funghi among i.

old me: funghiphobe.
new me: funghiphile.

i think i turned the corner to mushroom appreciation one night when i was at a summertime cookout on my friends josh & mo's rooftop downtown. they grilled some creminis that had been tossed with olive oil and salt and i was immediately smitten. mo's friend karl was super sweet about it, too, and he kept passing them my way. i didn't experiment much with mushrooms after that, but it did open me up to the possibility of eating them in different ways.

this past september, i had a mushroom tagliatelle for my birthday dinner. and this afternoon, when i was shopping at trader joe's, i couldn't resist buying a half-pound assortment of mushrooms - oyster, cremini, and shiitake. i wanted a similar pasta dish, so i sought out a recipe and, wouldn't you know it, mario batali came through. i worked from his recipe for perciatelli al funghi, but used less oil, my 'shroom mix instead of porcinis, linguine instead of perciatelli, and added a little dry white wine. it was flippin' awesome.

1 pound perciatelli
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves thinly sliced
4 garlic whole cloves peeled
1 cup roughly chopped flat leaf parsley
1/2 pound fresh porcini mushrooms, cleaned and sliced

drop the pasta in salted boiling water.
meanwhile, in a large saute pan heat 4 tablespoons of the extra-virgin olive oil, add the sliced and whole garlic. remove the pan from the heat if necessary; you do not want the garlic to brown too much or burn.
add 1/2 cup of the parsley and continue to cook either on low flame or using the residual heat for 1 minute. if you find the garlic cooking too quickly, add a few tablespoons of the pasta cooking liquid to slow it down.
add the sliced porcini and 4 more tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil.
remove the whole garlic cloves and continue to cook until your pasta is ready.
once your pasta is done, drain it and place in the saute pan with the oil and porcini tossing to combine, let it cook for 45 seconds more, and then toss in the remaining 1/2 cup parsley and the remaining extra-virgin olive oil.
plate and serve immediately.