Winging it

So tonight, as I marched to the kitchen intent on making lasagna, and realized that if I was going to make lasagna, the first step would have to be making the mozzarella, and realized also that the whole production would take me three hours... my eyes fell on that cookbook in the picture, and I was gripped with rapture.

The cookbook is Brunch: 100 recipes from the Five Points Restaurant, and Mrs. Danby was with me when I bought it. It is as perfect a cookbook as they come. The pictures are stunning, the recipes are exciting and inspiring. The chef's tips are informative and useful, unlike some chefs' tips that make me want to roll my eyes. (For example: If you don't want to clean your own octopus, many well-stocked grocers offer cleaned, boiled octopus, which is fine for this recipe. Yes, there is a limit, even for me.) I've already made the book's Rosemary Cornmeal Scones, Puffed Oven Pancake with Broiled Apples, and Red Cabbage Slaw. Tonight, I set out to make the recipe I most wanted to try: Pasta Cake.

One problem, though. I didn't have penne, I had rotini. I didn't have mozzarella, I had ricotta. I didn't have spinach, I had two pounds of green tomatoes. This is my favorite kind of cooking, by far. You pan through the recipe, shake out anything extraneous, take the basic gestalt, and go for the gold. Pasta, eggs, cheese, vegetables. Got it? Got it.

Sometimes it flops. Oh, yeah, have we all been there. But sometimes you're standing in the kitchen unmolding this heaven-scented, perfectly browned creation, this opus of culinary ingenuity. (How's that for over-the-top?)

It tasted pretty damn good, too.