Allison Arevalo has created a community filled with friends and family, with neighbors and school mates, and with pasta lovers of all ages. She and her family host a weekly pasta dinner, and she wants you to do it too. In her new cookbook, The Pasta Friday Cookbook, she walks about how she is able to pull off a weekly gathering of friends and family and then shares 52 different pasta recipes that you can use to start your own Pasta Fridays.
First of all, Arevalo sets rules. She makes a pasta dish and a salad, and that’s it. No appetizers, no desserts (although she does get popsicles for the kids). She doesn’t cater to special diets—anyone who wants to eat gluten-free or vegetarian/vegan can bring their own meals. She does make a big pot of pasta with butter for the kids, but she also encourages them to try the “adult” pasta as well. The clean up all gets done Friday night, so Saturday isn’t spent cleaning up the kitchen. And all the adults bring 2 bottles of wine, and everyone eats and talks and laughs and drinks together.
The Pasta Friday Cookbook is packed with 52 pasta ideas, divided by season. Each week features a different shape of pasta, so with the help of a good local Italian market or the internet, you could cook a different style of noodle every week for a year. She also includes a wide variety of sauces to serve with the pasta, with seasonal vegetables, quality cheeses, a wide assortment of meats and seafood, and a really good olive oil.
It sounds like a lot of work to create a different pasta every week for a group of people, but Arevalo’s recipes tend toward the simple and rustic. She chooses quality ingredients that will be packed with flavor, cooks them simply, and lets the dishes speak for themselves. And she also includes four salad recipes for each season as well as a host of recipe for extras that can be set out to accompany the pasta, like Homemade Breadcrumbs, Fried Capers, Salsa Verde, and Basic Pesto.
She starts with summer (but you can start at any time of the year, of course), with recipes like Bucatini with Summer Corn and Pancetta and Pam’s Pasta with Sausage, Tomatoes, and Peaches. Fall brings heartier dishes like Broken-Up Chicken Parm with Cestini or Duck Lasagne with Roasteed Carrots. Winter offers the filling comfort of Linguine with Dungeness Crab, Scallops, and Clams and Veal Marsala with Escarole and Stringozzi. Spring’s bounty includes Big Fusilli with a Quick Lamb Ragu and Gnocchi with Peas and Prosciutto.
But here’s the thing about the Pasta Friday idea: it’s not about the food. It’s about the fellowship. It’s a chance to build a community, to come together in good times and bad, to support each other and grow in friendship. The Pasta Friday Cookbook isn’t just about creating a great dinner. It’s about making a fuller life for you and your family.
Personally, I’m not sure a weekly pasta night is right for us. But maybe monthly. I do like the idea of getting together on a regular basis with friends and enjoying a big pot of pasta and companionship. At the very least, this has given me a lot to think about. I highly recommend The Pasta Friday Cookbook, both as a collection of crazy and delicious recipes and as a guideline for building a stronger community.
Galleys for The Pasta Friday Cookbook were provided by Andrews McMeel Publishing through NetGalley, with many thanks.