I didn’t intend this to become a cooking-while-high post, but the decision was taken out of my hands. I was midway through prep, all ready to start cooking Gwyneth’s Cavolo Nero Pesto with Penne & Peas, and then my boyfriend Justin declared he wasn’t hungry yet. So I put the cooking on pause, took a few hits from my weed pen, and passed the time on my phone, where I narrowly avoided making a stupid purchase:
Eventually I got back off the couch and continued. But before that, I had needed to figure out what the fuck cavolo nero is. Gwyneth informed me it’s “a dark green leafy vegetable that’s very good for you” and is in season in the winter, but I highly doubted my local stores would carry something I had never heard of. But, apparently: I had heard of it! It’s also called Tuscan kale, lacinato kale, or, my personal favorite, dinosaur kale (cavolo nero is allegedly Italian for “black kale” but I can’t vouch for that because my Duolingo hasn’t gotten me there yet).
While I had never purchased it, I had actually admired it at several of my local stores. It’s just so fun looking! These scaly, almost blue-green, massive leaves always beckoned to me from the produce aisle, but I never knew what to do with them, other than give them to a cartoon mouse to use as a fan. Now, thanks to my dear friend Gwyneth, I had an excuse to cook with it. This is what passes for a thrill these days.
The recipe calls for you to steam one bunch of cavolo nero, which was a problem because one of my biggest insecurities in life is the fact that I don’t have a steamer basket. Thankfully, my creative brain was unlocked due to the cavolo verde I had vaped, and I turned my strainer into a makeshift steamer basket. Mensa vibes much????
After some high-level anxiety and agony about whether I should steam the kale with or without the stalks (I did it with and I think it was the right call), I steamed it for the exact 7 minutes Gwyneth called for. I truly love when she gets ultra-specific. It’s very dom.
Then I let the kale cool for a minute or two, before “whizzing” it in my food processor with garlic, olive oil, black pepper, and 10 olive-oil packed anchovies. Well, actually, my anchovies seemed to be significantly larger than is typical, so around the time I was plopping my 6th anchovy into the food processor I looked at the heaping pile of fish filets and felt like a godforsaken maniac, so I called it quits at 6 anchovies. I do like anchovies, but you can’t tell me anyone would have wanted to eat the full 10-anchovy version of this pesto!!!!! And if you did tell me? I wouldn’t believe you.
I whizzed that shit and then stirred in some mascarpone, and you know what? It tasted like pesto! A hair fishier than I would have preferred (stopping at 6 anchovies: another stunning cooking decision by moi), and I maybe would have wanted an extra garlic clove in there, but this was actually a pretty good kale pesto recipe! WE LOVE WHEN GWYNETH SUCCEEDS, FOLKS.
But, meanwhile in the pasta department, things were getting weird. 3 minutes before your penne is done cooking, you see, Gwyneth tells you to dump a cup of frozen peas in with the pasta. Maybe this is a thing other people do all the time and no judgment to you if you think that’s the best move for your family in these uncertain times, but for me? Like this is so fucked up:
Anyway, we survived the ordeal, and once the pasta and peas had finished cooking, I reserved “a teacup” of pasta/pea water, strained the noodles, and mixed it with the pesto until it all… is emulsified the proper word here? I literally never know what that word means or where it’s appropriate. Does “emulsify” just mean “mix together”? Please don’t tell me the answer.
I piled that shit with Parmesan, trying to smother any weird pea flavoring, and voila: kale pesto with peas for some reason! I had tasted the pesto earlier so I already knew it was good, which made the last-minute addition of boiled peas even more confusing. What is this for? Not to rehash the dreaded peas-in-guacamole fight of yesteryear, but stop adding peas to things that don’t need them!!! Peas have a distinctive flavor so you can’t just throw them into anything green and pretend like they’ll blend in! They won’t!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The peas not only transformed this dish but transformed ME, from an absolute Earth mother kitchen goddess who can whip up a pesto using fresh local Tuscan kale while pleasantly stoned, to a sullen bratty child miserably picking around the clumps of boiled peas in his dinner. Not cool! (But I probably will make a kale pesto adaptation of this again, so let’s take our victories where we can.)
Programming note: I have come to absolutely loathe WordPress (WHY do they force me to post such BIG IMAGES), so I’m moving to Substack! You can subscribe to The Danny/Gwyneth Project here. That said, I will still be posting updates here for the sake of keeping the whole project in one place, but I reserve the right to stop doing that if WordPress keeps making it this unbelievably irritating to make a simple post. So I’d suggest subscribing to the newsletter!
Breaking news: Gwyneth has a podcast. FINALLY. It’s actually kind of surprising she didn’t have a podcast until now? Shows surprising restraint. The first episode of the goop Podcast comes out Thursday, but I gleefully downloaded the 1-minute preview episode about 45 seconds after it was released, and let me tell you, this shit is already delivering everything I wanted.
I don’t know what happened to me the night before — some drink combination, or a particularly handsome man looking at me in a certain way — but I woke up last Sunday with nerves of steel. I could do anything, I suddenly realized. Why hadn’t I ever seen it before? Buoyed by this superlative confidence, I sent out a text to a few choice friends: “In search of duck bacon today. If I succeed, we will have dinner. Wish me luck.” And I ventured out into Brooklyn.
If you guys are thinking about buying this cookbook for someone this Christmas: Don’t. It’s not exciting. Maybe it’ll elicit a laugh upon the initial unwrapping, but beyond that, there’s nothing much of value to be gained from it. Case in point is Tomato & Arugula Pasta. Let’s delve into this and explore why no self-respecting cookbook (that you expect people to PAY ACTUAL MONEY for) should include this recipe. 
So here we are in New York City. I’ll spare you the details, but it’s been quite the week, what with driving two 16-hour days to get to Wisconsin, sadly leaving my dog behind with my parents (who, I should gratuitously mention, are absolute saints), and arriving in New York on Sunday morning. Since then, I’ve been touring apartments around the city like a lunatic, trying desperately to secure a place to live before I start work next Monday (and expect a forthcoming blog post on how Gwyneth is actually helping me find a place). In the meantime, my friends Nora and Mandy are graciously allowing me to impede on their space and sleep on their couch in Chelsea. To make up for this, I cooked not one, not two, but THREE Gwyneth recipes for dinner recently. Let’s see how my first NYC cooking experience went! 
Last night there was a lot to celebrate: my friend Lisa is in town from Wisconsin, and oh also by the way I’m moving to New York in like two weeks to go work in an ad agency (and possibly also to gay marry Zachary Quinto, but that’s still only at about a 50/50 probability). So, everything is very exciting! Also? TERRIFYING. I have so much to do in the next couple weeks (including, much to my chagrin, this project, the bane of my existence). My head may just burst into flames at any moment. Fun! I’ll be sure to document all my meltdowns on Twitter. Anyway, I made three recipes last night, because I need to get this train a-rollin’ and also because I am a masochist.
This one is so simple. Insanely simple. But we had to make it at some time, so why not today? Cacio e Pepe, an old Italian classic. Gwyneth doesn’t put a new spin on it at all, so I’m not sure what it’s really doing in her cookbook, taking up a full page. And now it’s taking up a full blog post. So we’re both cheating! Neat! 
As I mentioned last week, most of the serious recipes left (as opposed to the salads, for example, that are often no more than two ingredients) require at least 4 or 5 hours’ cooking time, which means there are going to have to be more Gwyneth Paltrow Sundays in my future. In that spirit, I knocked another one out this past Sunday, making Turkey Bolognese from 2 PM until nearly 8:00.
Things have been pretty negative around here lately, huh? Between the horrors of locating duck bacon (although I am beginning to enjoy the bewildered looks I get when I ask grocers and butchers, “Do you know anywhere I can find duck bacon?”) and the sheer amount of time it takes to complete a single recipe, let alone track down the ingredients, I had all but given up on “My Father’s Daughter.” And then, Spaghetti Alla Vongole arrived. Just when I think I’m out, they pull me back in. 
The Danny/Gwyneth Project 