Polenta, Where Have You Been All My Life?

Polenta is only water, salt, and cornmeal, unless a cook chooses, in the style of risotto, to finish with a knob of butter or a hill of Parmesan cheese.  It is one those dishes so simple, its execution can be lackluster or transcendent, depending on who makes it.  What happens when these three things are combined is anyone's guess.  The result can be like cornbread blended with water, a sou...

Linguine with Clams from the Babbo Kitchen, via Bill Buford

From his memoir Heat

My favorite passages from Bill Buford's Heat are set in the Babbo kitchen, when he describes with fear and awe the wonder that is a busy restaurant kitchen at dinnertime-- tickets flying, steam vaporizing, oil popping. Orders arrive faster than they can be made; you are perpetually behind. The heat, of course, is unbearable-- like a shimmering wall when you enter the kitchen. Sweat...