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  • HandoutHandout 1: Supply & Shopping List

    Handout 1: Supply & Shopping List

    Alright. Before we cook anything together, let's get your kitchen and your cart sorted. I've split this into what you actually need and what's nice to have but won't make or break the food. Don't let the nice-to-have column talk you into a big purchase before class. Half of what's in this course could be made in a beat-up pan I bought used, and I mean that.

    Equipment — Budget Tier (what you need)

    • One large, heavy-bottomed pot for sauce. Doesn't have to be fancy, just needs to not scorch the second you look away. (Ask me sometime about the lightbulb incident. I'll tell it, but not in writing.)
    • A big pot for pasta water. Bigger than you think. The pasta needs room to move.
    • A sharp knife. One. Doesn't need to be expensive, needs to be sharp. I'll say this in class too, probably more than once: a dull knife is the dangerous one, because it slips and you fight it. A sharp knife does what you tell it.
    • A cutting board, tongs, a wooden spoon, a colander. If you're missing the colander, a big bowl and some patience works in a pinch.
    • Measuring cups/spoons, though honestly, once you've made a dish twice you'll stop measuring the salt. Everybody does.

    Equipment — Nice to Have

    • A microplane, for parmesan and garlic. Makes life easier, doesn't change the outcome much.
    • A bench scraper, if you're doing any of the fresh pasta sessions later in the course.
    • A kitchen scale. I don't use one much myself, for what it's worth, but some folks like the precision.

    Pantry Staples (get these before week one)

    • Good olive oil, for finishing, not necessarily for cooking with. You don't need the fanciest bottle on the shelf. I did the expensive-oil, real-parmesan Costco run once thinking it'd change everything. It helped some. What actually changed my cooking more was salting the pasta water like I meant it, which costs nothing.
    • Canned whole peeled tomatoes (San Marzano if you can find them, but don't stress if not).
    • Dried pasta, a couple shapes. We'll talk elevation and cook times in class — dried pasta genuinely takes different time here than it does for my sister near sea level. I wrote it down in my journal like I'd discovered gravity.
    • Garlic, a whole head or two. You'll go through more than you expect.
    • Kosher or coarse salt. Table salt works but I like the coarse stuff for control.
    • A wedge of real parmesan, not the shaker kind, if your budget allows it.
    • Red pepper flake, dried oregano, fresh parsley.
    • A cheap red wine you'd actually drink a glass of. If you don't cook with wine, chicken broth is a fine stand-in and nobody's grading you.

    Shopping Notes

    Macey's and Costco both carry the canned tomatoes and the parmesan wedge fine, no need to go hunting anywhere exotic. Costco's good for the olive oil and garlic in bulk if you're going to be cooking Italian regularly, though a two-person household will be swimming in garlic for a while. That's not a bad problem.

    Our water here runs hard, which matters a little for pasta water and a lot for anyone doing bread (I don't teach bread, I buy it, we'll get to that). Doesn't change much for sauce.

    One last thing. Don't buy every spice on this list if your cabinet's already got half of them from something else. Cooking Italian food on a weeknight isn't about having a full pantry, it's about knowing which four or five things you reach for. We'll build that list together as we go.

    See you in class. Bring an apron if you've got one — I wear mine over my sunday best now, and I'd recommend you learn from my mistake rather than repeat it.

  • HandoutHandout 2: Cheat Sheet — Core Techniques

    Handout 2: Cheat Sheet — Core Techniques

    Here's the short version of everything I keep saying in class. Tape this inside a cabinet door. I keep mine in the journal, but a cabinet's probably smarter.

    Salt the Pasta Water Like You Mean It

    The water should taste like the ocean, genuinely salty, not "a pinch and hope." This is the cheapest improvement in all of cooking and I didn't do it for years, so don't feel bad if you haven't either. A good rule: a palmful of salt per pot of water. Do it after the water's boiling, it dissolves faster.

    The Browning Step (Don't Walk Away)

    Whenever a recipe says brown the meat or soften the onions, that's not a step to multitask through. I learned this the hard way, changing a lightbulb in the hall while a ragu scorched behind me and stunk up the whole house for a week. Set a timer if you have to. Medium heat, not high, olive oil shimmering but not smoking. Give it the few minutes it wants and then move on.

    Ragu, the Bones of It

    1. Brown your meat, break it up, don't rush it.
    2. Soften onion, carrot, celery (this is the "soffritto," fancy name for basically all Italian cooking's flavor base).
    3. Add tomatoes, a splash of wine if you've got it, a little water.
    4. Bring it to a bare simmer, small bubbles, not a boil.
    5. Leave it alone. Twenty minutes minimum, longer is better, and it does not need you standing over it. Go set the table, deal with the salad, whatever.

    Pasta Timing at Elevation

    We're up around 4,600 feet here, and water boils at a lower temperature than it does at sea level. I actually timed the same box of spaghetti here and at my sister's place near sea level once, and the numbers were different, not by a ton, but enough to notice. Start checking your pasta a minute or two before the box says. Fish a piece out, bite it. It should have a little resistance in the middle, not a chalky center.

    Tasting As You Go

    The recipe is a starting point, not scripture. Your tomatoes are more acidic than mine, your stove runs hotter or colder than you think, and you live where I live, which affects things. Taste at every stage you reasonably can. Joyce taught me this and I fought her on it for months before admitting she was right.

    Knife Basics

    A sharp knife is safer than a dull one. Plainly, that's just true, a dull blade slips and a sharp one goes where you tell it. If your knife's dragging instead of slicing, get it sharpened, don't just push harder.

    Heat Settings, Roughly

    • Low: barely a bubble, for simmering sauce a long time.
    • Medium: steady cooking, browning, most sautéing.
    • Medium-high: getting a good sear, boiling water fast.
    • High: mostly for bringing water to boil, then back it off.

    The One-Thing-at-a-Time Rule

    Most weeknight cooking goes sideways because people start too many things at once. Get one thing simmering or resting, then deal with the next. A sauce that's been going twenty minutes is fine without you. Use that time.

    Equipment

    You don't need anything special. I've made everything in this course in a beat-up pan I bought used years ago. The recipe doesn't know what your pan cost, and neither does dinner.

  • WorksheetHandout 3: Your Weeknight Ragu Checklist

    Handout 3: Your Weeknight Ragu Checklist

    Print this one out. Tape it inside a cupboard door if you want, that's what I did for the first year. This is the same order I use every single time, and the point is you stop needing the checklist eventually. Until then, check things off.

    Before you start anything

    • [ ] Read the whole recipe once, start to finish. Not while you're cooking. Now.
    • [ ] Get out everything you need. Pan, wooden spoon, cutting board, the works. I know that sounds fussy but hunting for a spoon while something's browning is how the lightbulb thing happened to me (ask me about it in class, I won't tell it twice in writing).
    • [ ] Chop your onion, carrot, celery, garlic before the pan is hot. Once it's hot you don't get to stop and chop.
    • [ ] Set a timer for the browning step. Write this down twice if you have to. I mean it.

    While the ragu goes

    • [ ] Brown the meat in batches, don't crowd the pan. Crowded meat steams instead of browns, and steamed meat tastes like nothing.
    • [ ] Once the sauce is simmering, walk away from it. Don't stand over it. A ragu that's been going twenty minutes is fine without you.
    • [ ] This is your window. Use it to start the pasta water, clean up your cutting board, whatever. This is the whole trick to weeknight cooking, honestly. One thing simmering, then you deal with the rest.

    The pasta

    • [ ] Salt the water until it tastes like the ocean. Not a pinch. A real amount. This is the cheapest fix in cooking and I didn't do it right for years.
    • [ ] Check the box time, then check it two minutes early. We're at about 4,600 feet here and things cook different than the box expects. I timed the same pasta at my sister's place near sea level once and wrote the difference down in my journal like I'd found gold.
    • [ ] Save a cup of the pasta water before you drain it. Don't forget this part, it's easy to forget.

    Before you plate it (or just serve it, no shame either way)

    • [ ] Taste the sauce. Actually taste it, don't just glance at it and trust the recipe.
    • [ ] Ask yourself: does it need salt? Does it need something acidic, a splash of the tomato juice, a little vinegar? Your tomatoes aren't my tomatoes.
    • [ ] Loosen with a little pasta water if it looks tight. That starchy water is doing you a favor, don't dump it down the drain out of habit.

    Questions to answer out loud, in your own kitchen, this week

    Write your answers in the blank lines. I'm not grading it, I just want you thinking about it.

    What went too fast tonight? ___________________________

    What did you walk away from and it was fine? ___________________________

    Did you taste it before serving, or did you trust the recipe blind? ___________________________

    ---

    For what it's worth, jarred sauce is fine and nobody should feel bad about using it on a real Tuesday. But once you see how little actual hands-on work a ragu takes, you might not go back to the jar as much. That's the whole bet I'm making with this class.

  • HandoutHandout 4: When Things Go Wrong (Because They Will)

    Handout 4: When Things Go Wrong (Because They Will)

    Every one of these has happened to me, mostly more than once. Here's what to do about it.

    1. My sauce is bland.

    Salt first, then check acid. Most jarred sauce and even homemade stuff needs more salt than you think, and I mean that as someone who under-salted for years. If it's still flat after salt, a small splash of vinegar or a squeeze of lemon wakes the whole thing up. I lean acidic on purpose these days. A grandkid taught me that one, don't ask me how.

    2. My garlic went bitter.

    You walked away, or the heat was too high. Garlic burns fast, thirty seconds can be the difference. Keep the pan at medium, keep your eyes on it, and if you smell something sharp and unpleasant before you smell something good, pull it off the heat right then. Burnt garlic doesn't get better if you keep cooking, it just spreads.

    3. My pasta is mushy or my pasta is still crunchy at the "done" time on the box.

    Elevation. I timed the same box of noodles here and at my sister's place near sea level and got genuinely different numbers, wrote it in my journal like I'd discovered something. Start checking two minutes before the box says, and just bite one. That's the only real test.

    4. My noodles are bland even though the sauce is good.

    You didn't salt the water. It should taste like the ocean, genuinely salty, not just seasoned. This is the cheapest fix in the whole class and almost nobody does enough of it.

    5. My sauce is watery.

    Either you added pasta water without needing it, or you rushed the reduction. Let it sit and simmer longer, uncovered, before you panic. A little reserved pasta water helps sauce cling to noodles, but it's not a fix for a sauce that never thickened in the first place.

    6. I scorched the bottom of the pan.

    I've done this. Walked off to change a lightbulb once and came back to a kitchen that smelled like a campfire for a week. Set a timer for any browning step, don't trust yourself to remember. If it happens, don't scrape the burnt bits into the sauce, they'll taste burnt too. Start that layer over if you can.

    7. Everything's ready at different times and I'm standing over three pans yelling at myself internally.

    This is the number one weeknight problem and it's not really a cooking problem, it's a starting-too-many-things-at-once problem. Get one thing simmering low and slow, then deal with the rest. A ragu that's been going twenty minutes doesn't need you hovering. Walk away, do your prep, come back.

    8. My knife keeps slipping and it scares me.

    Your knife is probably dull. I know that sounds backwards, but a dull knife is what slips, a sharp one does what you tell it. If you take one thing home from this whole class, take that.

    9. My cheese didn't melt right, it went grainy or separated.

    Heat was too high, cheese went in too fast, or too soon. Lower heat, add cheese off the direct flame if you can, and go slow. I'll be honest, anything with precise temperature control is a gap for me too. I keep the cheese work in this class forgiving on purpose.

    10. I followed the recipe exactly and it still doesn't taste like mine should.

    Good. That means you're paying attention. Your tomatoes are more acidic than the ones I used, your stove runs hotter or cooler than mine, you're cooking at 4,600 feet with dry air working against you the whole time. The recipe is a starting point, not scripture. Taste as you go and adjust. Joyce taught me that one and I resisted it for months before I admitted she was right.

    ---

    If none of these cover your particular disaster, bring it to class. I've probably done something worse.

  • podcast_scriptClass podcast — episode 1

    Audio coming soon — show notes below.

    JESS: —okay so that's recording now, so just pretend I didn't ask you that question about the pan three times.

    CHARLES: You did ask three times.

    JESS: I wanted to make sure I had it right for the show notes. Okay. Welcome to episode one of the Weeknight Italian Cooking podcast, I'm Jess, I run the community-ed classes here, and this is Charles, who is teaching the class and who I will say, for the record, is not a chef.

    CHARLES: Correct. I want that on the record every time, actually. I fix things for a living, mostly. This is just a thing I got good at because somebody had to cook dinner.

    JESS: Tell people that story, the short version, because I think it's why people signed up.

    CHARLES: Sure. So about twelve years ago Joyce, my wife, went back to work, and some nights she wasn't home for dinner, and I was already the guy who read the dishwasher manual cover to cover before I fixed it, so I figured a recipe's not that different. Read it twice, figure out what each step is doing, then go. That's really the whole class in one sentence, for what it's worth.

    JESS: And then Italian specifically. Why Italian.

    CHARLES: Honestly it goes back further than any of that. I stayed with a family in Honduras a long time ago and on Sundays they made this long-simmered tomato and pork thing, and I never got over it. Took me years to even try to get close to it. One winter I just kept making ragu until it stopped being a disaster.

    JESS: Okay, tell the pasta timing one. This is my favorite one you've told me.

    CHARLES: (laughs) Alright. So my sister lives near sea level, and I was down visiting, and I made the same box of dried pasta I always make at home. Same brand, same everything. And it cooked faster down there. I mean genuinely different minutes, not close enough to shrug off. Up here we're around 4,600 feet, water boils at a lower temperature, so things that need boiling water just take longer. I actually wrote it in my journal like I'd discovered gravity. Maybe I had, for me anyway.

    JESS: So that's a real tip people can use tonight, without taking the class.

    CHARLES: It is. If you're up here in Utah County and a recipe from a cookbook written at sea level says nine minutes for pasta, don't trust it blind. Taste it a minute or two before the box says to. Every time. That's true for a lot of things, honestly, not just pasta, but pasta's the easy place to notice it.

    JESS: And that connects to something you say a lot, which is taste as you go.

    CHARLES: That one I resisted for a long time, I'll be honest. I used to trust the recipe like it was scripture. Joyce is the one who broke me of that, she doesn't cook much herself but she'd watch me measure everything out and say, well, taste it, does it need something. Took me months to actually do it instead of just nodding at her.

    JESS: What's the one thing, if somebody's listening right now and never takes a single class from us, what do they do tonight.

    CHARLES: Salt your pasta water like it's the ocean. Not a pinch. A real amount, enough that you can taste it on its own. It's the cheapest improvement in cooking and almost nobody does it, myself included for years. That and, sharpen your knife, a dull knife is the dangerous one, it slips. People think sharp is scary and it's backwards.

    JESS: Good. Okay, so next session, week two, what are we making.

    CHARLES: Ragu. The real one, from scratch, the one I've been chasing since Honduras basically. I'll tell you up front it's ten minutes of actual work and then a lot of waiting, and I'll show you exactly where you can walk away and where you can't.

    JESS: Where you can't being.

    CHARLES: The browning step. I've got a story about that one too, we'll save it, but let's just say I've had a scorched pan and a house that smelled like a campfire for a week, and now I set a timer, no exceptions.

    JESS: I look forward to that one. Alright, that's episode one, thanks for listening, we'll see some of you Tuesday and the rest of you back here for episode two.

    CHARLES: Bring an appetite. Or don't, that's fine too, just bring a pan you don't mind using.

  • podcast_scriptClass podcast — episode 2

    Audio coming soon — show notes below.

    JESS: —and that's the part nobody warns you about, honestly. Okay. We're back. This is the recap for week two of Weeknight Italian, I'm Jess, I run the program office and I make Charles say things into this microphone once a week whether he wants to or not.

    CHARLES: I don't mind it. I minded it more the first time.

    JESS: You did seem nervous.

    CHARLES: I was thinking about the mic the whole class instead of the ragu. Won't happen again, I hope.

    JESS: So this week was the ragu week.

    CHARLES: Ragu week. Everybody made a real one, from a pot, not a jar, and I think for most of the room it was the first time they'd seen how little actual work is in it. Ten minutes of browning and chopping, and then you leave it alone for an hour and a half and let it do its thing.

    JESS: You keep saying that, "let it do its thing."

    CHARLES: Because it's true and because I had to learn it the hard way. Here's the thing, my mother in law watched me cook once, years back, and told me I fuss too much. And she was right. I used to hover over a pot like it was going to run off if I looked away. It took me a long time to just, let it sit there and simmer and trust it.

    JESS: Did something go wrong when you didn't trust it?

    CHARLES: Oh, plenty went wrong. The one I tell people about is the first ragu I ever made, at home, years ago now. I had it going, browning the meat, and a lightbulb went out in the hall, and I figured I've got a minute, I'll go fix that real quick.

    JESS: You did not have a minute.

    CHARLES: I did not have a minute. Came back to a scorched pan and the whole kitchen smelling like a campfire. It was January. Joyce didn't say a single word, she just went around opening every window in the house in the middle of winter. That told me plenty.

    JESS: That's worse than anything that happened in class tonight, I think.

    CHARLES: Nothing scorched tonight, no. A couple people had their heat a little high early on and I drifted over, but that's normal. I set a timer for the browning step now, every time, ever since that lightbulb. Cheapest fix there is.

    JESS: Okay, that's actually a good practical tip for anybody listening who isn't even in the class. Set a timer.

    CHARLES: Set a timer for browning. Five, six minutes usually, don't walk away from it, don't go fix a lightbulb. But honestly the bigger tip from tonight, the one I want people to take home whether they ever set foot in my kitchen or not, is taste your sauce as you go. Don't wait til it's done and serve it blind. Your tomatoes aren't my tomatoes, your stove runs different than mine, you're up here at 4,600 feet same as me and that changes things too. Taste it at the start, taste it in the middle, taste it near the end, adjust the salt.

    JESS: Joyce taught you that one, right? I remember from week one.

    CHARLES: Joyce taught me that one. Took me months to actually listen to her about it. Now it's the first thing out of my mouth in every class.

    JESS: Was there a moment tonight where that mattered, the tasting thing?

    CHARLES: There's always a moment. Couple people thought their sauce needed more tomato, and really it just needed more salt, that's usually the issue. Salt does more work than people give it credit for. I'll say it every week probably. Salt the pasta water like you mean it too, that's free, that's the cheapest improvement in the whole class and almost nobody does it enough. I didn't for years.

    JESS: You've mentioned that one before too.

    CHARLES: I'll mention it again next week, don't worry.

    JESS: Speaking of next week, what are we making.

    CHARLES: Next week's the pasta by hand session, if people want to try it, though I'll say up front, you don't need to make pasta from scratch to eat well on a weeknight, a good dry pasta is fine, I use it at home most nights myself. But it's worth trying once so you understand what you're buying when you don't make it. We'll do a simple egg dough, and I'll bring the timer story back out because there's a step in there where you really do have to just leave the dough alone and let it rest, and everybody wants to mess with it early.

    JESS: Sounds like a theme is developing.

    CHARLES: Leaving things alone is the whole theme of this class, if I'm honest. Most weeknight cooking goes wrong because people try to do five things at once instead of getting one thing going and then dealing with the rest.

    JESS: Alright. That's the recap. Charles, thanks for doing this again.

    CHARLES: Happy to. Try the timer thing this week even if you're not in the class. It's free and it works.

    JESS: See everybody next Tuesday.

  • podcast_scriptClass podcast — episode 3

    Audio coming soon — show notes below.

    JESS: —okay but did it actually work, the twice-a-day watering thing, or is that just what you tell yourself now.

    CHARLES: No, it worked. The basil made it. Half of it was already cooked by the time I figured out the dry air out here just pulls the water right out of the pot, so I was watering it like I would've back where Joyce's sister lives, which is a mistake, because we sit up here at what, 4,600 feet, and the air's got nothing in it. Twice a day after that. Survived fine. I made more sauce that summer than two people should eat.

    JESS: This is a good excuse to segue, actually, because elevation's kind of what I wanted to ask you about today. Tonight's class is the ragu, right, the one you talk about all the time.

    CHARLES: It is. And I'll be honest, I was nervous about teaching it for years because it's the one thing I actually care about getting right. It goes back to a family I stayed with in Honduras a long time ago, they did this long-simmered tomato and pork thing every Sunday, and I could not recreate it for years. Tried and failed a bunch of times. Then one winter I just kept at it until it stopped being a disaster.

    JESS: And the anecdote you told me before we started recording—

    CHARLES: The pasta timing thing.

    JESS: The pasta timing thing.

    CHARLES: So this is a small one but it stuck with me. I was at my sister's place, which is near sea level, and I made the same box of dried pasta I make here, and I timed it out of curiosity more than anything. And the minutes were genuinely different. Not by alot, but enough that if you're trusting the box exactly you'll end up with something a little firmer here than you would down there. I wrote it in my journal like I'd discovered gravity or something. Probably every cook at elevation already knew that, but nobody'd told me.

    JESS: So what do people do with that, practically. Somebody listening who's never going to take the class, what do they do with that information.

    CHARLES: Start checking the pasta a minute or two before the box says to, especially if you're up here in the valley or anywhere near it. Fish a piece out, bite it. That's it. Don't trust the box blind, trust your teeth. It's the same thing I tell people about tasting sauce as you go, actually, the box is a starting point and not scripture.

    JESS: Speaking of tasting as you go, is that a Joyce thing or a you thing.

    CHARLES: Oh, that's a hundred percent Joyce. I resisted it for months when she first started saying it to me. I wanted to just follow the recipe and trust it'd come out right. She'd stand there while I cooked and just say, "taste it," like it was obvious, and I'd get a little defensive about it, if I'm honest. But now it's the first thing I tell anybody in class. Recipe doesn't know your stove, doesn't know your tomatoes, doesn't know you live at 4,600 feet with hard water and dry air doing something to everything you cook. You gotta taste it and adjust.

    JESS: Okay, one tip for somebody who's just listening to this and not signed up for the class. What do they do tonight, for dinner, that comes out of all this.

    CHARLES: Salt your pasta water like you mean it. Like the ocean, genuinely, more than feels comfortable the first time. Cheapest improvement in all of cooking and almost nobody does it. I didn't for years and I don't know why, I think I was scared of the box telling me one thing and me doing another. That's the whole tip. You don't need the ragu, you don't need anything else I'm gonna say tonight, just salt the water properly and see what happens to a plain bowl of pasta.

    JESS: I love that it's always something that simple with you.

    CHARLES: Well, here's the thing, most of what goes wrong on a weeknight is people trying to do five things at once and doing all five halfway. Get one thing simmering, salt your water right, then worry about the rest. The ragu doesn't need you standing over it once it's going. That's sort of the whole class tonight, honestly, teaching people it's okay to walk away from the pot for ten minutes. Within reason. I did once walk away to change a lightbulb and came back to a scorched pan, so I'm not saying walk away forever.

    JESS: We should probably say what's coming next session before we run long.

    CHARLES: Right, next time we're doing the garlic bread and a simple salad, and I'll say up front, I'm not the guy to ask about bread. I buy the loaf on purpose, that's not an accident, that's the whole plan. But there's a dressing in there I make with more lemon than seems reasonable, and a kid told me once it was the best one she'd had, so I've leaned that way ever since. Kids don't lie about that kind of thing.

    JESS: Alright. Salt your water, taste as you go, see you next week for bread we didn't bake ourselves.

    CHARLES: That's the class in a sentence, honestly.

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