Signature Dish The Sequel...

Friday night I went home to Boston for a fun-filled family weekend before my big move. I wanted to cook a GDL dish for my parents and after making Orecchiette with Spicy Sausage and Broccoli Rabe, I knew that had to be it.

I picked up the ingredients at Whole Foods before I left Connecticut on Friday night. Pasta, Broccoli Rabe, vegan chorizo sausage and a small baguette for garlic bread and I was on the road.

On Saturday afternoon my mother and I arrived home after a vigorous walk-and-talk with my Aunt on the beach to find my father tearing up floorboards (this was planned by the way, he wasn’t just destroying the house on a whim) in their old bedroom. My parents are in the midst of a huge renovation where my carpenter father extraordinaire is basically the sole laborer. Needless to say, we were all famished.

While their new master suite boasts the finest quality of… well everything, the kitchen appliances haven’t seen an upgrade for quite some time. I never noticed this until I finally could cook a proper meal for my parents and the pot of water took a good twenty minutes to boil. The electric burners had been reduced to an eight-inch circle of heat.

You know those cooking snobs that say (and please read this with your nose in the air and arrogance in your voice), “I would never use an electric stove! Real cooks use gas!” I am totally one of those snobs! My kitchen in Connecticut may not have much to brag about but an old gas stove it has and I love it. And it’s only just now I’m wondering if my new Richmond apartment has a gas stove! Is it too late to back out of all of this if it doesn’t?! Kidding.

So once the pot did boil, all went extremely smoothly and the dish was just as delicious as it was the first time. Even better, in fact because these were now Orecchiettes of Triumph! Not only was I cooking a fabulous flavorful vegan meal for my parents for the first time but I was also starting a new chapter of my life. And as we sipped our made-in-Virginia wine, I knew that with this much encouragement and support behind me, this was going to be one fantastic year of cooking in Richmond.