Lemon Spaghetti

There seem to be lots of people harshing on Gwyneth Paltrow of late. I can't turn around without stumbling on some newspaper or magazine piece about GP that vacillates between adoration and abhorrence. The woman introduced me to Forget You, so I hate to be too critical. (It's a superb running track. And a really great angry song, since you can get really potty-mouthed singing along if you reference the original version. In your head, of course.) Apparently GP has written a cookbook which partly explains the news coverage I've been seeing. I stumbled on her recipe for Spaghetti Limone Parmeggiano while searching Epicurious for dinner inspiration one night and made a mental note to try it. I'm a sucker for lemon but usually get my fix through desserts - think pie, bars and pudding. Why not lemon pasta?


I whipped up Spaghetti Limone Parmeggiano tonight and it was, as promised, simple but quite delicious. All you do is zest/juice a lemon, add some grated Parmesan cheese and olive oil and toss cooked spaghetti into the whole works. It's the kind of dish that one day I might recommend to my boys if they want to impress a girl with a meal. It tastes like more effort than it is. Add a nice salad and some fresh bread and she'd be swooning. Speaking of swooning, the first meal David ever made for me was spaghetti. He and a friend cooked it up in the lounge/kitchenette of their residence and served it to us (my roommate and I) in his dorm room, which they'd set up as a sort-of respectable dining space using a coffee table they had liberated from somewhere. There may have been candles. And a tablecloth, I think. I know Jimi Hendrix was there, because David's roommate had a rather prominent poster of JH on the wall that is forever burned into my brain.

I've decided to go with the more down-market name of 'Lemon Spaghetti' for this dish, since it's a weeknight and all and I'm not trying to impress anyone. We're not generally that fancy weeknights, although I'm quite pleased with myself this week. Monday I churned out honey baked chicken drumsticks with mashed potatoes and green beans and Tuesday I made bourbon flank steak with mashed potatoes and roasted asparagus. And now I've kept the streak alive with a very yummy pasta dish. I'm sure things will go downhill tomorrow. Toast, anyone?