yum yum yum: pasta with ricotta and sugar snap peas

but first, dear reader:

i am blogging in my living room, listening to the baby cardinals cheep loudly in their small nest on the front stoop, not 30 feet away from me. and the thunder for a much needed rain. and smelling this divine dinner that DAVID is making from the gourmet cookbook heather gave me for christmas: garlic lime chicken, broccoli with browned butter, capers and parsley, fresh corn on the cob. i cannot wait! it smells jam up.

Sugar snap peas are terrific raw. They are also terrific sauteed in a little butter and sprinkled with sea salt.

a recipe in Chez Panisse's Pasta & Pizza cookbook for a pasta with just the peas from the sugar snap pea pods.

cut all the pods in half on a diagonal.

Now then, I bought ziti for this so bring a big pot of water to a boil. That'll take a while, especially if it's a big pot.

Take a head of garlic, and separate out six cloves, smash them, remove the skin. Take pancetta--a big piece--and cut it into cubes. Also, you'll need some sage. And get some chicken stock heated in a pot (about 1 cup). (If you make your own, you should have some in the freezer.)

Ok, now the fun part. Heat olive oil in a dutch oven (or a skillet, if you'd prefer). Add the garlic, the pancetta, and the sage:

It's a very delicate process, but you've gotta cook this long enough for both the garlic to turn golden (without burning!) and for the pancetta to release its fat and cook through. All in all, it took about 15 minutes, but I modulated the heat constantly, wanting a sizzle but not a crackle. 15 minutes later, the apartment smelled incredible.

Here's where you spring into action: add salt to the boiling pot of water and then add the box of ziti. Stir it around.

Add the sugar snap peas to the pot with the garlic and pancetta (I had a big bunch of them, I'd say 3 cups?) and stir around. Add salt and pepper and some red chile flakes. Now add the chicken stock. It should just cover the peas. Bring to a boil and stir it all around.

Ideally, the pasta will be done just as the chicken stock's reduced and the peas are cooked through. You want the pasta to be super al dente because here you remove it with a spider and add it to the pot with the stock, the garlic, and the peas to finish cooking.

I added more salt, more pepper; then I added parmesan cheese--about 1 cup; I added more olive oil, to bring out the flavor, and finally, in a stroke, I think, perhaps, of genius--I added a big dollop of the ricotta

Ya, I know that's weird, to add whipped ricotta to a pasta but somehow it brought it all together.