Garlic Scape Garganelli

Many of you probably already know the story of where the O&O portion of this blog name comes from. They are my two kitties, and they are the queens who preside over this kingdom in which I humbly live. The kitchen is a part of their (cough totalitarian cough) domain, and they will eat anything and everything that isn't stored somewhere you need functional thumbs to open. One of them will bite through plastic to get at brioche buns (did I mention they have high class taste?), and the other...the other will eat my homemade garlic scape garganelli as they are drying on the counter. I will scream, she will run away, and I will mope over the state of the gnawed-on pasta which I spent so many hours making.

Which leads me to a question for you guys. How much time do you have this week? At least four uninterrupted hours? Gooood, that means you can make this pasta. I'm not joking. I know that sounds a little absurd, but when you're savoring each delicious, garlicky bite, it's so much more satisfying knowing you painstakingly rolled every individual garganelli by hand. And to make things even more interesting, there are garlic scapes in the dough itself, adding another layer of complexity and uniqueness to the flavor, which is something you won't find in the pasta aisle of your local store.

Tagliatelle with Roasted Cauliflower

We managed to wade our way through the entire month of January without touching any kind of pork product. Why you ask, would we undertake such an endeavor? The simple answer is because I wanted to and by extension Phillip had to. The complicated answer has something to do with animal welfare, environmental sustainability, and the fact that pigs are just so god damn cute, but I won't bore you with a long winded explanation.

Then, on February 1st we promptly went to my neighborhood diner and ordered french toast, over easy eggs, homefries, and three sausage links. It was glorious. It was euphoric. But I felt awful. Not only about the poor pig that died in order for me to get my preservative laden breakfast sausage, but also for my obvious lack of willpower. It got me thinking. Though it might be unrealistic to say that I'll stop eating pork for good (just put a slice of prosciutto in front of me, I dare you, I will probably bite your hand off in my fervor to eat it), as long as it has helped me be more aware of the food choices I make on a daily basis, no-pork-January has done its job.

Citrus Stuffed Whole Roasted Fish

In my youth, when I was more adventurous and blissfully ignorant of the world, I used to eat fish eyeballs. It was my special treat. After there was nothing left of a fish except for the carcass and head, I would dig the eyeballs out with my nimble little fingers and eat them. Like an olive. I'd slurp the outside off and spit out the "pit" (for those of you who don't know, at the very center of a cooked fish eye is this inedible, hard, white ball). It wasn't until my friends and classmates from school told me I was a weirdo that I realized eating fish eyes wasn't exactly considered normal by most western standards. Subsequently, it wasn't until I was much older that I realized, who cares what kids think? They are dumb and reject anything outside of their own narrow range of life experiences; myself included, I thought it was weird other people thought eating fish eyeballs was weird.

Couscous with Summer Squash & Roasted Garlic Vinaigrette

I hate raisins. I consider myself pretty open minded when it comes to food, but raisins...guh! They are the one thing that I absolutely refuse to eat. The only exception is pickled golden raisins, but that's because pickles are more awesome than raisins are terrible. The absolute worst is when people sneak raisins into carrot cake. WHYYYY? They don't belong.