"Linguine" with White Clam Sauce

Forgive me, Thomas Keller, for I have sinned. It's been seven weeks since my last confession. What did I do this time, you ask? Did it, once again, involve oysters? No. Softshell crabs? ACK! No. It's more egregious than that: I used store-bought pasta instead of spending eleventy billion hours making my own capellini. Before you assign penance, O Wise Keller, please let me explain.

It was a hell of a week. One of the worst in the last 10-15 years. Work was beyond annoying, and the calls just wouldn't stop all week. To top it all off, not only did my dog require $900 worth of medical attention, I also found out I have skin cancer. [NOTE: I'm not turning this into a cancer blog, so if you want to learn more about malignant melanoma, you can click here. I am fine because I caught it really early and I've already had the spots removed and everything else tested normal. But I'm only going to say this once: please people, wear sunscreen, year-round, anytime you are going to be exposed to the sun -- even if only for a few minutes.]

Because it was a crap week, I tried various things to cheer myself up -- things that typically work when I'm in a funk. Taco Bell's Crunchwrap Supreme. Didn't work. Seeing someone trip and fall down on the sidewalk. Not even a chuckle. Making fun of America's Next Top Model. No go. I wanted to cook, but nothing seemed appealing or desirable in the least. I decided I wanted to make something from The French Laundry Cookbook, but I wanted relative instant gratification as a result. I wanted something cozy and warm and sort of fall-ish, but wouldn't take 27 hours to braise or reduce, nor involve three days of prep, nor placing any orders with Squab.com (sorry, Squab.com people, I still think that's funny).

I settled on the "Linguine" with White Clam Sauce (Keller puts linguine in quotes because he really wants you to use capellini in the dish) because I knew I could get everything at Whole Foods in one trip. I was finishing up my shopping when out of the corner of my eye, I saw the fresh pasta case. That capellini was sitting right there, calling to me. I thought about the flour, eggs and pasta roller/cutter waiting for me back home. And I said "F it" and grabbed that pasta out of the case, went through the checkout line, and drove home feeling dirty and ashamed.

So I did it. I bought already-made fresh pasta to use in a French Laundry dish. I will report that the earth did not open up and swallow me whole, and I do not believe North Korea fired any nukes in our direction, so at least things are looking up. But really, I totally feel like the Sandra Lee of the entire Internet. Please tell me I'm not. ::: crickets ::: Oh crap. First skin cancer, and now the entire Internet thinks I'm a Fandra. That's just great.

After I got home and showered off the semi-ho vibe, the first thing I did was make the garlic purée. I smashed some butter onto a double layer of aluminum foil, placed the garlic on top, then sprinkled a teaspoon of salt over them, wrapped up the foil, and put them in a 300-degree oven for a little over an hour:


When the garlic was done roasting, I squeezed the cloves out of the skin, and mashed them through a tamis, leaving this purée:


Everything else after this was easy. At the same time the garlic was roasting, I soaked the clams in a few changes of cold water, then scrubbed the shells with a brush. I put them in a small stock pot along with some garlic, shallot, thyme, bay leaves, and a little white wine:


I used a few more clams than The French Laundry Cookbook said to use, and I upped my other ingredients in the pot accordingly, because I wanted to have enough broth-then-sauce for the remaining pasta I knew I'd have. I covered the pot, turned on the heat, and after about four minutes, I started hearing the little pings and clangs of the shells opening up. I took the lid off the pot and started picking out the clams as their shells opened. I removed each clam from its shell, saved the shells, then poured what was left in the pot through a strainer, then strained it again to prep the pasta sauce:


I started some water for the pasta and made the pasta sauce by whisking some of the garlic purée into the clam broth. I let it simmer and reduce, then added a cup of butter, tablespoon by tablespoon, whisking each until it melted. I added a few drops of white wine vinegar, then strained the broth into a big bowl to await the pasta. I added a ladle of the sauce to the saucepan with the clams to gently warm them.

I also prepped the clam shells for the plating. I found the 18 biggest ones, cleaned them, and got them ready on the platter for plating:


There's a step to this dish -- creating a warm, aromatic rock salt bed upon which to serve the clams -- that I completely blew off because I was in such need of comfort food that I didn't want to take the time to do it. I will do it at some point, because I think it will be gorgeous; I just had to skip it this time to preserve my dwindling sanity.

I put the pasta in the boiling, salted water and strained it after its two minutes of cooking time. I tossed the pasta into the bowl with the sauce, added some chopped parsley and thyme leaves, and mixed everything with two chopsticks (that's the book's recommendation, and it worked like a charm).

My neighbor's son "G" came over to help twirl and set the pasta and place the clams. Wanna see the final dish? Of course you do:


Picture this: three adults, two kids, one platter of clams in the center of the dining room table. We ate them like you'd slurp an oyster out of its shell, and those clams were gone in about a minute. Then, because I knew all of the adults at the table had had a crap week, I brought the bowl of leftover capellini and clam sauce into the dining room, handed everyone a fork, and we twirled and ate the pasta out of that bowl, devouring it in about ten minutes. There wasn't much talking other than the occasional, "Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm" in between (or during) bites. There was a wee bit of wine drinking goin' on, but mostly we just polished off that pasta and then sat back contentedly staring at the empty bowl.

That, my friends, is how you get yourself out of a funk. Pasta, clams, wine and friends. Well, it's how I got myself out of this funk. What do you cook when life is kicking you in the arse?

Up Next: Sweet Potato Agnolotti with Sage Cream, Brown Butter, and Prosciutto

Resources:
Clams, garlic, shallot, bay leaves, butter and parsley from Whole Foods
Thyme from my garden
Bogle Sauvignon Blanc

Music to Cook By: Sia; assorted. Because of the whole skin cancer thing this week, I had to over-dramatize it for myself and watch one of my favorite things I've saved on my TiVo box -- the final episode of Six Feet Under (I know -- drama queen much?). Remember the long, wonderful final scene in which Claire is driving out of LA enroute to her new life in New York, and we fast-forward into glimpses of everyone's future and inevitable death? One of the reasons that scene was so gut-wrenching and heart-warming when it aired the first time (a weird combination, but the only way I know how to explain it) was the music, which was "Breathe Me" by Sia. After watching that scene, I downloaded a bunch of her tunes, and really like them. It's funny -- when I listened to some of them, I know I've heard them before on television or in a movie, or that they are so reminiscent of other times in my life even though the songs themselves are new. Just like food with heart and soul (thanks, Bourdain), I like that these songs are new and familiar all at the same time. What new music have you heard that you like?