Have you ever looked around at the ingredients at your disposal, the energy you have to give to the cooking process – or, as I recently explained to a medium-sized child shortly before not being invited to future family events, the amount of fudge you have left to give from your, uh, fudge bucket – and decided to boil some spaghetti, toss it with garlic olive oil and call it dinner?
There’s a real official name for this dish and it’s aglio e olio, and there’s no time like the dog days of summer, or perhaps the days you might spend at the whims of an ill-equipped vacation rental home kitchen, to remind us that no matter how many amazing things you know how to cook, there’s no incentive for people to look up from their screens/wake up from their post-beach slumber to peer around the corner. the street with piqued interest like the aromatic magic of garlic. sizzling in olive oil. “Ooh, what is that?”
Aglio e olio is a pasta dish from the city of Naples, Italy, but it has legions of fans among exhausted cooks around the world because of its short list of ingredients—I bet you already have some—and the disproportionate amount of flavor and joy that comes with it. I’ve been using it as a pocket-sized recipe for years, eating it as is with a salad, with a side of whatever looked good at the market that week, with a handful of diced roasted vegetables that were dying in the fridge, and even, if you so desire (I bet you do) topped with lemon-grilled shrimp or chicken thighs. But I also forget that it exists for months, and when I remember, we’re always happy to have it back in the rotation, so consider that a boost. August is a time for working less hard in and outside of the kitchen, and that’s exactly where I hope it finds you too.
