Cavatelli with Sausage and Broccoli Rabe

Also known as "How MDR got her groove back"

I’ve been doing my Sunday Sauce project for exactly seven months today. I announced the relaunch of my newsletter on July 5 of last year, and since then have gone through the trials and tribulations of attempting to reverse engineer my grandmother’s recipes from ingredients lists on note cards to actual recipes. But somewhere in the middle, I lost the plot of why I was doing all of this. This week, however, I was reminded in two ways.

The first was that Ben and I sat down and watched Martin Scorcese’s 1974 mini documentary Italianamerican. (You can watch the whole thing on YouTube.) The doc is simple: Scorcese talks to his two parents, who were the children of Italian-American immigrants, about what it was like growing up in the Lower East Side tenements of New York City.

Scorcese’s mother makes tomato sauce. His father sits on their plastic-covered couch. The two bicker about whose mother influenced Scorcese’s mother’s sauce the most. Their conversations were the same conversations I’d overheard in kitchens in my own life, between my grandparents, between my parents. It made me smile, but also broke my heart, because I remember those stories from my grandmother and it hurts my brain to think that I can’t call her up to ask her to tell me them to me one more time.

The second reminder came from my cousin, Christina, who I’ve been texting a lot lately in preparation for a project I can’t exactly tell you guys about yet. (Sorry, hopefully this week I’ll have a big announcement for you all but in the meantime I have to leave you in suspense.) I sent her a list of our grandmother’s recipes, and she called me crying, because the menu I’d put together made her think of the Sunday dinners grandma Margie would host and what she would serve. What followed was the two of us blubbering away on the phone to one another, her in her car, and me in a phone booth at work.

I got home after that conversation and felt reinvigorated. I planned out the next 20 recipes I wanted to cook off of my grandmother’s note cards. I set up my ring light, and decided that from now on, I was no longer free on Saturdays because I was going to be cooking. Just yesterday, I banged through two new recipes for upcoming issues of the newsletter while Ben worked on the graphics. And lemme tell you, they’re good.

My grandmother was always had a way of announcing herself. She was the loudest voice in the room, and was quick-witted enough to always snatch back the conversation. And I think that’s what she did this week, from the great beyond. She snatched back my attention, and reminded me why I was doing this: For her, and for my father’s mother, and the families they left behind. I want to preserve their memories and offer a connection to them for both our family and for everyone else. Because my grandmothers were amazing cooks and huge personalities and they loved our families fiercely. I wish you could have known them.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 lb cavatelli

• 2 bunches broccoli rabe, ends trimmed

• 1 lb sweet sausage, meat removed from casing

• 4 garlic cloves, grated

• 1 cup chicken broth

• Pepper and garlic powder, to taste

• 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese, plus more for serving

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Cook your cavatelli according to package instructions in a pot of salty water. Drain, reserving a little pasta water, and set aside.

2. Refill the pot with more water and bring to a boil. Add broccoli rabe and cook for about 5 minutes, until bright green and slightly tender. Place in an ice bath to stop the cooking process, and then pat dry.

3. In a large, high-sided pan, add a drizzle of olive oil and heat to shimmering. Cook the garlic until fragrant, and then add your sausage meat. Cook over medium heat. until browned.

4. Add in your broccoli rabe and stir to coat with the sausage and oil. Add your chicken broth and cook until slightly reduced, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and garlic powder.

5. When cooked, remove from heat. Add in your cooked cavatelli and mix to coat. If your sauce isn’t looking glossy, add in a dash of your reserved pasta water. Add in your grated cheese and stir until combined.

6. Serve hot with grated parmesan and red pepper flakes on the side.