Pasta for All Seasons

April 17, 2023
Readers shouldn’t expect traditional nonna recipes from Seattle chef Tartaglia (Pasta Casalinga); instead, the author proffers modern takes that incorporate local ingredients from her adoptive home in the Pacific Northwest. While not traditional, the dishes, organized by season, have a recognizably casual Italian style. Summer features sockeye salmon and heirloom tomatoes from Seattle’s Billy’s Garden. Winter brings a ragù made with elk and a spicy puttanesca with geoduck. A fifth chapter offers two recipes suitable for any time of year: pasta in a simple tomato sauce and a tomato-less mushroom lasagna. Several options rely on ingredients from Seattle’s Pike Place market, including a pasta with spinach and almonds that folds in Beecher’s Flagship cheese and African cayenne from World Spice Merchants. There are two pasta dough recipes, but the focus here is on vegetable-heavy toppings, like a bracing pesto of stinging nettles and walnuts or a yellow pepper puree. The area’s morel mushrooms come into play, as does grass-raised lamb from the San Juan Islands. This specificity is what makes this outing special, but it may limit its application; home cooks in other parts of the country will have to go heavy on substitutions. This welcoming guide has character to spare, if a limited reach. (Apr.)1