One of the most strident sensory memories from my childhood is of spending scalding summers in Woodstock, NY, sitting on the back porch and eating pasta. My mom and I would drive back to the city every week or two to go to Fairways on the Upper West Side (incorrigible city folks; because there was no grocery store upstate?). I would wander the aisles, smelling the rinds of the cheeses through their wrappers, the brine of the olives in their open buckets, the scented coffees, and I seem to remember semolina on the floor, but that could be a little garnish added by memory. Did we nip down to Soho to stop at Raffetto’s for the ravioli and tortellini and pasta, or did we just pick them up at Fairways? The decades have blurred the truth.
But what my mom did with those city pastas was all upstate. Devoted to organic produce since before it was cool, she would take the bounty of basil and pulverize it to a pesto that radiates in my memory as chlorophyll neon. On the cheese ravioli, the pesto was so mesmerizing, that any whiff of fresh basil to this day time-machines me back to that back porch at dusk, with the sounds of the creek rushing further down the mountain, the breeze in the sky-scraper leaves, and the bears lazing through the summer brush. We would go to a farm stand, and buy tomatoes, and buy corn and pull back the husks and silk and gnaw it raw, and drink warm fresh watermelon juice full of seeds (it was the 80s). It is my first and most unassailable memory of summer.
Now, I abhor summer. I can’t make sense of its heat, or the fact that the sun says it’s time to rest but the pace of life says it’s time to work, or the oven that is New York City. I always eagerly anticipate September. But the one summer love I do maintain, since that summer in 1988, is the produce. Every day is a festival of tomatoes and melon and summer squashes and cucumbers and green beans and corn. With the juice running down my chin and arms, it has all the abundance and irreverence of Eden.
I’m spending this summer in the city. Which means easy access to Raffetto’s ravioli. (Not an ad, just a lifelong love affair!) But I couldn’t resist a farm stand sauce, with fresh tomato flesh grated into an almost-raw sauce studded with barely cooked crisp fresh corn and the requisite freshly torn basil. Almost as good as Maman’s pesto. I hope you try it and it tastes of summer.
“Upstate” Farm Stand Summer Ravioli with Fresh Tomato, Corn, and Basil
serves 3-4
INGREDIENTS
- 22 ounces of cheese ravioli (this is the Raffetto’s box of 48 medium ravioli; you can ballpark this)
- 1 ear of corn, kernels removed from the cob
- 2 beefsteak tomatoes
- A small handful of basil leaves
- Pecorino Romano, for garnish
METHOD
Cook the ravioli according to package instructions. 2 minutes before you drain them, add the corn kernels. Drain and set aside.
While the ravioli is cooking, cut the tomatoes in half across the equator. Using the coarse side of a box grater placed over a bowl, grate the flesh of the tomato. Magically, the flesh will grate and leave you just the skin, which you can toss. Season the tomato flesh with salt.
Once you have drained the ravioli and corn, add the tomato flesh to the same, now empty, pot (no need to wash it). Cook over medium heat for just 1-2 minutes. Add in the ravioli and corn, and cook another minute to bring everything together. Pour gently onto a serving platter and top with Pecorino grated on top and the basil freshly torn on top of that.