Quick

This is my son Bobby’s own recipe for pimento cheese. It is a definite favorite.

I’ve heard this was our governor and later president Jimmy Carter’s favorite cheese dish. His First Lady, Rosalynn Carter, has been credited for making this a famous Southern favorite.

This is the butter version of the Raw Olive Oil dressing for pasta on page 107. I make it at least four times a week, whenever Lorenzo and perhaps some of his cousins want “cheesy pasta” or gnocchi.

Though I’m reluctant to use out-of-season, commercially produced fresh tomatoes in a sauce, tomatoes from hothouses are a decent alternative. I sometimes dice up such a tomato for a quick skillet sauce, where the texture and color of the flesh are enjoyable, giving a dish acidity and freshness. A good example is the Sauce of Anchovies, Capers, and Fresh Tomatoes on page 91. Here is an even simpler one, for which a ripe market tomato will do, even in winter. Try this simple sauce with Shrimp and Tomato Ravioli (page 182), or tagliatelle, or capellini.

On occasion, I cook a pasta that I want to dress so simply that I do not even take down a skillet, especially if the pasta is a fresh pasta rich in flavor, such as all-egg pasta, chestnut pasta, walnut pasta, or whole-wheat pasta. For those days when you need simplicity in your life but still want flavor and elegance, this approach is perfect.

Simple fried skate was a supper treat when I was growing up, and it is still one of my family’s favorites of all fried seafoods. . . .

If you have leftover poached chicken, the moist meat makes a wonderful warm salad, with raisins and pine nuts and a lively, sweet dressing (similar to the Cooked Carrot Salad with Pine Nuts and Golden Raisins, page 45). Three cups of dressed chicken would serve 3 or 4.

Golden-brown bread crumbs make a nice finishing touch for pasta dishes like this one—a light counterpoint of texture, taste, and color. Start with ordinary dried crumbs (see page 19) that have some larger bits in them, rather than crumbs that have been ground and sieved into a fine powder.