Hamilton Melissa - Canal House Cooking Volume N° 8: Pronto!

Copyright 2013 by Christopher Hirsheimer & Melissa Hamilton

Photographs copyright 2013 by Christopher Hirsheimer

Illustrations copyright 2013 by Melissa Hamilton

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Canal House

No. 6 Coryell Street

Lambertville, NJ 08530

thecanalhouse.com

ISBN 978-1-4804-5266-4

Book design by Canal House, a group of artists who collaborate on design projects.

This book was designed by Christopher Hirsheimer, Melissa Hamilton & Teresa Hopkins.

Edited by Margo True & Copyedited by Valerie Saint-Rossy.

The Editorial Team: Frani Beadle, Michelle Fuerst, Julia Lee & Kate Winslow.

With great appreciation to
Jay Murrie, Lex Alexander & Lori De Mori

This 2013 edition distributed by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com

Top row: Melissa (left) and Christopher (right) in Siena; bottom: our rented farmhouse kitchen in Tuscany

Welcome to the Canal House our studio, workshop, dining room, office, kitchen, andatelier devoted to good ideas and good work relating to the world of food. We write,photograph, design, and paint, but in our hearts we both think of ourselves as cooks first.Our loft studio is in an old red brick warehouse. A beautiful lazy canal runs alongsidethe building. We have a simple galley kitchen. Two small apartment-size stovessit snugly side by side against a white tiled wall. We have a dishwasher, but prefer tohand wash the dishes so we can look out of the tall window next to the sink and see theducks swimming in the canal or watch the raindrops splashing into the water.

And every day we cook. Starting in the morning we tell each other what we madefor dinner the night before. Midday, we stop our work, set the table simply with papernapkins, and have lunch. We cook seasonally because thats what makes sense. So it camenaturally to write down what we cook. The recipes in our books are what we make forourselves and our families all year long. If you cook your way through a few, youll seethat who we are comes right through in the pages: that we are crazy for tomatoes insummer, make braises and stews all fall, and turn oranges into marmalade in winter.

Canal House Cooking is home cooking by home cooks for home cooks. We use ingredientsfound in most markets. All the recipes are easy to prepare for the novice andexperienced cook alike. The everyday practice of simple cooking and the enjoymentof eating are two of the greatest pleasures in life.

Christopher and Melissa currently publish Canal House Cooking, for which theycollaborate on all aspects. They were the recipients of the 2013 James Beard FoundationAward in the General Cooking category for their cookbook, Canal HouseCooks Every Day (Andrews McMeel, 2012). They write The Seasonal Cooks columnfor Bon Apptit magazine. Their daily blog, Canal House Cooks Lunch, hasthousands of followers. Visit them at thecanalhouse.com.

CHRISTOPHER HIRSHEIMER is a home cook, writer, photographer, and cofounder ofCanal House in Lambertville, New Jersey. Hirsheimer was one of the founders ofSaveur, where she was executive editor. She cowrote the award-winning Saveur Cooksseries and The San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers Market Cookbook (Chronicle, 2006).

MELLISSA HAMILTON is a home cook, writer, painter, and cofounder of Canal House,in Lambertville, New Jersey. She previously worked at Martha Stewart Living andCooks Illustrated, before she joined Saveur, first as the test kitchen director, andthen served as its food editor.

Clockwise from top left: parking in Rome, sunlight in Rome, waiter in Venice, terraced vegetable gardens in Liguria, laundry in Venice, table in an Umbrian garden, grocery store in Todi, caf in Palermo

CUCINA CASA CANALE

ITS STRAIGHT UP TWELVE OCLOCK and the towns noon whistle blowsjust to make the pointits lunchtime. Most days we write and photograph inthe morning, stopping for lunch as it fits into our day. But today, company iscoming in an hour. We quickly tidy up, clearing off our big work table in thecenter of the studio. We cover it with brown paper from a roll that we keep inthe back and set the table with dishtowel napkins, mismatched hotel silverware,water and wine glasses, and little white dishes of Maldon salt and coarselyground black pepper. We both put on aprons, and hustle into the kitchen.

Our workspace is narrow, just three-by-twelve feet, but we dont mindwelike cooking together. We can cook anywhere on anything. We tease each otherthat if left without other resources, we could use a car radiator as a stove. We areso used to sharing kitchen space and tasks that we can communicate with a nod, alook, a gestureits our own language developed over a long time. We pass, reachacross and over each other, like two people who have danced together for manyyears. We know each others steps.

This morning on the way to the studio one of us stopped at the fish marketand picked up small, sweet Manila clams flown in from Puget Sound. We stashedtwo wet brown bags of them in the fridge. The other picked long zucchini fromher garden. Its hard to keep up with zucchini, and these had been hidden underhuge leaves, where they had grown far too big. But well find a way to use them.So what should we make? we ask each other. How about a pasta? We rememberthat we have lumache, the snail-shell shape, in our pantry. It seems likea perfect fit: once removed from their hard purple-lined shells, the clams can slipinside shells of soft pasta. So we have a plan: we decide to add a salad, some goodbread, a bottle of Sangiovese, and now we have a fine menu for our guests.Our style of cooking has logic and order, and today the clams need to berinsed, and well need a big pot of boiling water for the pasta, and what are wegoing to do with the zucchini?wed better get going.

We slide past each other in the narrow kitchen. One of us reaches up to ahigh shelf for two big metal bowls, puts them side by side in the kitchen sink,and fills them with cold water while the other looks for the clams in the fridge.

Where did you stash the clams?

Behind the milk on the top shelf.

Should we salt the water?

What about soaking them in salty cornmeal water, so they purge themselves?

No need, we agree. Instead, one of us plunges the clams first into one bowl ofwater, then lifts them out and plunges them into the other, letting the sedimentsettle on the bottom. The other grabs a heavy pot from the rack, puts it on thestove, and adds the clams, along with a big glug of white wine.

This wine okay?

Yes, itll add a nice brightness to the clams. Give it another slug.

The pot is covered, the heat turned to high. The clams quickly open and releasetheir juices. We set them aside to cool.