Goodnight Salami Pasta

plus some thoughts on the debate

Hi all, I’ll get to the debate stuff in a second. But the truth is that thoughts about what might happen tonight will be obselte in a few hours, while the quasi-recipe I quasi-invented for a healthy but delicious weeknight dinner will last forever.

To understand this recipe, it’s important to know that our dog, Emily, reached an agreement with us several months ago. She sleeps in her own bed downstairs so that the cats can have the bed with the humans. In exchange, each night right before she goes to sleep, I give her a slice of salami.

Emily’s not picky about brands — although I avoid ones with garlic, because that’s not healthy for dogs — and salami is her favorite food so this deal seems to work for her. Also, this sounds bougie but really isn’t, since it’s amazing how cheap one slice of salami per night is. (Especially with grocery prices falling rapidly, something you may want to point out to any undecided family and friends.)

Also important to note: last night Jacqui had planned to cook dinner, but Congress, where she works, is incredibly busy in September of election years so that they can all take October off to campaign. As a result, I bought a head of cabbage for an unspecificed recipe, then found myself in charge of dinner when Jacqui got stuck in the office. After some scrounging around, I realized I had the ingredients for my own varation on an NYT Cooking recipe. It turned out great.

(I had no plans to write about food when I started cooking, but here’s the picture associated with the “salami” Wikipedia entry.)

ELECTION SEASON PASTA WITH CABBAGE AND GOODNIGHT SALAMI

(if you just want debate thoughts feel free to skip - but I wouldn’t recommend it, it’s a good recipe)

Ingredients

1 thing of pasta (box, packet, whatever).

1 head of green cabbage (you’ll probably like this dish even if you don’t think you like cabbage - it adds texture, sweetness, and healthiness without being too vegetable-y)

A few garlic cloves

A shallot if you have that lying around

Some butter if you feel like it

One small package of salami (they’re usually sold in four ounces)

Cooking

• Take a little more than half of the salami out of the package, reserving the other half for your dog that knows how to hold counterparties to contracts.

• Realize dog has materialized in the kitchen, give her one slice of the salami just for being a dog. The ultimate loophole.

• Start boiling some salted water.

• On medium-high heat, fry the salami until it’s almost but not quite crispy.

• While the salami is frying and the water is boiling, chop up the cabbage into strips. The strips should be small but don’t go crazy with it. It’s pasta with cabbage, not a fancy dinner party.

• Also slice your garlic, and your shallot if you have that lying around.

• Take the fried salami out of the pan and set it aside for later.

• Throw the garlic and shallot in the pan to fry in the leftover fat from the salami. Don’t let them burn. Add a little butter if it looks like the pan needs a little more fat.

• When the garlic and shallots get that kind of sheen that means they’re transitioning from punishment to food, throw the cabbage in the pan with them. Stir in a bunch to coat the cabbage strips with the butter and salami fat. They shouldn’t be greasy - just enough that they cook instead of burn.

Oh yeah, the water! Put some pasta in there. I’m showing you the image associated with the “pasta” wikipedia page, but I’d recommend pasta that’s in discrete units (penne, fusilli, bowties) rather than strands.

• Let the pasta cook. Surely you know how to cook pasta.

• Cook the cabbage so that it starts to carmelize. This part is kind of important. What I’ve discovered is that you stir the cabbage frequently at first (let’s say, every thirty seconds). Then, as the cabbage softens, you can let it in sit in the pan for longer between stirrings. That way your cabbages gets nice and sweet and ducle de leche-y without getting burned.

• I don’t really like timings and stuff, but I spent about twenty minutes total cooking the cabbage and I think it was worth it.

• Get a mug and filled it with the startchy water from the pasta.

• When your pasta is close enough to done that you could happily eat it, but still not quite perfectly done, pour it into a collander.

• Add the mug of pasta water in the pan with the caramelized cabbage. Add the right amount of pasta for you - in my opinion there should be cabbage in every bite, but it’s a pasta dish rather than a cabbage dish, if that makes sense.

• Reserve whatever pasta you have over for late night snacks, or for the dog, which doesn’t like pasta as much as she likes salami but still likes pasta a lot.

• Stir everything for a little bit - until the pasta water is saucy and/or almost gone. At the very end, throw in your friend salami. (I meant to write “fried salami” but I think this was a very toucbhing fruedian slip so I’m keeping it.)

• Turn off the heat and serve straight out of the pan. Add some pepper and chili flakes if you want. Serves 2-4 depending on how hungry you are and how much pasta you use.

AND HOW DOES THIS DELICIOUS, EASY, TWO-POT PASTA DISH RELATE TO TONIGHT’S DEBATE?

I mean, it does and it doesn’t. For example, if I were on Kamala Harris’s debate-prep team, and she said, “Rather than do a mock debate, let’s try out David’s fantastic pasta recipe,” I’d say, “Or we could wait until wednesday for that, and do the mock debate tonight. Just a thought.”

But most of us aren’t on Kamala Harris’s debate-prep team. Which means that debates are incredibly stressful situations for people (like me, and probably like you) who think the stakes of this election are existential.

I’m a big fan of Michelle Obama’s “do something” approach. And that ought to include plenty of donating (not just to the presidential campaign, but to state parties and downballot races), along with volunteering and talking to friends and family about the importance of voting and what’s at stake.

But sometimes, a good way to do something - especially before a debate over which those of us who aren’t the candidate have very little control - is to find something you do have control over. I used to believe that stressing about debates was a sign that you cared. Now, I still stress about debates, but I believe that if you really care, you try to find ways around the stress so you can do things that matter instead of just fretting.

So in a spirit of not fretting but watching, here are three things I’m looking for tonight:

• Potential downside for Trump. Everyone’s talking about this as a big opportunity/risk for Harris, and they’re right to. But Trump has been rambling and off his game recently. And he’s older than Joe Biden was in 2020. There’s a chance (not a strong likelihood, but a chance) that he comes off looking suprisingly frail - not good for a potential strongman.

• Can Harris land policy zingers? People like me want Harris to be disrepectful to Trump and talk about how he’s a criminal and whatnot. And maybe we’ll see some of that. But the people who will decide the election want to know more about Harris - who is she? what does she stand for? what would she do as president? The best moments for her would be ones when she can present policy contrasts, not just personality ones.

• Can Harris make Trump the incumbent? Obviously Biden has been president for the last four years, and Harris has been his vice president. But Trump isn’t a traditional change candidate - he had four years on the job, and Americans hated his job performance back then. If Harris can convince just a small additional percentage of voters that she’s the one who can turn the page on all this nonsense, and that Trump would just mean another four years of the same craziness, then that might be enough to win the race.