We spend a lot of our time at home pinging like little pinballs between the television in the living room and the kitchen stove. There are some side trips to the laundry room to wash loads of laundry, and to the garage to deposit wine bottles in the recycling bin. That’s because we are leading an elegant home-bound pandemic life, dressed in our finest yoga pants and shapeless sweatshirts. Cooking, washing, eating, watching television. Thank goodness that Stanley Tucci has come along, to take us to Italy, at least on Sunday nights.

Stanley Tucci: nattily dressed, in scarves and jackets, slim and twinkling, is our cicerone to Italy. Remember travel? Remember getting gussied up to go some place? With vaccines on the horizon we have started to think of places we would like to go, and with Stanley Tucci beaming at us every week, the list is growing. Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy on CNN is an exploration of different regions and foods. Armchair travel is an excellent way to explore the world, but it leaves us yearning – with whetted appetites for someplace new and exotic. Thank goodness there is pasta.

Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy https://www.cnn.com/videos/foodanddrink/2021/02/19/searching-for-italy-rome-2.cnn

It has taken me all winter to finally master this deceptively simple pasta recipe: https://www.thekitchn.com/samin-nosrat-pasta-cacio-e-pepe-22949332

It was worth the effort. It has amused me to stumble on this dish, only to find it everywhere. We first encountered it watching Samin Nosrat’s charming Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat series on Netflix. (https://www.netflix.com/title/80198288) I used to make a stodgy Fettuccini Alfredo with an extensive list of ingredients, back in our misguided youth. We are now Cacio e pepe converts.

I am always looking to simplify. Cacio e pepe satisfies our need for comforting, warming pasta, with fewer trips to the grocery store. It can be assembled quickly, whenever the yearning overcomes us. Spaghetti, black pepper and Pecorino cheese and olive oil all have long shelf lives. I was stupified to discover a pasta dish that didn’t need garlic!

When I walk Luke the wonder dog I listen to podcasts, because heaven knows what I would do with half an hour of my own thoughts. I enjoy the Table Manners podcast, as I have mentioned here before. There is nothing more cheering than listening to a couple of Brits nattering about their childhood lunches and their favorite meals. Trotting along behind the sniffing Luke, I listened to a guest, Elizabeth Olsen, chattering away with Jessie Ware and her mother about how much she enjoyed making cacio e pepe, because she enjoyed eating it at a very swanky Beverly Hills eatery. Jessie Ware asked her if it was hard to get the sauce to emulsify, and Elizabeth Olsen was stumped. She had skipped that step. Well, she is an actress, and not a cook. And the emulsification step is a little tricky.

And maybe Elizabeth Olsen had only cooked cacio e pepe once or twice. I have cooked it at least a dozen times now (I’ll do almost anything to avoid the grocery store – and Monday night is always Pasta Night in our house) and I think I can finally say that I have just mastered emulsification. And it is tricky damn woo. So when you get to that step, take your time. Add the starchy cooking water gradually. And stir, stir, stir. It makes a difference. You’ll get there.

I tried a variation on cacio e pepe recently. It is not for timid souls. I doubt if I will try it again. It called for using red pepper flakes instead of black pepper. It was fiery. But it did have lots of garlic. https://www.food.com/recipe/olive-oil-garlic-and-crushed-red-pepper-pasta-sauce-295835

Spring is on its way. So are the vaccines. While you wait, listen to a podcast or two. Try something new for dinner. Watch Stanley Tucci and Samin Nosrat and dream of warm Italian nights, sitting in a piazza, under strings of lights, drinking a nice rustic red with your friends and family. Bliss.

“Life is a combination of magic and pasta.”
-Federico Fellini

Don’t forget to watch Stanley Tucci in two other calorie-laden films: Big Night and Julie and Julia.

We are wandering into a big weekend – Valentine’s Day is Sunday. Forget about flowery sentiment. (And forget about the expensive short-lived, long-stemmed roses – hydrangeas are perfect whatever the occasion!) I will be dodging the chocolate calories which will be flying; fast and furious.

Mr. Sanders is a true believer in the healing powers of dark chocolate. Consequently he finds a way to consume it a few times each day. This he does with impunity, and without noticeable weight gain. I, who dwell in a real life world, cannot. I will partake, and even prepare, chocolate for ceremonial purposes, but will not eat it daily. Valentine’s Day is the perfect occasion for me. I get to plan, execute, take a few bites, and then push my chair away from the table. Mr. Sanders can go to town.

We have holiday chocolate standard bearers: we always bake Boston cream pie for our birthdays. Christmas dinner calls for a flourless chocolate cake. Our traditional Thanksgiving requires a pecan pie, but the meal is made replete with the addition of a chocolate cream pie, topped with billowing whipped cream clouds, and curls of shaved Belgian chocolate.

This year Mr. Sanders will be home for Valentine’s Day, which is unusual. Most years he has been away at an annual out-of-town boat show, so I am accustomed to tucking a little box of fancy chocolates in his luggage, having scrawled a few plump Cupids with love-tipped arrows as a Valentine declaration. The boat show has been cancelled because of COVID this year, so we will be in the same town, eyeing each other over the dining room candles, toying with our wine glasses, heady with expectations that years (and years) of marriage bring. We will have a modest steak dinner, extravagant with asparagus, Béarnaise sauce and a lightly dressed green salad. And then there will be dessert.

Death by Chocolate is not appropriate this year. Mr. Sanders’s birthday is coming up soon, so we shouldn’t consider a Boston cream pie. A flourless chocolate cake is just too much for two reasonable people to eat, even over the course of a few days – it calls for a festive and rapacious crowd. Instead, we will exhibit a modicum of New England restraint, and will fall instead on a brace of exquisite éclairs. Homemade, of course.

Our friends at Food52 preach practice, practice, practice. So consider how versatile éclairs can be for many holidays: Valentine’s Day, Lunar New Year, Easter, April Fool’s, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and maybe have a side dish of them tucked away for Thanksgiving, just in case anyone is still feeling peckish. https://food52.com/blog/19579-the-perfectionist-s-guide-to-making-chocolate-eclairs

Paul Hollywood, of The Great British Bake Off, suggests using whipped cream for the éclair filling. I have had some very, very memorable éclairs filled with whipped cream. You can never go wrong. https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/pauls_chocolate_clairs_59944

Mary Berry, also of Great British Bake Off fame, has a fancier éclair, which is suitable for Easter: https://thegreatbritishbakeoff.co.uk/recipes/all/mary-berry-religieuses/ Mary Berry is the master of crème patissiere, so you might have to have your own bake off to find which you prefer. See? The Food52 folks are always right; practice makes perfect éclairs.

We have been using King Arthur flours for all our baking lately: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/cream-puffs-and-eclairs-recipe

“They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.”
― Tom Bodett