It's Not A Party Without Party Pasta
a lot can happen in a week –
Tastes change, old dishes find a new lease of life, new ones are tossed aside and the way we cook, eat, smell, taste and enjoy life can suddenly be fired up and left flickering.
Existing in that space between novelty and nostalgia is as thrilling as it is tiring. Always looking back to the good old days, or imagining better days ahead. Daydreams spiked with hot sun and cold water, cool mist and howling winds, city lovers and coastal in-lovers. That change can set off a spark – caught between two places, two mindsets, two tastes, two feelings.
In London, I love Soho and Hampstead Heath and Newington Green and the City and Ridley Road and Westbourne Grove. I love Red Stripes and dancing at Ridley Road Market Bar (god, remember sweating on other people?!) I love Jolene at night (and in the morning, and at lunch too); I love the way the sun lights up my living room and that I can hear all my neighbours; I love that I know their stories even when I don't know their names. I love the slowness of Sundays here, punctuated by grocery shopping, drinking coffee, cooking beans, doing laundry, listening to the world, eating pâté, drinking martinis, watering plants, taking long showers, reheating leftovers, snacking on radishes and butter and salt – all the things you could do anywhere but just feel better when you do them at home.
By the coast, I love morning swims at 7am on the Helford, watching the light dance on the water, seeing its smooth strokes ripple against the boats, drinking coffee straight after, swimming cossies drying on the wall, watching friends skim stones, feeling free and maybe a little drunk on saltwater, scoping out the next swim before it gets too crowded; driving to the church and parking up by the cows, walking down to the water and lying on the slipway, the smell of seaweed, dogs paddling and shaking their wet coats, eating hummus from the tub, drinking cold Cornish water, making avocado wraps, knowing all you need is sriracha and salt and sun and sea and a gaze that makes you feel like home. I love the wild Atlantic and the grey mornings further north, and more coffees and chopping wood and lighting fires and cooking on them too, melting the sides of your percolator as the flame licks the handle.
A lot can change in a week. But perhaps the thing that doesn't change is that same feeling of pure joy you get when you bite into something perfect, and you close your eyes and wherever you are, you feel like home.
Here's to more of that,
Cat x
party pasta.
Excuse the picture, it's taken from a video where the guest of honour (my best friend Kyla) was crying over how delicious this pasta was (just kidding, she moved back to Vancouver this morning and it was a somewhat emotional affair). What began as a park hang, became a let's-have-cocktails-at-mine, turned into let's-keep-buying-more-wine, ended up with my ever-attuned hosting eyes realising that we were all in need of a big old plate of party pasta.
So I did what was right and popped to the shops with a pal, grabbed more wine, feta, six large tomatoes on the vine, a tube of tomato paste, one red onion, some fennel seeds and crushed chilli flakes, a big bottle of neutral oil and a big packet of linguine, and had at it.
Give or take a few too many drunken pinches of chilli, it turned out pretty great. I heated up a big glug of sunflower oil in a heavy, shallow cast iron and then added a lot of chopped garlic (around 5-6 cloves), thinly sliced red onion, the fennel and chilli flakes (a big pinch of each), salt and pepper. Keeping it on a medium heat, let everything sweat and cook down, so the oil becomes infused with all the spices. Then add all 6 tomatoes (diced) and a big squeeze of tomato paste (kind of the way you'd probably want to squeeze Timothée Chalamet's cute peachy bottom), then a splash of red wine and a little shake of Lea and Perrins then let it simmer for about 30 minutes. Season. Always season. Once everything has melted and it smells like an Italian nonna's kitchen, boil the linguine in a pot of salt-spiked water until al dente. Once cooked, use tongs to mix the pasta with the sauce, adding spoons of pasta water to help give that glossy sheen. You want that pasta to look like a L'Oreal advert, you know?
Dress crumbled feta with extra virgin olive oil and a healthy sprinkling of dukkah, then set aside. Mix in a small bunch of parsley (roughly chopped) and any other herbs (I used dill), then serve up the pasta on big serving dish, finishing with a final glug of extra v.
Serve up with the feta and remind yourselves that great friends don't come around too often, so hold them close and make them pasta.
a few leftovers.
– I would definitely trust Alison Roman with my tomatoes
– Yes to this rosé
– Quite nice looking udon by Anna Barnett
– Londoners, Manteca is extending their eat out to help out vibe, see you there for paper thin pasta hankerchiefs?
– Long live vegetable sandwiches (with a lot of mayo)
– Now autumn is arriving, will be settling into a steady Sunday routine at Four Legs/Compton Arms
– Name a better duo than beans and burrata, I'll wait
if you like what I'm putting down?
Tell your friends! Tell your family! Tell your lovers!