Penne with sage

Eastside Road, May 23, 2014—

I COULDN'T BELIEVE how many sage leaves went into the preparation of this dish — more perhaps than we generally eat in a year. And that's too bad, because I dearly love sage. I remember a time in Rome when I ran from shop to shop, all of them just closing, looking for a bunch of sage leaves so that we could make a proper saltimbocca, inconceivable without sage leaves; and finally scored a small handful at an obliging restaurant.

Tonight Cook chopped a big handful of sage leaves pretty fine and added them to the soffritto she always prepares to begin almost any kind of pasta sauce. What else? Dunno. You'd have to ask her. Whatever it was, it went well on these penne. Green salad afterward.

Rosé, Taft Street, 2012