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on anything's possible. the twentieth centuries

1:12

when Italians are eating pasta regularly

1:15

and when you're telling me that

1:17

pasta wasn't a big thing in

1:19

Italy until the nineteen hundreds, that's

1:22

right for ghetto us. The sina

1:24

aside, tasty is crying she in

1:26

you can never stop easy Me

1:29

the his local people even meter

1:31

we don't know about people must

1:33

know. About

1:36

that. I get any

1:38

notice working. On

1:40

it doesn't help either. A

1:42

great storyteller and your itinerary

1:44

that I. Share.

1:50

This. Is the sport? Call it's not for

1:52

booties, it's for eaters. I'm dan passionate. Each

1:54

week on our show we obsess about food,

1:56

learn more about people. but this is episode

1:59

three. Have any. things possible, a four-part series

2:01

giving you the inside story of the making

2:03

of my first cookbook. By the end, you'll

2:05

never look at a cookbook the same way

2:07

again. If you haven't listened to parts one

2:09

and two yet, please go back and start

2:11

there. Hey, before we get into

2:13

it, I do want to mention that throughout this

2:16

series, I'm sharing photos and videos of the whole

2:18

process on my Instagram. I even posted a video

2:20

of the scene in the kitchen at Osorso Preferito

2:22

in Bari with everyone arguing over how to make

2:24

spaghetti a la sassina. It's pretty priceless. So check

2:26

all that out and follow me on Instagram at

2:28

theseforkful. All right. Let's do

2:31

this. When

2:42

I set out to write my cookbook, my

2:44

pasta fairy godmother, Evan Kliman, warned me. She

2:46

said Americans writing about Italian food often get

2:48

caught up in the romance and nostalgia of

2:50

Italy. They end up rehashing the same old

2:53

traditional recipes with the same photos of the

2:55

hills of Tuscany and Nona's and Apron's caked

2:57

in flour. I return

2:59

from Italy more determined than ever to avoid

3:01

these tropes because my biggest takeaway from the

3:03

trip is that the romance around Italian food

3:05

is tied up in a lot of mythology.

3:08

Pasta culture isn't as old or as static

3:10

as I thought. It may not

3:12

evolve as fast as some cuisines, but like

3:15

all the others, it's always changing. Now

3:17

I see my book as part of this

3:19

never-ending evolution of pasta. In

3:22

the fall of 2022, I head back into

3:24

my kitchen. To meet my publisher's deadline, I

3:26

have to finish all my recipes in six

3:28

months. The list of recipes I want to

3:30

include is almost full and my team of developers has been

3:32

hard at work on them, but there are

3:34

a few that I want to try to do on my own. At

3:37

the start of this process, I wouldn't have considered attempting

3:39

that, but now I've tested a few dozen

3:41

recipes from my developers and I feel like I'm getting the

3:43

hang of this. I want to see if I

3:45

can do it. If I can take some of these recipes from

3:47

start to finish myself. The first dish

3:49

I'm going to try is not an original creation. It's my

3:51

spin on one of the dishes I went to Italy to

3:53

learn about. Alright, so I am 15 minutes

3:56

into my first attempt to make spaghetti. I lost the

3:58

scene there from scratch. As you'll

4:00

recall from episode two, Spaghetti a la Sassina or

4:03

Assassin's Spaghetti is the dish from the city of

4:05

Bari that I fell in love with. The

4:07

spaghetti is pan fried in a spicy tomato

4:10

sauce until the sauce is sticky and the

4:12

pasta is charred and crispy crunchy. Now

4:15

as we heard, there's a big debate in Bari

4:17

about whether to boil the pasta briefly before pan

4:19

frying it. At Kyoto, the

4:21

restaurant that serves my favorite version, they

4:23

don't boil. They put uncooked dry pasta

4:25

straight into a frying pan filled with

4:28

spicy tomato sauce. They say this maximizes

4:30

char and crunch. So that's what

4:32

I do. I take a

4:34

pound of decheco spaghetti, same brand Kyoto told me

4:36

they use, and I add a jar of sauce.

4:38

Because remember, I favorite using good jarred tomato sauce

4:41

over making it from scratch. But

4:43

as soon as I start cooking, I run into

4:45

problems. Didn't seem like enough liquid. I added half

4:47

a jar of water. Then the

4:49

tomato sauce is still mostly evaporated, but the pasta was

4:51

hard in the center, so I added another half a

4:53

jar of sauce and a little

4:55

more water. I just want to figure out how much

4:58

liquid I need, and then I can figure out the

5:00

ratio of sauce to water. All I'm really basing this

5:02

first attempt on is having seen Asasina cooked once in

5:04

Bari, and knowing how I want the end result to

5:06

taste. I quickly realize I should have

5:08

gotten a little more info. It's all

5:10

sticking to the bottom. It's really burning. I might

5:13

be ruining this pan. It's going

5:15

to be this pan's first and last attempt with the way

5:17

to the Asasina. The

5:21

sauce has completely cooked off and burnt. The pan

5:23

is black, and there are pieces of pasta that

5:25

have broken off and fused to the

5:27

bottom of the pan. Basically,

5:29

I end up turning the pan crispy without

5:32

turning the pasta crispy. I'm not

5:34

using a nonstick pan because I don't remember the

5:36

chefs in Bari using nonstick for their Asasina. But

5:38

whatever they did to prevent sticking seems to have

5:40

eluded me. My daughters come into the

5:43

kitchen to see what's going on. Becky, how would

5:45

you describe how this looks? Um,

5:47

it kind of looks like a

5:50

cry for help. Despite

5:53

the smoky haze in the kitchen and the pan looking

5:55

like it was pulled out of some kind of wreckage,

5:57

the pasta itself looks like it might not be a

5:59

cry for help. be terrible. Emily thinks

6:01

it looks good. It looks yummy, but it

6:03

doesn't look like what it's supposed to look

6:05

like. It looks like you just tried and

6:07

failed at life. As

6:09

I continue cooking the pasta, Janie walks in. It

6:12

smells good and looks good. Could

6:15

you destroy the pan? Maybe.

6:18

I wonder if I transferred it to a non-stick pan with oil if it

6:20

might crisp. Let me give that a shot. No, don't ruin another pan. Despite

6:23

Janie's protests, I make the transfer. I

6:26

hear some sizzle. It's promising. I

6:32

try not to fuss with it too much, but let

6:34

it sit and get crispy. And that seems to work.

6:36

We have some charring. I decide this

6:38

is as close as I'll get for a first attempt, and

6:40

I begin putting the pasta on plates to serve. Emily,

6:44

what do you think? I think

6:46

that it's really good. What do

6:48

you notice about it that's different from other pasta dishes you've had? It's

6:52

crunchy. Yes. Becky thoughts? It's

6:55

so good. It

7:00

looks so bad when it was in the pan

7:02

and ended up being good. It's

7:06

like a bibimbap bowl. You know, like it's crunchy on

7:08

the sides. I think it

7:10

needs a little more sauce maybe. Yeah, I think

7:12

you're right, Janie. It's a little dry. It's a

7:15

little dry and a little too brittle. I

7:17

would want it a little more chewy. I think

7:19

the chewiness is perfect, but I think it needs a

7:22

little bit more spice. It doesn't taste like spice. I

7:24

really like it. So the only thing you

7:26

have to do is buy a pan that you're ready to

7:28

throw out. No,

7:31

you gotta use a non-stick pan. Janie

7:33

and I start to clean up, and here

7:35

you are now picking the dry, crusty

7:37

pieces of burnt pasta off of the

7:40

destroyed pan. That's a good sign

7:42

to me. I think that's a compliment. I

7:45

think it was pretty good for like a first attempt. I

7:49

thought it was going to be like horrible. I didn't

7:51

think you knew what you were doing. So

7:53

what did you learn from this experience? Definitely. Maybe

7:57

I should like... Come

8:00

on, you can say it. I'm gonna

8:02

go have more pasta. I

8:09

think she was gonna say that I actually know how to do things.

8:16

Yeah, I can do things. But

8:18

if I'm gonna get this asasina recipe right for my

8:20

cookbook, I'm gonna have to do everything better. I spend

8:23

some time reading through the few recipes online for Spaghetti a

8:25

la Asasina to see how others do it. I

8:27

think about what aspects of my version need improvement.

8:30

Over the next couple months, I work to get it done as

8:32

in. Spaghetti a la Asasina, take

8:35

two. I managed

8:37

to not nearly destroy a pan.

8:40

Just went non-stick the whole time, so that was an

8:42

improvement. Emily, thoughts?

8:44

Some time last time, I

8:46

think was maybe a bit more crunchy. In some

8:49

ways, this actually feels like a setback, because

8:51

it's a lot less crunchy. Do you think

8:53

that the brand of sauce makes

8:55

a difference? The amount of sauce? The amount of

8:58

sauce will make a difference. Less sauce will make

9:00

it burn better, right? Yeah,

9:03

well here's the thing. There's two different factors.

9:05

There's sort of like the burning of the

9:07

pasta, and then there's the caramelization burning of

9:09

the sauce. And I

9:11

think what happened was I confused the

9:14

burning of the char of the tomato

9:16

sauce cooking down and turning dark. I

9:19

just had a lot of sauce. I

9:24

managed to put all three of my family members asleep

9:26

by talking about sweets. You're making the food. We

9:28

don't really need to know the details. Another

9:34

issue with all my tests so far is that the

9:36

raw pasta is not getting fully submerged in sauce. My

9:39

pan isn't big enough to lay that much spaghetti

9:41

flat, so I have to toss the pasta to coat it

9:43

in sauce so it can soften. But

9:45

in mixing the raw pasta, I keep breaking a lot of it,

9:47

leaving it in shards. I

9:49

decide that on my next trial, I am going to

9:51

boil the spaghetti for a minute or two first, rather

9:53

than starting with it raw. If it's

9:55

a little soft, it'll be flexible enough to lay flat

9:58

in the pan and be submerged in sauce. without

10:00

having to be tossed so much. At the

10:02

place in Bari where they make my favorite asasina,

10:04

they insisted that you shouldn't boil the pasta first,

10:06

that it would make the final result mushy. But

10:08

they must be using a very big restaurant-sized

10:11

pan that allows them to lay all that

10:13

raw pasta flat. I don't have

10:15

that option, and I want my recipe to be practical for

10:17

home cooks. So I give the pre-boiling

10:19

technique a shot. All right, spaghetti,

10:21

all asasina take three is underway. The kids aren't

10:24

around. I boiled it in

10:26

water for two minutes and then put it in the

10:28

sauce. The sizzling sounds. All

10:33

right, the sizzle has

10:35

turned into a crackle. I

10:38

finished baking the asasina and serve it up to Janie.

10:41

I think this is my best attempt yet. Yeah,

10:43

this is really good. And the strands

10:45

stayed together. I think I nailed the texture.

10:49

The thing that's different to me, I

10:51

felt like last time it was a little more sauce. Yeah,

10:53

I did use more sauce last time. The

10:56

tomato, the intense tomato flavor is missing a

10:58

little bit. I gotta get that

11:00

back. This is spaghetti, all

11:02

asasina take four. This is the first

11:04

time that I added tomato paste into the sauce. And

11:07

that was a big improvement. I

11:09

think some are really crunchy and dark, and

11:12

some are really light and they're like normal.

11:14

Like they're like complete opposites. That's

11:17

part of spaghetti, all asasina. I don't want every

11:19

strand to be exactly the same. It's better

11:21

if there's a mixture. I've

11:24

managed to get that char and that tomato flavor, but

11:26

I'm still tinkering with the spice. Even

11:28

the fancy crushed red pepper that I bought

11:30

online for this doesn't seem to replicate the

11:32

more complex spice of the asasina at Giotto.

11:35

So for this last test, I had the

11:37

idea to switch to chopped pepperoncino, jarred hot peppers

11:39

in the supermarket. And that's a big improvement.

11:42

More important, after another test using partially boiled spaghetti,

11:45

I think that's the way to go for my

11:47

recipe. At home, with a normal person-sized pan, I

11:49

think a brief boil makes it more practical. And

11:51

frankly, I think the results can be just as

11:53

good as if you put raw pasta in the

11:56

pan. So maybe that's one

11:58

more Italian food myth busted. At

12:00

this point, I feel like I'm closing in on the asasina

12:02

of my dreams. I decided to send

12:04

the recipe to Captain Rebecca, our recipe editor, to

12:06

have her test it out and share feedback. She

12:09

loves it overall, but she does make some tweaks,

12:11

which means I need to test it one more

12:13

time. So in December 2022,

12:15

five months after I first laid teeth

12:17

on Spaghetti a la Asasina in Bari...

12:20

You hear that sizzle? That's

12:23

the sound of our last trial for

12:25

Spaghetti a la Asasina. What

12:28

do you girls say? Do you deem this? It

12:31

is good. Do you deem this

12:33

recipe finished? Is it good enough to go in the cookbook? Yeah.

12:40

All right, I was kind of going for, I hope I'm like a sort

12:42

of big triumphant moment here. Okay.

12:46

You want to like, um, be excited or something? Hmm,

12:51

okay. Okay. Maybe

12:53

Becky was right to deny me my big triumphant

12:55

moment because the truth is, I think this last

12:57

batch needs more tomato paste. I add

12:59

one more tablespoon to the recipe and send it ahead

13:02

to Captain Rebecca for a final test. Next

13:04

week, she confirms it's good to go. Insert

13:07

big triumphant moment here. The

13:15

Spaghetti a la Asasina is done, but there's

13:17

still a lot of recipes to finalize, which

13:20

means a lot more decisions. And

13:23

one of the biggest of all is what pasta shapes

13:25

to pair with which sauces. Yes, Cascatelli

13:27

and my other shapes, Vesuvio and Quattrottini, will

13:29

get starring roles in the book, but I

13:31

want to feature a wide range of shapes.

13:35

So what makes a great pairing of pasta

13:37

sauce and shape? This is

13:39

a question I contemplate during multiple vision quests, by

13:41

which I mean long walks with our dog Sasha.

13:43

So prepare yourself, because this is going to take

13:46

a minute. In order to

13:48

pair a sauce with a shape, you first have

13:50

to understand the different types of sauces that are

13:52

out there. Once you know the type

13:54

of sauce you're working with, you figure out the best shape

13:56

to pair it with. And I've come

13:58

to the conclusion using classifieds. by all

14:00

pasta sauces based on two criteria.

14:03

You ready? Number one,

14:06

viscosity. Viscosity. Viscosity. This is a

14:08

fancy word for thickness and stickiness.

14:10

A higher viscosity sauce is thicker

14:13

and stickier, like mac and cheese.

14:15

Lower viscosity is more thin and oily, like

14:18

a white clam sauce. And

14:20

number two, chunk factor. Chunk factor. Chunk

14:22

factor. This is a combination of how

14:24

many chunks there are in the sauce

14:26

and how big they are. So a

14:28

high chunk factor sauce could be shrimp

14:30

scampi with whole shrimp or primavera with

14:32

cubes of vegetables. Low chunk

14:35

factor means chunks are very small, like in

14:37

a ground meat sauce, or non-existent, like with

14:39

vodka sauce. I've decided that

14:41

every pasta sauce can be classified by

14:44

its combination of viscosity and chunk factor.

14:47

This framework really helps me make decisions about

14:49

sauce and shape pairings. One example,

14:51

it leads me to use shells in more recipes

14:53

than I would have guessed. Because when you have

14:55

a low viscosity sauce with a high chunk factor,

14:57

there's not a lot of stickiness and thickness to

14:59

bind the chunks to the pasta. Shells

15:02

cradle those chunks beautifully, especially if you eat the

15:04

dish with a spoon. In

15:06

the book, I'll go into more detail on this

15:08

concept and use these terms to explain why I've

15:10

paired certain shapes with certain sauces. And

15:12

I hope that this section of the book will

15:15

help people match pastas with sauces even beyond the

15:17

recipes in there, just as general pasta life advice.

15:24

While I was off on my vision quest, my recipe

15:26

developers were still sending me recipes that I need to

15:28

test. So I get back at it. There's

15:30

a vegan dirty orzo, play on dirty rice,

15:33

developed by the soul food sauce boss, Darnell

15:35

Reed. I love this. This is actually one of my

15:37

favorite things so far. I love it too, but I decided I

15:39

wanted to have a little more quill seasoning. Next

15:41

is shells with miso butter and

15:44

scallions from saucy spicetress, Asha Lupe.

15:46

Holy Schneider. What kind of cheese

15:48

is it? It's Parmesan cheese. Yes,

15:51

sir. But it's got miso. I

15:53

decided to reduce the amount of butter, but that one's a hit,

15:56

a clear winner. Super Nona Katie,

15:58

Captain Rebecca and I also take turns. refining

16:00

the cavatelli with artichokes and preserved lemons you

16:02

heard us working on in episode one. Eight

16:04

months and 31 cans of artichokes after

16:07

I found the recipe that inspired the dish,

16:09

I do one final test and it's perfect.

16:12

Other recipes need bigger changes like the

16:14

Mexican wedding soup, a play on Italian

16:16

wedding soup with turkey meatballs and chilies.

16:18

Meatballs are a little

16:21

bouncy. Bouncy?

16:24

They're not like sauce. The

16:26

meatballs are bouncy. Sorry,

16:29

I know you've put a lot of work into that, but it

16:31

tastes like cafeteria meatballs. Ouch.

16:34

I love the flavors, but I do hear what

16:37

Jane is saying. I think trying to get all

16:39

the spices evenly mixed into the meatballs meant I

16:41

had to overwork the meat and that made it

16:43

a little tough. To reduce the

16:45

need to handle the meat, I suggest to

16:48

Captain Rebecca that we combine the spices first,

16:50

then sprinkle that mixture into the ground meat.

16:52

She tests out the new instructions, loves how the

16:54

meatballs come out and moves that one to the

16:56

folder of finished recipes. Realizing that

16:58

I was able to solve a culinary problem on my

17:01

own makes me feel great. And even though that one was

17:03

a lot of work and I end up with a result that I love,

17:05

it feels worth it. But when I don't

17:07

get that result, all the old questions and

17:09

doubts start to creep back in. Like

17:11

with one recipe I asked my mom to test.

17:13

Just like it just doesn't work. Just

17:15

too much. And also the color

17:18

is just not good. It looks like dirt.

17:20

That recipe doesn't make it into the book. Then there's

17:22

a cooking catastrophe that brings Emily running into the kitchen.

17:25

I asked her to do an impression of what I

17:27

sounded like from the other room. Oh

17:29

no! Ahhh!

17:32

They come and there's like sauce in the room.

17:34

I literally have pureed cauliflower sauce in all the

17:36

cracks in my laptop. Is

17:38

there another one that I'm concerned about? Scraping

17:41

up all the sauce and getting it back into the

17:43

bowl because I can't bear the thought

17:45

of having to start this recipe from the beginning again. Coming

17:53

up, weeks away from my deadline, another recipe failure

17:55

is sending me spiraling. And I get to a

17:57

point I never thought I'd get to. Stick

18:00

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it probably never fit right in the first

19:29

place. I got to freshen up

19:31

a little bit here. It's time for something

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19:51

freshened up my wardrobe. I got some nice dress shirts,

19:53

a couple of light hoodies. You know, you need light

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20:00

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we have been in a big grilled cheese

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dipped into tomato sauce kick here in the

20:22

Passion household and I'm making the grilled cheese

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with hero sliced bread. The kids like the

20:26

hero classic white bread. I like the hero

20:28

seeded bread. It's fluffy, the crust is just

20:30

right and I like that the slices are

20:32

sliced just a little bit thicker than a

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lot of other sliced breads. You griddle it

20:36

in butter, you add some cheese, you dip

20:38

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you're making homemade grilled cheese, BLT, maybe

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a tuna melt sounds nice on some

20:57

hero seeded bread. I bet that would be really

20:59

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21:15

HERO.C-O. I

21:17

just got a very wonderful shipment of

21:19

goodies from the folks at Reese's and

21:22

let me tell you something. These people

21:24

remain the absolute worldwide leaders in bringing

21:26

together chocolate and peanut butter. Of course,

21:28

we know the peanut butter cups remain

21:30

transcendent but have you tried the Reese's

21:32

sticks? They're wafers with peanut butter in

21:34

between each wafer all colored in chocolate.

21:36

I mean the combination of sweet chocolate

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and salty peanut butter just brings people

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joy and the folks at Reese's do

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it better than anyone. So shop

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Reese's Peanut Butter Cups now at a store

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near you found wherever candy is sold. Welcome

21:54

back to The Sporkful. I'm Dan Paschman. Before we get back to

21:56

the show, I want to let you know that I'm doing a

21:58

bunch of exciting book events coming... up to start it

22:01

with a free virtual event this Friday, March

22:03

15th. I'll be on Talk Shop Live in

22:05

conversation with my friend Kenji Lopez-Alt, who is

22:07

nice enough to write the forward to my

22:09

book. I'll also be taking questions from you,

22:11

and you can actually order signed copies of

22:13

my book through that event page right now.

22:15

There's a link at sporkful.com/tour. Again, the virtual

22:17

event is this Friday, March 15th at 8

22:19

p.m. Eastern, 5 Pacific, and after that I'm

22:21

hitting the road for a series of live

22:24

Sporkful tapings that will also be book signings.

22:26

I'm going to be in conversation with more

22:28

incredible folks than I can list here, hitting

22:30

cities all across America. It's the biggest

22:32

tour in Sporkful history, so I hope

22:34

you'll come out. I'd love to see

22:36

you there. You can find info on

22:38

the virtual event and all the live

22:40

shows at sporkful.com/tour. Now

22:42

back to anything's possible. As

22:45

the fall of 2022 turns to winter,

22:47

my deadline is approaching. In the midst

22:49

of hosting this podcast, doing Cascatelli stuff, and

22:51

helping to shuttle the kids here and there,

22:53

I finished about 75% of

22:55

the recipes, but it feels like I'm limping

22:57

towards the finish line. Decision fatigue is

23:00

setting in, and that's not

23:02

the only kind of fatigue I'm battling. Driving

23:05

back from another trip to the grocery store,

23:09

made pasta with potatoes and cheese

23:11

for lunch. Play

23:13

on a classic Neapolitan dish. Now

23:17

I'm cooking swordfish with salsa verde

23:19

pasta dish for dinner, which also

23:21

sounds delicious, but maybe

23:24

the potatoes and cheese are just still in my belly,

23:27

but I

23:29

gotta be honest. I

23:33

think I'm getting tired of eating pasta. The

23:37

two pasta recipes in the same day is

23:39

kind of grueling. It's

23:42

hard. I have to mentally put

23:44

myself in an altered state where I'm tasting them

23:46

and imagine if you were really in the mood

23:48

for this. Then would you like it? The

23:51

recipes in my to-do list start to run together in

23:54

my mind. Which one were you adding, lemon zest to?

23:56

Did I need to test that one with all the

23:58

anchovies again? Now it's Christmas

24:00

2022 and I have six weeks to

24:02

finish all my recipes. I test a

24:05

baked cauliflower mac and beer cheese with a

24:07

heavy dose of mustard and a pretzel crumb

24:09

topping inspired by one of my favorite bar

24:11

snacks, soft pretzel with extra mustard. I

24:13

bring the finished dish when we go to a friend's holiday party.

24:16

Janie and I discuss when we get home. I

24:18

don't know, it's something very demoralized. I spent

24:20

like nearly two hours on that pasta dish

24:22

tonight that beer

24:25

cheese, pretzel, cauliflower, and it's just like,

24:27

I don't know, I think it was

24:29

that good. Oh

24:32

yeah, I mean, I didn't try it but I thought it was

24:34

good. I mean, you know,

24:36

it's mac and cheese, it can't be bad, but like

24:40

the sauce is very runny and I didn't

24:43

really have the mustard flavor I wanted and

24:45

the roux kind of was like grainy, I

24:47

don't know. I

24:50

think it was really tired. Maybe you can think

24:52

about it in the morning. Because

24:56

I know everyone who tried it said it was good. I

24:59

mean, what are they gonna say? It's just

25:01

discouraging. I kind of

25:04

check these things off my list, they

25:06

or whatever, and I finish the recipe and feel like

25:08

it's good, at least I'm making progress and then to

25:10

like put so

25:12

much work into making one and then have it not come out

25:14

well, it's just like... I

25:18

don't think I accomplished nothing. I

25:21

don't know, I'm tired and I'm over the cookbook.

25:23

I'm tired and I'm over the cookbook. I'm

25:25

tired and I'm over the cookbook. I'm tired and I'm over

25:28

the cookbook. I'm tired and I'm over the cookbook. I'm

25:30

tired and I'm over the cookbook. I'm tired and I'm over the cookbook.

25:33

I'm tired and I'm over the cookbook. When I was a

25:35

kid, even before I knew exactly what I wanted to

25:37

do with my life, I knew I wanted my job

25:39

to involve being creative. I remember in

25:41

Mrs. McDonald's fifth grade class, I had an idea

25:43

for some kind of science activity center we could

25:45

build, all about light and sound. I

25:47

came home from school and spent the whole afternoon writing

25:49

up an outline of the concept. Mind you, this was

25:51

not for any assignment. I wasn't required to do it.

25:54

I just got excited about the idea. This

25:57

would happen to me periodically throughout middle school and

25:59

high school. creative spark led to

26:01

an obsession. Whatever I would

26:03

do when I grew up, I knew I wanted to keep

26:05

chasing that spark. Now,

26:07

25 years into my career, I've

26:09

learned that the harder part is turning an

26:12

exciting idea into a finished thing that's actually

26:14

good, especially as your ideas become more ambitious.

26:17

Along the way, you're going to get discouraged and it's going to

26:19

feel like a slog and you're going to question whether it's worth

26:21

it. And for me at those moments,

26:23

I try to tap back into the spark that got

26:25

me excited about the project in the first place. Now,

26:29

as I hit a wall on my cookbook, I'm

26:31

struggling to find that spark until

26:34

one day when I'm in the car running errands. I

26:38

got excited because I got an idea. So

26:41

Ali Slagle, she has this cookbook called I Dream

26:43

of Dinner and I was looking through it. It's

26:45

a great cookbook. And she's got this

26:47

dish where she cooks pasta, she boils the pasta, then

26:49

she puts it on a sheet pan with some sauce

26:51

and puts it in the oven. So the whole thing

26:53

gets like crispy edges. And I

26:56

thought that's genius. She uses a short pasta shape,

26:58

I forget which one. I was

27:00

thinking about this. What if we used a

27:02

long pasta shape? What if we took fettuccine?

27:06

Cooked it, oiled it, all right. Then drizzle

27:09

it with some olive oil, put it on a sheet pan, probably

27:11

oil the sheet pan too. You spread the fettuccine all out of

27:13

the sheet pan so it's flat. It

27:16

looks almost like a nest, like a flat nest. And

27:19

then it would kind of all like you

27:21

would end up with a cohesive bottom layer

27:23

that would hold together and you'd actually like

27:26

slice squares out from the sheet

27:28

pan. And then I'm like, wait a second, this

27:30

is basically a pizza. But instead

27:32

of a crust of

27:34

pizza, it's crispy cooked

27:36

pasta. You can just do

27:39

cheese and tomato sauce out of a jar

27:41

on top of this crispy pasta base. And

27:45

I just think this is a good idea.

27:47

This is gonna be really delicious and

27:50

different. I can't wait to try it. A few

27:53

days later, I give pasta pizza a go. I

27:55

take cooked fettuccine and put it on an oiled

27:57

sheet pan. and

28:00

cheese and half with artichokes, feta and za'atar,

28:02

which is a combo I use on homemade

28:04

pizza sometimes. I put it in the oven. Becky

28:07

and Emily wander into the kitchen while it's baking.

28:09

It smells like pizza. This is an experiment. I'm

28:11

not following a recipe that anyone gave me. This

28:14

is just an idea that I had while I was driving.

28:16

Pasta pizza? Yes.

28:18

Should I explain it more or is that it?

28:22

Um, I mean, football is

28:24

really all that I need to know and if

28:26

I ask you to explain it, I know it's

28:28

going to go into like a whole

28:31

hour's beach about

28:33

it. So I'm just going to avoid that

28:35

and just say yeah and no. You're

28:41

basing this whole thing off an idea that came to you in the car?

28:44

Yes. So you had no proof that it was going to work or

28:46

not, but you still wasted materials on it anyway?

28:49

It's not a waste if you learn something from it. No,

28:52

no, it's still a waste. I'm

28:54

not worried about waste. It's cooked pasta. In my house,

28:56

it'll get eaten. What I'm worried about

28:58

is that I desperately want to see some proof of

29:00

concept here. I really need some good news. For

29:03

my first test, even if it's not perfect, I

29:05

want some indication that it's even possible to cook

29:08

pasta in a way that it coheres into a

29:10

single sheet, firm and crispy on the bottom. So

29:12

you can cut slices, pick them up and eat

29:14

them with your hands like pizza. But

29:17

after 20 minutes in the oven, the pasta still

29:19

isn't crisping on the bottom. The family is

29:21

getting restless. Pasta pizza will be like

29:23

pasta on top of the pizza. No, it

29:26

should be pizza pasta because the pizza

29:28

is like describing the pasta. Exactly. But

29:31

if it was pasta, pizza would sound like pasta on

29:33

top of pizza. It's a pizza

29:35

made of pasta. So the adjective goes

29:38

first. So pasta is the adjective modifying

29:40

pizza. The adjective is

29:43

describing the pasta because the pasta is

29:45

pizza. Pizza pasta might

29:47

technically be more correct. But to

29:49

me, what'll make this dish special is that it

29:51

functions like a pizza. It's topped like a pizza

29:53

and eaten with your hands like a pizza. So

29:55

I call it pizza pasta. It sounds like a

29:57

pasta dish, but I want it to sound like

29:59

pasta. like a pizza. So I'm overruling

30:01

my family. Pasta pizza it is, but

30:04

I'm getting ahead of myself, because it won't matter what I

30:06

call it if it turns out to be physically impossible. After

30:09

another 15 minutes in the oven, I take it out.

30:11

Oh, we do have some

30:14

crispiness on the bottom. I'm

30:16

still not sure that it's gonna really hold together like a

30:18

slice of pizza. I serve it to my

30:20

taste testers. So I had the R2O confetti

30:22

one first and that wasn't really holding together, so I ate

30:25

it with a fork. But right now I'm eating the tomato

30:27

sauce and cheese one and that seems to be holding together

30:29

a lot better. The fact

30:31

that even some of the pasta pizza is functioning as

30:33

I want is a ray of hope. I

30:35

make note of what I need to change next time. More

30:37

oil to make it crispier and figuring out how to make

30:39

it stay together so I can cut and serve it without

30:41

it falling apart. Over the next

30:43

couple of weeks, I test the recipe again and

30:46

again. This is pasta pizza take two. The

30:48

big change that I made is that I mixed egg

30:51

in with the pasta and that helps to

30:53

bind it together to hold it together more. And I put

30:55

more oil in the pan, which helps it to get crispier

30:57

on the bottom. It's definitely a big

30:59

improvement from last time. It's like

31:01

I'm eating pizza but with pasta, it's really good.

31:04

All right, pasta pizza take

31:06

three. This is amazing.

31:08

It really looks like pizza,

31:10

don't you think? Yeah, but it's just

31:13

so pretty looking. It's like it'd be nice to put

31:16

out for a party. I could eat this three meals

31:18

a day 24 seven. It's

31:20

literal gas. Is that a good thing? Is that

31:22

what the kids say? Yeah, gas makes

31:25

the cargo, which makes friction on the

31:27

road, which makes heat, which is fire.

31:29

Which is a good thing.

31:32

Got it. All right, we're getting

31:34

closer. How

31:36

are you supposed to do these again? No,

31:38

there's more room for improvement. I

31:40

continue to experiment with different quantities of

31:42

oil, cooking times and other variables. All

31:45

right, this is pasta

31:48

pizza take five. I mean,

31:51

it looks amazing. It's holding

31:53

together well. It's crusty. It's

31:55

crunchy. The big

31:57

change that I made this time is that I put

31:59

the pasta in the

32:02

pan in the oven by itself for

32:04

15 minutes before I put the

32:06

toppings on to give it more time to

32:08

brown and turn crispy. Emily,

32:11

do you feel like it's gotten better? Yeah,

32:15

the other one, the more like pasta, this

32:17

one is like, it's like taste just like

32:19

pizza. Oh my gosh.

32:21

This is

32:23

a lot better. As I

32:25

tell Janie and the kids, another change I made here

32:27

is that I switched from fresh mozzarella to shredded mozzarella.

32:30

I love fresh mozzarella, but the problem was it was

32:32

releasing a lot of liquid and that was making the

32:34

bottom kind of soggy. Shredded mozzarella holds

32:36

the whole thing together a lot better. We

32:39

use shredded mozzarella when we make like-a-la

32:41

pizza. What's interesting

32:43

is like, you always say like I'm not a trained

32:45

chef, you know, you just like to

32:47

like obsess about food. Like this is something that

32:49

the recipe testers would typically do and like

32:51

you're not, you know, like to

32:54

think like, oh, if I change the cheese, then it

32:56

will be less watery or whatever.

32:59

That's an impressive sauce that you had. I think

33:01

you're, you're crossing over into, you know,

33:03

culinary territory. Chef Tim.

33:06

It's delicious. Let's be honest.

33:08

This is kind of bittersweet because it's

33:10

like now if you don't

33:12

keep making new versions, I can't keep eating. And

33:16

then they're going to be eating again. I feel

33:18

really excited about this. And can I tell you something? I

33:21

know that this cookbook

33:23

has been a lot of work for me and that's

33:25

created stress for everybody and I'm sorry for that. It's

33:28

not stressful. You know, it

33:30

feels free to make a thousand dishes. I'm

33:32

going to just keep eating and eating them.

33:34

Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're the one who stressed

33:36

out. The rest of us are enjoying this. That's

33:38

your mama. But

33:41

when I'm a little extra stressed out sometimes, that means

33:43

things need to deal with a slightly cranky

33:45

parent. Is it worth

33:47

it? It depends on the

33:50

pasta. But this is like…

34:00

This is why you do things like this, the

34:02

take on a project like a cookbook. Is

34:06

the feeling of like having an idea while

34:08

you're driving in the car and getting excited about it and

34:10

thinking about it and then trying it over and over again

34:12

and making it better and better and refining it and then

34:14

finally nailing it, like seeing that idea through to fruition, like

34:17

that's the fun part of my job.

34:22

Just like that, the spark is back. In

34:27

the weeks to follow, I finished up the

34:29

last of the recipes on time. I worked

34:31

with recipe developer Asha Lupi, aka the Saucy

34:33

Spicerest, to figure out where that cauliflower, mac

34:35

and beer cheese went wrong. Turns out I

34:37

got confused by some of her instructions. So

34:39

we rewrote those to make them clearer for

34:41

people, made a few more tweaks, and the

34:43

finished dish is off the charts. Mac and

34:45

cheese with a hint of mustard and beer,

34:47

with a topping of crumbled ritz crackers and

34:49

herbs, I mean, I can't even. Writing

34:52

this book has made me a better cook and it's

34:54

nice of Janie to recognize that. But

34:56

in some ways, that mac and cheese dish made me

34:59

glad I'm not a chef. A chef

35:01

probably would have understood Asha's instructions, but

35:03

I'm making this book for home cooks like me. So

35:06

if I can make sure the recipes work for me, they

35:08

should work for you. In

35:10

other words, I've come to see that for my

35:13

cookbook, being a home cook isn't a weakness. It's

35:15

a strength. Coming

35:22

up next week in the series finale of Anything's

35:24

Possible, we have the recipes finalized, but now we

35:26

need to bring them together into a book, which

35:29

means we need a title. You're not gonna

35:31

win a James Beard cookbook award with a

35:34

title, Put It on Pasta. We

35:36

also need photos and props to go in those

35:38

photos, which will require a trip to the junkyard.

35:40

Man, I already have like

35:42

two huge carts that are like

35:44

400 pounds full of tile, but

35:47

I can't stop. Ah!

35:50

Ha ha ha! And we need to design

35:52

the cover. I hate it. I

35:54

actually hate it. Oh my God. I hate it.

35:56

Look, I can't even tell what that is. We

35:59

have a- million more decisions to make and a million

36:01

more things that could go wrong. How

36:03

many of them will go wrong? Find out in

36:06

our finale which drops next Monday March 18th the

36:08

day before the book comes out. And

36:11

hey if you listened to me eat my way

36:13

across Italy in the last episode and thought I'd

36:15

like to do that I hope you heard me

36:17

announce that I have teamed up with the folks

36:19

at culinary backstreet to create a food tour of

36:22

Italy hitting many of the same spots you heard

36:24

me hit with many of the same people. Sign

36:26

up for this touring you'll eat in Rome with

36:28

Katie Parla cook in Lecce with Sylvester Silva Story

36:30

and eat spaghetti a la sassina in

36:32

Bari with me. Come eat pasta in

36:34

Italy with me. It's all happening in

36:37

November. Get the info at culinarybackstreet.com Sporkful.

36:41

To see behind the scenes photos and videos

36:43

of this whole journey follow me on Instagram

36:45

at the Sporkful. And if you want to

36:47

see the Sporkful live and pick up a

36:49

copy of the book that I will personally

36:51

sign just for you I am hitting the

36:53

road traveling all across the country in conversation

36:56

with some incredible guests get info and tickets

36:58

at sporkful.com/tour. Special thanks to Bill

37:00

Nye the Science Guy and Helen Zaltsman of

37:02

the Illusionist podcast they were the voices you

37:04

heard say viscosity and chunk factor. Do you

37:06

spot them? Also special thanks to all

37:08

my recipe developers if you want to learn more about them

37:10

we've been sharing their personal backstories in short segments in

37:12

the podcast which ran in February so I hope you'll

37:14

check those out if you haven't already. The

37:17

Sporkful is produced by me along with

37:19

managing producer Emma Morgenstern and senior producer

37:22

Andres O'Hara. Our editors on this series

37:24

are Tracy Samuelson and Nora Richie with

37:26

editorial help from Taneka Wetherspoon. Our audio

37:28

engineer is Jared O'Connell. Original theme music

37:31

by Ampre Christian Sostes. Additional music help

37:33

from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is

37:35

a production of Stitcher Studios. Our executive

37:37

producers are Colin Anderson and Nora Richie.

37:40

Until next time I'm Dan Passion. And

37:42

this is Charlotte and Cologne Germany

37:44

reminding you to eat more,

37:46

eat better and eat more butter.

38:01

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