One of our shortcuts to town goes right by Elijah’s, and we stopped in to give Kurt a pickle- they just came out of the crock and I must say I nailed them; they’re just like Grandpa made- and Kurt gave us some beautiful chicken-of-the-woods (yellow and orange) and chanterelles.
With the guanciale ready for action, I grabbed some worthy companions from the garden and went to work turning all of it into a heavenly pasta condimento.
Rendered guanciale, sizzled mushrooms, softened fennel, chard, and zucchini, herbs and tomatoes (our first) added at the end with a glug of wine to deglaze and soften everything all got tossed with penne, salt, and some olive oil to finish. Insane, summery, earthy, local, and perfect. The guanciale is more or less indistinguishable from bacon, so a little bit gave this dish a sublime unifying lift. We finished a 2006 Murray family Routas rosé (grenache/syrah/cinsault) that we opened last night to go with tofu, sweet potatoes, and mash. It worked well with both. We love summer. We love pink wine.
