Food Friday: A Really Nice Summer Supper

So, I broke down and bought Gwyneth Paltrow’s new cookbook (My Father’s Daughter: Delicious, Easy Recipes Celebrating Family & Togetherness). I don’t typically buy ‘celebrity cookbooks’ – in general I find them annoying and unhelpful, and I usually avoid them – and, believe me, I did not intend to buy this one either. But I was curious about it. I’ve always been intrigued by Gwyneth’s highly public foray into macrobiotic eating and whole-food cooking, and I’ll admit that I do like her PBS food show with Mario Batali (Spain: on the road Again). So, when I saw the cookbook on sale the other day, I picked it up out of curiosity, wanting very much to dislike it. The problem was that I quickly became engaged in it (the writing is good), and the even bigger problem was this: I found myself thinking “I’d totally make that!” for just about every single recipe on every single page. For years now I’ve had a rule for myself— I’ll only buy a cookbook if I go page-by-page through the first 1/4th of the book and think “I’d totally make that!” for almost all (if not all) of the recipes. Well, darn. It happened with Gwyneth Paltrow’s cookbook. Making matters worse: the cookbook is filled with light, fresh, healthy, family-friendly recipes — perfect for summertime— and I just so happened to be looking at the book at the start of our summer, just ripe for inspiring meal ideas, and feeling invigorated to try some new things. Dang.

I bought it. And it is one of those (many) cookbooks that I couldn’t wait to read cover-to-cover— a real page-turner for me. I really like this cookbook. Last night I made Gwyneth’s “Spaghetti Limone Parmeggiano” (click for recipe here). It was a big huge hit with us five.

The boys were insanely hungry (what else is new?), so I put out some good bread, olive oil with herbs for bread-dipping, and hard salami. The rest of my family gathered around the kitchen eating that, and drinking Pellegrino (I swear, Pellegrino always makes a meal feel special!), while I made the pasta and a simple green salad with tomatoes. The whole entire meal took me less than 30 minutes (for real!) to prepare from the moment I cracked open Gwyneth’s cookbook to the moment that we sat down to devour the dinner. Literally, the most time-consuming part was waiting for the pasta water to boil. It turned out to be absolutely delicious— a really nice summer supper. I highly recommend it! (and I’m pretty sure this will become a Regular around here.)