A Lovely Summer Pasta

Photo by Petrina Tinslay

When Mr. E and I first met, he lived on West 180th St. and I lived on the more "gritty" East 18oth St. side. His apartment overlooked the George Washington Bridge and the pristine Jersey coast that Rockefeller bought to preserve the views from the Cloisters. He lived just steps from Fort Tryon Park and the cute, Hudson Heights section of Washington Heights. On the other side of the tracks, literally, my roommate and I lived four walk-up stories above a courtyard full of pitbulls. Music blared at all hours of the day and night, young drug dealers in "Don't Snitch" t-shirts manned every corner, and we had a rat the size of my mom's daschund living in our oven. I spent most of my time teaching, attending grad school and nannying on the weekends, so the dismal conditions didn't really phase me. Looking back, it was pretty bad, but so cheap!

When I finally met Mr. E and got the hang of his side of the neighborhood, I was hooked. The first time I cooked him a meal it was in his kitchen, so I tried to make it as simple and fool-proof as possible to dazzle him with my culinary ease. Nigella Lawson, the sultry British chef, is the epitome of thrown-together deliciousness, so I turned to her for a recipe. Her crab pasta calls for shelled crab, which Nigella said could be found in fish markets. When I stepped into a fish stand in the Bronx and asked the purveyor to shell the crab legs he looked at me like I was crazy. Manhattan fishmongers might be more accomodating, or you can buy fancy-looking bags of crab at Zeytuna market in their fish department. I have also been known to buy the canned stuff in a pinch and it's still tasty, but the chunkier texture of the fresh crab or the bag is better.

Crab Linguini (Source: www.cookstr.com)

Serves 6 as a starter; 4 as a main course.

Ingredients

• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 scant tablespoon Maldon or other sea salt
• 1 large red chilli
• 2 pounds 11 ounces undressed crab, to give you 7 ounces white meat and 4 ounces darker meat
• ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
• juice and zest of 1 lemon
• 1 pound linguine
• handful fresh parsley, chopped
• handful watercress leaves, roughly torn

Method: How to cook crab linguini

1.Put a large pan of water on to boil for the pasta.

2.In a large pestle and mortar pulverise the peeled garlic cloves with the salt, so that it makes a smooth paste. Then add the chopped and seeded chilli and crush again until you have a gloriously red-tinged mixture.

3.Tip in the crab meat, breaking it up gently with a fork, and pour in the oil. Zest the lemon into the mortar and then add the juice. Using a fork, beat well to mix, and then you are ready to cook your pasta.

4.So do so, and then drain the pasta and tip into a warmed serving bowl. Immediately pour over the crab sauce and toss the pasta about in it, then throw in the parsley and watercress and toss again.