Skip to main content
in the kitchen

David Lee is co-owner of Nota Bene in Toronto

I have a declaration to make: I've fallen in love. But before my wife, Jennifer, calls her lawyer, I should clarify that it's not another woman I've fallen for, it's a place … oh, and a pasta dish.

Besides, Jennifer can hardly blame me for what happened. It was her good friend, Kim, whose husband, Doug, surprised his wife on her birthday by renting a villa in Positano, Italy, and invited all her close girlfriends and their partners along. All I did was agree to go and suggest that we spend a few days in Rome beforehand.

Rome was a good preparation for Positano. We saw the sights and ate in some very good restaurants, including a mom-and-pop place called Agata e Romeo, a fish restaurant called La Rosetta and a trattoria called Tullio. Most important, we slowed down in Rome, and got all the residual pre-vacation stress out of our systems, which prepared us to appreciate Positano even more than if we had gone straight there.

When we arrived in Positano, a couple of hundred kilometres south of the Eternal City on the Amalfi Coast, we were in the right state of mind to be charmed. And Positano didn't disappoint, with its pastel-coloured houses spilling down the hillside to the blue sea. Who wouldn't be captivated? What caught me off guard was the seasonal specialty of spaghettini with slices of zucchini and zucchini flowers. I tried it that first night in Positano. I was expecting it to be great, but it was truly mind-blowing! How could a zucchini be so delicious? Silly me, for the first time on this trip, but not the last, I found myself being amazed by produce. I was almost at a loss for words. How to explain the concentration of flavour in this zucchini except to say that it was more zucchini-like than any zucchini I'd ever tasted. Could it be that it was probably picked from the restaurant's adjacent garden that day? Definitely.

I later repeated this experience with tomatoes, fennel and lemons. I felt as if I were tasting all these things I had been eating all my life for the first time, and it got me to thinking about why this was so. I knew it couldn't be that the farmers there were more passionate about their produce or took greater care with it than the farmers I dealt with back in Ontario, so what was it? Likely the climate, in part, but it seemed to me that it also had to do with the soil. I've often heard wine enthusiasts going on about the concept of "terroir", and how certain places are ideally suited to growing certain grape varietals, but it was only in tasting for myself how the countryside surrounding Positano seemed so perfectly suited to growing tomatoes, lemons, fennel and zucchini that I really thought that there might be something to this concept.

For farmers, it's about specialization - knowing what works. Along the Amalfi Coast, they don't plant a huge variety of crops, just the few they know grow well there. They understand what nature wants to give them. And more important, they appreciate it. The closest thing they have to fast food in Positano is street-corner vendors selling lemon slush made from just-picked lemons.

Who was I, then, not to try the zucchini spaghettini in every restaurant we went to? It helped that there were 12 of us staying in the villa and going out for lunch and dinner together, so we could try lots of dishes in addition to my new favourite. As a group, our approach was the same in every restaurant we went to: We let them tell us what to have (knowing, of course, that the spaghettini with zucchini would invariably be featured). And we were rewarded for the trust we placed in the kitchen with great meals at La Cambusa and La Taverna del Leone in Positano, Cumpa' Cosimo in Ravello and, most memorably, La Conca del Sogno in Nerano, where we had the best meal we had in Italy by far. This wasn't a fine-dining, Michelin-star-type place, but like most of the other restaurants we dined in, a restaurant run by a "nona" serving simple, delicious food. The meal started off with the best baby squid I've ever had, and then we enjoyed a tomato salad, zucchini flowers stuffed with ricotta and marinated anchovies before trying my new favourite pasta, which was even better there than elsewhere. It's a meal I'll never forget, and one I hope to repeat. Because I'm not about to give up my new love, but plan on returning to Positano and the Amalfi Coast. Jennifer, I'm sure, will understand.

Pasta with Zucchini and Zucchini Flowers

While I haven't had any zucchini in Canada that quite compares to the zucchini I had in Italy, the baby zucchini available at farmers' markets this time of year do work well in this recipe. This recipe serves 2 people as an appetizer.

Ingredients

6 ounces fresh fettuccine or dried spaghetti cooked al dente

12 baby zucchini with flower, cut into 1/4-inch rounds

6 tablespoons olive oil

1 shallot, chopped finely

1/2 clove garlic thinly sliced

1 tablespoon grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

1 ounce butter

salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. Put a large pot of salted water on to boil for the pasta.

2. Warm enough olive oil to amply cover the bottom of a large lidded sauté pan over medium-low heat. Add shallot and, with the lid on, sweat them off (cook until translucent but not brown), stirring occasionally.

3. Add the zucchini rounds and, with the lid off, cook until somewhat soft, approximately 6 minutes, flipping the rounds halfway through.

4. Add the butter and the grated Parmigiano-Reggiano to the pan, stir it in and turn up the heat to medium to let it thicken into sauce.

5. When the salted water comes to a boil, and while the sauce is thickening, add the fettuccine to the pot and cook until it is al dente, according to the instructions on the package. It will not take long.

6. Once the fettuccine is cooking, add the zucchini flowers and a tablespoon or two of the pasta water to the sauce, and give it a stir. Season to taste.

7. Drain the pasta cooked, incorporate it into the sauce, and serve immediately.

8. Fall in love.

Special to The Globe and Mail

Interact with The Globe