Hey men! Eat vegtables you weirdos!
Roasted tomato pasta sauce
Do you ever get the impression that there are straight men out there who think that liking tofu will make them gay? I think about this a lot. I wanted to do my digital humanities project for my class last semester on like, a semantic analysis of comments on vegetarian/”healthy” recipe blogs vs vegetarian recipes on for lack of a better word “normie” food blogs (ie if you have recipes for sheet pan chicken you have a normie food blog). It seems to be a recurring thing that women will write in the comments “I made this and my hubby/hubs/husband and children who never eat vegetables loved it!”
Speaking as a child who never ate vegetables, because of course I was That Kid, imagine being married to That Kid but oh wait it’s a full adult man who is supposed to be a responsible human being?
Anyway, related to the fragility of masculinity:
What I’m reading
This little article about a woman running a blog that does side by side recipe comparisons: I am all admiration for her!
This article about Britney Spears, and #FreeBritney is a great piece of culture writing, I think its a wonderful reflection on, you know, all of it.
I was so charmed by this article about Glamour Shots! The story of how the business thrived and also crashed and burned, except in El Paso!
Okay one last one: I found this article about Jibo the social robot, and its impending death. I am generally really creeped out by things like Alexa, but I found people discussing their relationships with Jibo to be incredibly touching.
For Dinner:
Baked tomato sauce with, well, pasta obviously
Recipe adapted from Smitten Kitchen
5 tablespoons olive oil
A few tablespoons of tomato paste (if you’ve got it) (I usually get the tubes, so I just kinda squirt some into the bottom of the pan without measuring)
1 pound very ripe cherry tomatoes, halved (or, you know, TWO PINT BASKETS)
1/3 cup panko or fresh breadcrumbs if you’re a madman
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (sweeter)
2 tablespoons freshly grated pecorino cheese (saltier)
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
1 pound dried fusilli (corkscrew) or farfalline (butterfly) pasta
1/4 cup loosely packed fresh basil leaves, torn or sliced
Preheat oven to 400. Mix two tablespoons of olive oil and the tomato paste into the bottom of a 9x13. The tomato paste isn’t necessary but it will help give your sauce more body, and make it a bit more intense, especially if you’re using grocery store tomatoes of ambivalent quality. Bring a pot of well salted water to boil.
Slice the tomatoes in half, and put them in the pan, cut side up. Mix the cheeses, breadcrumbs, and garlic with a good amount of pepper and some salt with another tablespoon of olive oil, sprinkle this mix on top of the tomatoes, (Deb mentions that you want each tomato to have some. Sure.)
Bake until the tomatoes are cooked, and your breadcrumbs are browning. About 20 minutes. While it is in the oven, cook your pasta. Reserve some pasta water. Toss sauce with some pasta water and the noodles, obviously. Serve with some cut up basil.
Anyway, it’s the second day of summer, so happy summer, etc. I just got dandelion greens in the CSA, what should I make with them?