JOURNAL: Five Minute Sauce for Pasta

The summer has been hectic. I am teaching a course at twice the speed I taught in the spring, I'm taking a class as a student, also double-time, plus I've been traveling, so there has been little time for cooking and even less time for writing about it, but I need to remember to make time to eat at least.

I have been cleaning my apartment like a madman tonight, the imminent return of my lovely roommate at my heels, and around ten thirty I realized that I hadn't eaten yet…today. Well, a fistful of edamame around noon, but that was it. In five minutes, plus the time it takes to boil linguine, I MacGyvered a surprisingly delicious sauce out of the random things I had discovered while tidying the kitchen.

It went like this: I sautéed the mushrooms left over from New World Tempura (Oops, I still need to write about that) in a quarter stick of butter that I found behind my food processor and a teaspoon or two of (what I assume was) dalmatian sage from an unmarked bottle of what looked like green-gray lint. I killed the heat and mixed in a 6-ounce tub of creme fraiche with an expiration date that must have been a typo, because it looked fine to me, and a little sea salt. It was really satisfying and surprisingly delectable. I will gladly make it by choice next time, rather than out of necessity.