Creamy Pappardelle with Bacon and Leeks

Hey guys!  This recipe is originally from Bon Appetite but I found it here at Epicurious.  We are still slogging through season 2 of 90210.  I am serving it with an arugula salad to make us feel better about eating a pasta with sauce made of cream and bacon fat.

It turned out really good!  I did it pretty much according to the directions but I left out the oil and butter in the beginning, which seemed like bringing sand to the beach.  I had been planning to serve it with a poached egg on top to make it more brunchy but I forgot.  It was great on its own.  I will definitely make this again!

Also I wanted to let you guys know at Trader Joes they have this amazing applewood smoked bacon that is around $10 a pound, but they also have "ends and pieces" of the same stuff for $3 a pound which was perfect for this recipe.  I bought a condo so I am frugal now.


Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 4 slices thick-cut bacon, cut into 1/2" pieces
• 2 medium leeks, white and pale-green parts only, halved lengthwise, sliced crosswise
• Kosher salt
• 3/4 cup heavy cream
• 2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
• 1 pound pappardelle or fettuccine
• 1 cup finely grated Parmesan or Grana Padano

Preparation:

Heat oil and butter in a large heavy pot over medium heat. Add bacon and cook, stirring often, until fat is rendered and bacon is crisp, 5-8 minutes. Add leeks and season with salt. Increase heat to medium-high and cook, stirring often, until leeks begin to brown, 5-8 minutes. Add cream, thyme, and 1/2 cup water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer, stirring occasionally, until sauce is thickened and coats the back of a spoon, 5-8 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water, stirring occasionally, until al dente. Drain pasta, reserving 2 cups pasta cooking liquid.

Add pasta, Parmesan, and 1 cup pasta cooking liquid to sauce and stir to coat. Increase heat to medium and continue stirring, adding more cooking liquid as needed, until sauce coats pasta.

Ladies Room

Mark here... Laurel and I have sat down to a night of Mad Men and some pasta and garlic bread.  The pasta dish is Mario Batalli's Farfalle Abruzzese with Veal, Porcini and Spinach...although I couldn't find ground veal, so it's ground beef.  Laurel made some garlic bread to accompany.

This episode was fascinating in it's depiction of the times.  First, we see the design firm and the way the women working in the office have to navigate. Essentially, because the are unmarried, they are all considered "prey" to the men working there.  Meanwhile, Don Draper's wife is having issues which lead her doctor to suggest she see a psychiatrist.  Of course her husband is unhappy with this, because his stay-at-home wife has the perfect life and to see a psychiatrist would imply otherwise.  Finally, he accepts it, but the implication is that women can see psychiatrists because they are somehow weaker. This is underlined at the end of the episode when the psychiatrist CALLS HIM to discuss what his wife talked about!  Breaking any sort of doctor-patient confidentiality...  Separately, we see new girl in the office Peggy being treated like new meat essentially...

Laurel here...This episode was super interesting in terms of the treatment of women at the time.  Joan encourages Peggy to go out to lunch with a bunch of asshole account execs and copywriters.  I got the impression that she was trying to show her how women could get a free lunch around this place, but the dudes were such assholes that it didn't seem to me like a free lunch , it seemed to me like a lunch that you pay for with self respect.  All of that aside, I think Joan is actually the first "feminist" that we see on the show because she is clearly trying to take advantage of the power dynamic between men and women in this situation, and a free lunch is the least you should get for putting up with all of the bullshit you get from the dudes in this place just by virtue of the fact that you work there.

Also this episode dips it's toes into the pool of mental health issues.  Betty (don's wife) ends up going to see a psychiatrist like mark said because she is having physical manifestations of a mental health issue.  Roger tells Don not to worry, that psychiatry is just the hot new accessory among wives, like a fur coat or string of pearls.  This lead Mark and me into a discussion of our family history, we both have women in our family (grandmothers) that were slightly mentally ill at the time but since there was no treatment or help for anyone who wasn't batshit crazy walked the line of managing things for themselves.  At the time there was no option outside of locking them up in a mental institution.  Anyway I think that is shows progress from a mental health point of view to show a woman who is unhappy being able to visit a mental health professional vs 20 years before this point (1960 i think?) where visiting a mental health professional was the step before being locked up or getting a lobotomy.