad

Most pasta salads suck, but no one complains about leftover pasta eaten out of whatever container they’ve been refrigerated in overnight. (Preferably while standing in front of an open refrigerator.) I channeled that energy to create this room-temperature pasta salad, chased all along by vivid memories of my mother’s famous summer tomato-and-mozzarella pasta. Use the sweetest, best tomatoes and freshest, juiciest mozzarella you can get your hands on.

4 servings

Ingredients

⅓ cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar 

½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, plus more to taste

Kosher salt; freshly ground pepper

4 garlic cloves, finely grated

4 anchovy fillets

12 ounces cherry tomatoes

¼ red onion

Handful parsley leaves and tender stems

Big handful basil leaves

4 thyme sprigs

1 pound fresh salted mozzarella 

1 pound radiatore, lumaconi, large shells, or cavatappi pasta

¼ cup blender Parm (1-1½ ounces)

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.

While you wait, whisk together the oil, vinegar, and red pepper flakes in a large bowl (choose something that can accommodate the sauce and the pasta). Finely grate the garlic into the mixture. Use a mortar and pestle to smash the anchovies into a paste (or use a knife to mince, then smash the anchovies into a paste on your cutting board). Scrape the anchovies into the bowl and whisk again to combine.

Halve the tomatoes and toss into the dressing. Finely chop the onion, parsley, and basil; add to bowl. Squeeze the thyme sprigs in your palms until you can smell the essential oils being released, then add the whole sprigs to the mixture. 

Use your hands to tear the mozzarella into ½-inch irregular pieces and add to the dressing; stir to coat everything and season again with salt and pepper. Let tomato-mozzarella mixture sit while you cook the pasta, or cover and let sit at room temperature for up to 6 hours, stirring occasionally.

Cook the pasta a minute or two less than al dente; as it sits and absorbs the dressing, it will soften, and we don’t want gummy noodles. Reserve about a cup of pasta cooking liquid, then drain and add to tomato-mozz mixture. Do. Not. Rinse. The warm pasta will enhance the deliciousness of the tomatoes and melt the mozz, and the dressing will be absorbed better into the noodles when they’re hot. Remove the thyme sprigs from the sauce. Add the pasta to the bowl and gently stir and toss until the pasta is well coated with the sauce and the mozzarella has started to melt into strings. Taste and season with additional salt, pepper, and/or pepper flakes, as needed. Let pasta salad cool, tossing occasionally, until it’s room temperature and the pasta has softened that last little bit. 

Add the blender parm and stir gently to combine. Enjoy on hot nights, on picnic blankets, out of beach bags, at music festivals, or while standing at the kitchen counter.

From the Market

Cherry tomatoes

Parsley

Basil

Thyme

Fresh salted mozzarella

Spin It

Use grape or campari tomatoes instead of cherry tomatoes

Add chopped sun dried tomatoes

Simplify the herbs to basil alone, or basil and parsley

Instead of thyme, use oregano or marjoram

Use torn ciliegine or burrata for mozzarella

At Home

Extra-virgin olive oil

Red wine vinegar 

Crushed red pepper flakes

Kosher salt; freshly ground pepper

Garlic cloves

Anchovy fillets

Red onion

Radiatore, lumaconi, large shells, or cavatappi pasta

Parm

Spin It

Aleppo or any dried chile can replace crushed chile flakes

Add 1-2 tablespoons of capers

Omit anchovies

Use shallot in place of red onion

Try lumaconi, large shells, fusilli or cavatappi for the radiatore

Grana padano or pecorino can replace the Parm