Fracking Hell

New York State has passed a moratorium in natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale.

In Pennsylvania, the drilling continues, and I fear for the future of my beautiful Endless Mountains. We are barely into what we are told will be decades of drilling and already the water supply of one town has been compromised, and streams and wells are being lost on an ongoing basis.

The water supplies of Philadelphia and New York City are at risk, as are the Susquehanna and Delaware Rivers. Over 4 million gallons  of water per well drilled become polluted by fracking chemicals, some of which can be cancer-causing. When these waters spill into fields, cattle die. When they get into streams, there are fish kills. And when they get into people…

Unbelievably, by virtue of what is called the Halliburton loophole in the 2005 energy bill, the natural gas industry is exempt from the clean air and clean water act.

Among the many dubious provisions in the 2005 energy bill was one dubbed the Halliburton loophole, which was inserted at the behest of — you guessed it — then-Vice President Dick Cheney, a former chief executive of Halliburton.It stripped the Environmental Protection Agency of its authority to regulate a drilling process called hydraulic fracturing. Invented by Halliburton in the 1940s, it involves injecting a mixture of water, sand and chemicals, some of them toxic, into underground rock formations to blast them open and release natural gas. (via New York Times)

In the meantime, state DEP agencies are understaffed and cannot begin to regulate the behomoth gas industry in their states. Local water treatment plants are not up to the task of cleaning unknown chemicals from their local water supplies. Farming communities that already must monitor water usage to avoid drought conditions cannot withstand the loss of their precious water to drilling.

Town by town, landowner by landowner, drilling is occurring under the radar

That’s why it’s taken us all by surprise. The Halliburton loophole has kept natural gas drilling below the national consciousness, since the impact of the process on water and air quality is exempt from national oversight. Put it in rural areas, and its hidden in plain sight.

Since 2005, drilling rights have been sold by private landowners to gas companies with no community oversight and no national regulation. Acre by acre, town by town, lake my lake, stream by stream, the natural gas companies are moving through some of the most pristine and beautiful land in America – including public lands, state and national parks – and threatening to turn them into industrial waste zones. The quality of life in these areas is being destroyed, property values are plummeting and futures ruined. Short term profits and cash lining the pockets of the minority are trumping long term concerns and the rights of the majority.

Drilling is proceeding at a breakneck pace, and without national oversight, states and local communities are left to deal with the consequences.

Folks, natural gas is not clean

That’s just how they’re marketing it. When we look at it’s environmental impact of fracking, the process by which we are choosing to extract it, natural gas is downright filthy.

Get informed

To get up to speed on the topic, I point you to the video above and to the resources below. Read them. Link to them.  Tweet them. Email them. Tell someone. Anyone.

Get Involved

Urge congress to move on the FRAC act, which would require gas companies to disclose the contents of fracking water. If you live in a Marcellus shale watershed area, tell your local government representatives that your water is at risk. Read about what Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are doing to protect their water supply.  And if you live in the shale, fight.

We are facing what has been called the environmental crisis of a generation.

Don’t wait until it’s too late to do something.

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Natural Gas Drilling & Hydraulic Fracking – Essential Reading

  • A Colossal Fracking Mess – Vanity Fair’s report on the dirty truth behind natural gas
  • Pro Publica’s Groundbreaking Investigation into Natural Gas Drilling
  • The Frac Act – Which would require gas companies to disclose fracking chemicals – is stalled in Committee since the summer
  • Gasland – the award winning HBO Documentary on Fracking. Watch the trailer, then order the movie online or from Netflicks.
  • Andrew Reinbach’s brilliant solution to stop drilling – sue your neighbor.
  • Pittsburgh bans Natural Gas drilling
  • Mark Ruffulo is leading the fight against fracking in NY State. Pennsylvania needs a star to help us too!
  • Life in the Gas Lane – An honest look at day-to-day impact of drilling in Bradford County, Pa
  • Calvin Tillman, Mayor of Dish, Texas – A blog about the effects of drilling on one small town “We are hard working honest people who have been dealt a raw hand by the pipeline industry.”
  • Frack Tracker – a blog from the U of Pittsburgh allowing readers to track actual drilling activity, water withdrawal permits and potential environmental impacts in the Marcellus Shale.
  • The Department of the Interior held a forum today on fracking – will it lead to passage of the Frac Act?

Vitamin D – New Guidelines from the Institute of Medicine

Taking a lesson from the recent failures of vitamins to live up to their much-hyped potential for disease prevention, the Institute of Medicine is calling for caution in Vitamin D  use, concluding in a recent report that the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency and the health benefits of high dose vitamin D intake have been largely overestimated.

Scientific evidence indicates that calcium and vitamin D play key roles in bone health. The current evidence, however, does not support other benefits for vitamin D or calcium intake. More targeted research should continue. However, the committee emphasizes that, with a few exceptions, all North Americans are receiving enough calcium and vitamin D. Higher levels have not been shown to confer greater benefits, and in fact, they have been linked to other health problems, challenging the concept that “more is better.”

The group concluded that vitamin D intake of 600 IUs daily is sufficient for almost all adults up to age 70, with 800Iu recommended daily for those age 71 and older.

Re-defining normal vitamin D levels

The IOM has redefined normal vitamin 25 OH Vitamin D levels in adults as 20 ng/dL for the overwhelming majority of the population, with no additional benefit seen to having levels above 30 ng/dL, and potential harm when levels are above 50 ng/dL.

An urgent call for more research

The insitute is calling for urgently needed research to further define what, if any, role vitamin D may play beyond maintenance of bone health in normal individuals. Until then, caution is advised.

My take

As a clinician, I find the IOM report reassuring and helpful, since until now it seems as if everyone I screen has been vitamin D deficient, and I have been truly wondering how this could be in a population that is overall healthy, and at least here in NYC, getting some sun exposure every day.

Aiming for levels above 20 ng/dL, I suspect most of my patients will not need to take much more vit D than I am already recommending on a daily basis. I will certainly be backing off on treating those with Vitamin D levels already in the low-to-mid 20’s, which seems to be where most of my patients live.

A group I will still be screening and treating for Vitamin D deficiency are those with bone loss. Some of these individuals are older and have Vitamin D levels significantly below 20 ng/dL, which may be how they ended up with bone loss in the first place. For these individuals, I’ll continue my practice of prescribing short periods of high weekly dose D to get them up into normal ranges, then backing off to standard recommended doses.

Oocyte Preservation aka Egg Freezing – Ready or Not, It’s Here

Oocyte preservation, or egg freezing as it is popularly called, is now being offered by over half of US fertility clinics, and half of those not offering it now plan to do so in the future. This according to a national survey conducted in mid 2009 and reported this week in Fertility and Sterility.

Over two thirds of the 143 centers offering oocyte cryo-preservation will do it electively, as opposed to those that offer it only to women undergoing cancer treatments that threaten their natural fertility.

Go West, but be prepared to pay…

Centers located in the Western part of the US are more likely to offer elective egg freezing than those in the East. Not surprisingly, centers that only accept out of pocket (as opposed to insurance) payments were more likely to offer the procedure, reflecting the history of infertility advancement, which, unlike almost any other area of medicine, has largely been financed by private individual dollars.

Pregnancy Rates – Mother Nature is Still Better

A total of 337 live births from 1,845 cryopreservation cycles were reported, with an overall pregnancy rate of 39%.

Given that 80% of these women would probably be expected get pregnant spontaneously within a year if they had tried to do so naturally, egg freezing is still a far cry from mother nature.  One could argue that egg freezing offers about the same odds of pregnancy a women would have if she delayed natural pregnancy till her early 40’s, begging the question as to whether or not elective egg freezing is worth it for younger women.

There may be an advantage to egg freezing in that younger eggs have less chromosomal abnormalities such as Down’s syndrome than older eggs, and data to date suggest that freezing does not increase chromosomal abnormalities. However, until we have long term developmental outcomes from a large cohort of children born after cryopreserved oocyte cycles, that advantage remains theoretical.

And while these numbers may look good when compared to embryo cryopreserved cycles, which have a reported pregnancy rate of about 21% per thawed cycle, it is important to remember that women undergoing embryo freezing are largely a population with a diagnosis of infertility using IVF, while women electively freezing oocytes would be expected to have normal fertility rates.

Caveat

Only about 60% of clinics participated in the survey, so the actual number of cycles may be higher than reported. Conversely, the actual pregnancy rates could be lower if only centers with good statistics repsponded to the survey.

Slow or fast freeze?

Centers using only slow freezing had marginally higher pregnancy rates than those offering other freeze methods, but this does not control for multiple other factors that can affect a center’s pregnancy rates, including patient age. Because there are so many factors that can impact outcomes, I would not use this measure as a sole reason to include or exclude a center from clinical consideration.  Most good centers are studying this issue closely.

Bottom Line

Oocyte preservation, though increasingly available and promising, remains experimental. Centers conducting the procedure should be doing so under IRB guidance, as recommended by the Association for Reproductive Medicine.

Gold Rush Apples and Ginger Crisps – A Perfect Pair

Maybe it’s the fact that they are only available during a brief period in the late season, but these Gold Rush apples from North Star Orchards in Chester County, Pennsylvania are hands down the best apple I’ve ever eaten. (Yes, even better than the Ginger Golds I found last year.)

Gold Rush apples are crisp, juicy, full of flavor, with the perfect balance of tart and sweet and covered with a skin that is not too perfect so you know you’re getting a real apple from a real tree.  They are best eaten cold from the fridge, where they will hold their flavor for months. (We’ve got ours out on the terrace for now since the 20 lb bag is too big for the fridge…)

While these babies are perfect eaten alone, they also pair beautifully with ginger cookies for a light and lovely dessert for company, which is how we served them last night. I also packed up some apples and a tin of the cookies for my daughter to take back to college today, which made me think that the combo would make a very nice holiday gift package.

Brown Sugar Ginger Crisps

This is a classic recipe from Gourmet Magazine, via my mother-in-law Irene, from whence cometh all great recipes.

2 sticks butter at room temperature
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 large egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup finely chopped crystallized ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon double-acting baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Whisk dry ingredients together (flour, baking powder, ground ginger and salt) and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and the brown sugar, then beat in the egg yolk, vanilla, and crystallized ginger. Add the dry ingredients and mix well.

Drop the batter onto ungreased baking sheets (I use a small melon scooper for this, you can just drop by teaspoon if you prefer). Bake in the middle of a preheated 350° F. oven, one sheet at a time, for 10 to 12 minutes, or until they are just golden. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer them to racks to cool completely. These cookies make ahead and keep well frozen in airtight containers.

Makes about 50 cookies.


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As of today, North Star Orchard’s website states that there are still some gold rushes available for pick up at designated area farm markets, so if you are in the Chester county area, I’d encourage you to get some.

If you know of a local orchard in your area that is selling Gold Rushes, let us know in the comments.

If at First You Don’t Succeed…

New research tells us that in smoking cessation, there are two kinds of quitters. Those who stop right away and those who stop eventually. Amazingly, both end up as ex-smokers.

A substantial proportion of smokers who quit by the end of 12 weeks of treatment smoked in one or more weeks during the first eight weeks before achieving continuous abstinence… Researchers described this as a previously unreported and natural pattern of quitting. Had the delayed quitters quit treatment, continuous abstinence could have been lost for up to 45% of eventually successful people.

What is it they say? ‘The enemy of good is perfect.”  In our strive for perfection, we fail more often at our goal than if we allow ourselves to be a little less than perfect.

It’s an important message for smokers trying to quit. You don’t have to do the program perfectly to end up an ex-smoker.  You just have to persevere.

I suspect the same thing is true for dieters.

I don’t know about you, but in this arena I am definitely a victim of my own perfectionism.

Those who end up at their goal may not be the ones who never broke program, but they are the ones who persist with their diet and exercise program, whatever it is, through times on non-compliance and less than perfect behavior.

Important to remember as we enter the Thanksgiving holidays…

TBTAM Thanksgiving Dessert Recipes

Apple Torte

If you’re looking to break out from the old pumpkin pie for dessert at Thanksgiving, here are a few ideas from the TBTAM recipe collection. They all have that autumn-into-winter, fruits of the harvest feel that Thanksgiving is made for, with just a tad of unexpected flavor or texture to jolt your diners’ taste buds out of their turkey-induced stupor.

Apple Torte – This is a great make-ahead dessert that keeps well in the fridge. It’s impressive appearance belies a very easy preparation.

Ginger Stout Cake – Nothing says autumn like a ginger cake, and this is one of the best. It’s what I’m bringing to dinner this year.

Fig & Plum Tartlets – Adapt this tartlet recipe for a large crowd by making one large tart instead. Enough fruit to feel healthy after a heavy meal, with enough sweetness to feel special.

Prune & Almond Tart with Armanac – Another impressive tart that’s easy to make and delicious to eat.

Apple Crumb Tart – Made with a shortbread crust and a breadcrumb topping, this tart is a nice change from the old apple pie.

Hallelujah Chorus – A Random Act of Culture

The Opera Company of Philadelphia and members of 28 local choruses burst into Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus, accompanied by the famed Wanamaker organ at Macy’s in Philadelphia, much to the delight of the shoppers there.

It’s all part of Knight Art’s Random Acts of Culture project, designed to bring fine arts to a public that may not experience them otherwise, and to enrich and engage the cultural communities in which we live.  Their goal of 1,000 random acts of culture is well on it’s way, with 42 acts to date nationwide.

Watch out – you may be next to experience a random act of culture!

The Twinkie Diet

Mark Haub, professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, has astounded America by losing 27 lbs while eating mostly junk food. He also lowered his cholesterol and body fat.

Haub’s methodology was simple – he  limited himself to 1800 calories a day. Here’s a typical day on the Twinkie Diet, courtesy of CNN –

Haub’s sample day

  • Espresso, Double: 6 calories; 0 grams of fat
  • Hostess Twinkies Golden Sponge Cake: 150 calories; 5 grams of fat
  • Centrum Advanced Formula From A To Zinc: 0 calories; 0 grams of fat
  • Little Debbie Star Crunch: 150 calories; 6 grams of fat
  • Hostess Twinkies Golden Sponge Cake: 150 calories; 5 grams of fat
  • Diet Mountain Dew: 0 calories; 0 grams of fat
  • Doritos Cool Ranch: 75 calories; 4 grams of fat
  • Kellogg’s Corn Pops: 220 calories; 0 grams of fat
  • whole milk: 150 calories; 8 grams of fat
  • baby carrots: 18 calories; 0 grams of fat
  • Duncan Hines Family Style Brownie Chewy Fudge: 270 calories; 14 grams of fat
  • Little Debbie Zebra Cake: 160 calories; 8 grams of fat
  • Muscle Milk Protein Shake: 240 calories; 9 grams of fat
  • Totals: 1,589 calories and 59 grams of fat

You may be surprised, but I’m not.

I did pretty much the same thing earlier this year when I lost 33 pounds in 11 weeks eating the “American Diet” as part of a randomized diet trial being conducted here at Cornell Medical College.

The pounds literally dropped off and my cholesterol inched towards normal as I struggled to force down lunches of pizza and oreos and potato chips, breakfasts of bacon and eggs and toast, and dinners of macaroni and cheese and hot dogs, all lovingly prepared and delivered to me by the research kitchen staff and totaling just 1200 calories a day. It was hands down the easiest diet I’ve ever been on, and though I begged Charlie the study director to let me stay on it so I could get the rest of this weight off, he would not  extend the study just for me.

Of course, there’s something incredibly satiating about having food prepared just for you. (Mommy…) And I don’t think that I would have had the will power to limit my portion size myself. I recall watching the staff painstakingly weigh and measure every single item for me, trimming the bagel to exactly the right amount of grams, counting out the potato chips or measuring out the chocolate pudding to exactly 1/2 cup. There’s no way I’d do that for myself without grabbing a few extra bites. No way at all. I don’t know how Haub did it.

Should you try the Twinkie diet?

I don’t know. As a lifelong dieter forever looking for the ultimate weight loss tool, a new diet is always appealing. I can see distinct advantages in a weight loss program that incudes previously forbidden foods and which is successful, at least in the short term.

But let’s face it – the Twinkie diet is not going to help you make the habit changes we need to make to keep the weight off in the long term. Before long, I would expect Haub will gain his weight back, as most folks do after almost every diet. That’s what’s starting to happen to me, though it’s taken about 6 months for me to inch back up about 10 pounds past the end weight from my own Twinkie diet.

Since Charlie won’t let me back into his study, I’m on my own again. So, this week I’ve embarked upon the South Beach Diet, which has performed well for me in the past.  I’m pleased to say that I’m down almost 5 pounds in just 3 days.

Wish me luck. I still have a long way to go.

Playing the Insurance Coverage Game

A patient called today – her Nuvaring fell out sometime yesterday (she’s not sure where) and she is only two weeks into her cycle. She went to the pharmacy to get a new ring, but her insurer denied the refill because it is too soon.

Now, I could spend the next half hour on hold with her insurer to get the Ring refill approved, and they may not approve it anyway.

So here’s what I did – I prescribed her a pack of birth control pills to take, starting today. She will finish that pack but refill her ring in two weeks, and now she will be two weeks ahead on her ring refills.

I hate the game, but I’m good at it….

Hormonal Contraception Thickens Cervical Mucus – an Under-Appreciated Effect

Ask any third year medical student how hormonal contraception prevents pregnancy, and they’ll probably tell you it prevents ovulation.  What they won’t tell you is that this effect is variable and dose-dependent, and if we depended on it alone, hormonal contraception would be much less effective.

That’s because of the very important, and in my opinion, much under-appreciated effect of hormonal contraception on cervical mucus.

A Cervical Mucus Primer

Fertile cervical mucus – which forms under the influence of rising estrogen levels in the first half of the menstrual cycle and is maximal around ovulation – is thin, watery, clear and easy for sperm to traverse.

Non-fertile mucus – which forms after ovulation and also in pregnancy under the influence of progesterone – is the exact opposite – thick,tacky, non-distensible and impossible for sperm to penetrate. (It’s not called the mucus plug for nothing…)

A Progestin Effect

Cervical mucus during hormonal contraceptive use mimics that of the second half of the menstrual cycle – scant, thick and impenetrable.

The responsible party here is progestin – molecules with names like levonorgestrel, medroxyprogesterone, norethindrone, norgestimate and desogestrel – which mimic the natural effect of progesterone on cervical mucus.  Even in birth control pills that contain estrogen, this progestin effect dominates at the cervix.

This effect on cervical mucus explains why the progestin-only pill, Norplant and Implanon work so well to prevent pregnancy, even though ovulation can still occur during use of these methods.

Mirena IUD thickens cervical mucus

Now, a new study shows that the Mirena IUD also thickens cervical mucus and prevents sperm penetration.

This is not surprising, since Mirena contains the progestin levonorgestrel. But it is important information about how this method works to prevent pregnancy – in addition to impairing ovulation and fertilization, Mirena also prevents sperm from getting into the fallopian tube in the first place. One could argue that in fact, if sperm and egg never meet, the other contraceptive mechanisms of this IUD become unimportant, making the Mirena really mostly a local delivery system for progestin.

This effect on cervical mucus also may explain why users of the Mirena IUD have low rates of pelvic infection, a side effect that doomed the Dalkon Shield. (Of course, the Dalkon Shield also had a multifilament string that allowed bacteria to enter the uterus. Modern IUDs have monofilament strings.)

Could we thicken mucus without hormones?

I think a lot about this contraceptive effect of progestins, wondering if we could find a way to thicken cervical mucus locally without systemic hormonal exposure. The Mirena comes as close to a local effect as we have to date, although its progestin is still systemically absorbed and has body-wide effects.

But if we could develop a locally applied non-hormonal product that does the same thing, wouldn’t that be a great contraceptive option?

Atoms for Peace Galaxy

Atoms for Peace Galaxy. Image from ESO.

This galaxy, located in the constellation Aquarius, bears a striking resemblance to a cartoon atom. It is named for Preseident Dwight D Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” speech, in which he called for worldwide efforts to discover peaceful uses for atomic energy. It’s a speech well worth reading in its entirety, but here is a salient excerpt –

…for me to say that the defense capabilities of the United States are such that they could inflict terrible losses upon an aggressor–for me to say that the retaliation capabilities of the United States are so great that such an aggressor’s land would be laid waste–all this, while fact, is not the true expression of the purpose and the hope of the United States.

To pause there would be to confirm the hopeless finality of a belief that two atomic colossi are doomed malevolently to eye each other indefinitely across a trembling world. To stop there would be to accept helplessly the probability of civilization destroyed–the annihilation of the irreplaceable heritage of mankind handed down to us generation from generation–and the condemnation of mankind to begin all over again the age-old struggle upward from savagery toward decency, and right, and justice.

Surely no sane member of the human race could discover victory in such desolation. Could anyone wish his name to be coupled by history with such human degradation and destruction…

…My country wants to be constructive, not destructive. It wants agreement, not wars, among nations. It wants itself to live in freedom, and in the confidence that the people of every other nation enjoy equally the right of choosing their own way of life.

So my country’s purpose is to help us move out of the dark chamber of horrors into the light, to find a way by which the minds of men, the hopes of men, the souls of men every where, can move forward toward peace and happiness and well being.

This remarkable image comes from the European Southern Observatory and appeared this week on NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day, a website where every day, a different image from our universe is featured.  Peruse the archives for some amazing stuff.

You can also download a free program that will make each day’s Astronomy photo your desktop image. (Windows only, sorry…) I downloaded it today on my desktop at work,  and can’t wait to see what new image awaits me there tomorrow morning.

Susan on China

My friend Susan has a way of cutting through to the core of any issue. She just returned from a business trip to Beijing with these observations –

On public transportation – “As a New Yorker still waiting for the 2nd Ave subway, you’ll appreciate this – The Chinese completed 3 new subway lines in the last 5 years in Beijing alone! If there was ever any doubt in your mind that the Chinese would surpass us, let this set that to rest.”

On the auto industry – “The number of Chinese who own cars has risen exponentially in the past 5 years. They’re all so proud of this, and I’m thinking  – Wait a minute. This means that the majority of the drivers in China who are currently on the road have been driving for less than 5 years? That’s like having an entire country of teenage drivers!”

On the language – “Our kids need to learn Mandarin so they can talk to their Chinese bosses when they are cleaning their houses.”

On women in the workplace – “Four out of the five high level Chinese execs at the meeting were women, while I was the only women among the five American execs at the meeting – which is typical of the American firms we work with. I think something different is going on in China as far as women in the workplace, and I suspect it is one of the reasons they are doing so well.”
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Photo credit – By en:user:CobbleCC in English Wikipedia (English wikipedia) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

Pasta Puttanesca ala San Marzano

I”ve been making Puttanesca sauce for some years now, since first discovering it in Mark Bittman’s minimalist column in 2008. Puttanseca is a fast and easy pasta that makes a perfect weeknight dinner for hard working folk, as the prostitutes who are said to have originated the recipe well know.

But I have never before tasted a Puttanseca as good as this one, made a few weeks back after a Saturday afternoon raking leaves at the cottage. You might say it was the fall air, or the well water, or the bittersweet taste of season’s end that lent it such fabulous flavor.  I think it was all that, but mostly it was the San Marzano tomatoes, which I used for the very first time in this sauce. All I can say is Oh – My – God. How did I not know about these tomatoes before?

San Marzano are officially the best sauce tomato in Italy, grown in the Campagna region and certified authentic with the EU D.O.P. emblem, Denominazione d’Origine Protetta. However, the seeds of the San Mareno tomato have found their way across borders and the brand we used was actually grown domestically in the United States. While it lacks the DOP stamp, I can tell you these tomatoes are fabulous!

There are numerous imported brands of San Marzanos, available pretty much at any supermarket here in New York. (We got ours at Gourmet Garage). If you can’t get San Marzano’s where you live, you can order them online. I can’t wait to try this sauce again using an imported brand, though I can’t imagine it could taste any better than this.

Pasta Puttanesca

I’ve started with Bittman’s recipe, adjusting the amounts of various ingredients to my taste. You should do the same.

3 tbsp olive oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
6 anchovies, straight from the can
1/2 cup black olives, pitted and cut in half
1 tsp dried red pepper flakes
3 tbsp capers, drained
black pepper and salt to taste (you won’t need much salt, if at all)
1 (28 oz) cans an Marzano plum tomatoes
chopped fresh basil leaves for garnish
1 lb linguine
Grated Pecorino or Parmesan-Reggiano cheese

1. Boil the pasta water. Bring pot of water to boil and salt it.

2. Make the sauce. Heat 2 tablespoons oil with garlic and anchovies in skillet over medium-low heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until garlic is lightly golden.  Add tomatoes to the skillet, with salt and pepper to taste. Raise heat to medium-high and cook, stirring occasionally, until mixture becomes saucy, about 10 minutes. Stir in olives, capers and red pepper flakes, and continue to simmer.

3. Cook the pasta and toss with sauce. Cook the pasta until it is tender but not mushy. Drain quickly and toss with sauce and remaining tablespoon of oil. Taste and adjust seasonings, garnish with herbs if you like, and serve. Pass the Parmesan.

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More on Puttanesca and San Marzano Tomatoes

  • Mark Bittman makes Puttanesca in this NY Times video
  • Jamie Oliver makes a big ole Puttanesca, using dried oregano and lots of anchovies (complete with German overdubbing….)
  • Chef Lyon has a video lesson –  onions, balsamic and oven-roasted tomatoes give his Puttanesca a California feel
  • San Marzano Tomatoes – Everything you ever wanted to know
  • Natashya makes Tyler Florence’s Puttanesca and serves it with strip steak
  • Bitchin Camero makes hers with parpadelle
  • Budget Bytes calculates her Puttanseca costs at 84cents a serving, but if you use San Marzano tomatoes it’ll be a bit more (and worth every penny)