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1 week ago | 
pastasocialclub.substack.com | Meryl Feinstein
I often talk about pasta like it’s a living, breathing thing, an old friend with thoughts and feelings and very outspoken opinions. And if I were more scientifically inclined, I might try to convince you that pasta is, in fact, just like us, with its own taxonomic classifications. Because pasta is not one thing, but hundreds of things, and those things can, more or less, be categorized by what they look like and how they’re made.
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2 weeks ago | 
pastasocialclub.substack.com | Meryl Feinstein
Lasagne is one of those dishes that comfortably falls into the All-Day, Probably Winter Cooking category—but what if it didn’t? Today I’m sharing a recipe that might change your mind about what a lasagne could be (and what it doesn’t have to be—see: all-day, probably winter), a lasagne that’s designed for warm weather and hails from the stunning Italian Riviera: lasagne alla Portofino. Like many lasagne, lasagne alla Portofino is made with tender sheets of pasta and creamy béchamel.
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3 weeks ago | 
pastasocialclub.substack.com | Meryl Feinstein
As I sit here munching on matzah, I thought I’d use this pasta-free week as an opportunity to tell you about a few things I’ve been enjoying lately, and also to announce something exciting: my first product collaboration. You probably know that I am very particular about the things I use in my kitchen, and even more particular about the brands I promote—I will never, ever recommend something I do not fully stand behind.
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1 month ago | 
pastasocialclub.substack.com | Meryl Feinstein
Here’s another recipe that got stuck in my head solely for the poetry of its name—because you all know how much I lovealliteration. It’s also a recipe that, fortuitously, turned out so incredibly well that it easily found a home on my Favorite Recipes I’ve Ever Developed list.
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1 month ago | 
pastasocialclub.substack.com | Meryl Feinstein
Once there was a priest who loved to hunt. On one occasion, so consumed was he by the lure of the forest—or, perhaps, he was just a bit stupid—the priest set off without proper provisions and too little food to fuel his day. Upon returning home, he was ravenous, so hungry he would have eaten anything at all, even “poor and dry” polenta.
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1 month ago | 
pastasocialclub.substack.com | Meryl Feinstein
Today, I’m heading to Italy for the first time in 7 years (!), and to Puglia for the first time ever. So, to mark the occasion, I thought I’d share a recipe for one of Puglia’s most dramatic pasta dishes: spaghetti all’assassina, the spicy, seared “assassin’s spaghetti” that’s taken over the internet.
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2 months ago | 
pastasocialclub.substack.com | Meryl Feinstein
Before we jump in, a bit of exciting news: I’m finally, finally, after 6 years, relaunching my pasta-focused supper club! At its core, Pasta Social Club is about connecting with others and making friends around the table. I’m calling this iteration Pasta Night! and all dates for the spring season (April, May, June) are live on my website here.
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2 months ago | 
pastasocialclub.substack.com | Meryl Feinstein
Often fresh pasta is associated with terms like fancy and refined, a special-occasion food reserved for expensive restaurants and once-a-year celebrations. Sometimes that’s true, but I’m on a mission to prove that for every fancy, refined pasta there is its everyday, rustic counterpart. Shapes like cavatelli, pici, and orecchiette come to mind—bits of dough fashioned quickly and irregularly, without a passing thought for perfection.
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2 months ago | 
pastasocialclub.substack.com | Meryl Feinstein
In Florence, less than a ten-minute walk from the city’s watchful Duomo, there’s a restaurant called Trattoria Garga. It’s been a fixture of the Florentine dining scene for decades, known not only for its food but also its art: Covered head-to-toe in brightly painted murals, it’s more or less a “mini three-room circus” and a reminder, if anyone needed one, that Florence’s blood still runs in every color, even 500 years after da Vinci and Michelangelo drew their last breaths.
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2 months ago | 
pastasocialclub.substack.com | Meryl Feinstein
Lately I’ve been dreaming of summer, the green and the warmth and the big, beautiful tomatoes. Food that’s a little lighter, the stuff you might munch on while watching boats bob off the coast of the Italian islands, stuff like grease-stained paper cones of fried anchovies and twirls of spaghetti in peppery puddles of olive oil.
