Fusilli

Eastside Road, August 11, 2011—

EXTRUDED PASTA arrives in different shapes for several reasons, one better, in my opinion, than the rest: they are engineered, or have evolved, to respond differently to the different sauces, toppings, or garnishes put to them. Tubes, ridges, spirals, butterflies, shells — all have slightly different ways of holding, or containing, or carrying their sauces, whether those sauces are fluid, or tacky, or grainy. Flat tagliarini are perfect for a creamy velouté; penne rigate hold a liquid tomato sauce particularly well.

I've always like the way fusilli deals with the delicious anchovy-garlic-chopped parsley sauce Lindsey makes so well, and that's what we had tonight, after a first course of buttered broad beans, and before the nearly obligatory green salad. In this deceptively simple pasta course you taste the flour, the olive, the fish, the sea, and the garden. I don't know why it's not one of the Hundred Plates: but you have to draw the line somewhere.

Nero d'Avola, Epicuro, 2009 (big, soft)