Linguine with Raw Tomato Sauce

My days of summer have been littered with fluorescence.

Green fluorescence, to be precise.

Green fluorescence that I have electrified into cells.  Because when you play god.  When you create thunder and lightning and shoot it into poor unsuspecting adipocytes (i.e. fat cells).  Their response is to eat up any DNA that is sitting in the fluid that surrounds them. 

This is what one would call "stress eating".



Then, after all this.  You cross your fingers.  Tap your heels together three times.  And hope for the best.  (Because really, playing god only gets you so far.)

"The best" being that all of your cells will take this DNA for a gene that you've tagged with a protein that will make it shimmer and shine when you hit it with a very specific wavelength of light.  Turn it into protein.  And glow.

So that when you look under the microscope in two days, all you will see is a field of green.  Bright green.  Fluorescent green.



Some days, this works beautifully. 

Some days, it does not.

Some days you turn on the microscope and realize that there are approximately only five green cells on a plate of hundreds of thousands.  And that your job, should you choose to accept it (not that you actually have a choice.  This is your job.  Choose to accept it.) is to find them. 

So you look and you look.  Scrutinizing cell after cell.  (Just how green is green, again?)

Until the first wave of nausea hits.  Oh yeah.  You've just made yourself motion sick.  Right on.



That's when you hightail it out of lab.  Explaining to the postdoc you're working with that she has two options. 

You can either stay.  Keep searching.  And vomit all over the thousands of dollars worth of equipment.

Or she can "let" you call it a day.  Because both of you know that two fluorescent cells does not a sufficient or statistically significant sample size make.

By which you really mean that you're going home whether she likes it or not.  And when you get there, you're going to sit down to a bowl of linguine with raw tomato sauce. 

Super ripe local tomatoes, oozing with juicy sweetness.  The pungent taste of fresh basil.  Laced with a hit of summer.

This is what one would call "stress eating".

Yeah, that's right.  You show those cells how it's done.



Linguine with Raw Tomato Sauce
Serves 4-6, adapted from Bittman's How To Cook Everything Vegetarian

salt
4 LARGE tomatoes.  Preferably local.
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (I used roasted garlic infused olive oil)
2 cloves garlic, lightly smashed
1/2 cup roughly minced basil leaves
1 can black olives, sliced (my addition)
freshly ground black pepper
1 lb linguine
parmesan cheese

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt it.

2. Put the tomato, garlic, olives and basil in a large bowl.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper and mash together well.

3. Cook pasta to desired consistency.  Mix together with the tomato sauce.  Sprinkle with parmesan cheese.

This is my submission to I Heart Cooking Clubs, the theme of which for this week is raw foods!  It is also going to Two For Tuesdays and to Presto Pasta Nights, which is being hosted by Daphne of More Than Words!

Remember last week when I told you that I was going to be featured on the Frigidaire website...well my recipe is finally up!   I know that when I think Frigidaire, I think refrigerators and nothing else, but that is so NOT true.  They sell tons of other items, like bakeware, pots and pans, air conditioners, kitchen gadgets - the list goes on and on.  All quality stuff for really affordable prices!  Be sure to check it out, along with their other feature recipes!

Also, the end of July is fast approaching!  Be sure to send me your entries for Regional Recipes: ETHIOPIA!