Lauren Goode: My recommendation is, I’m going to put you on the spot, Snack.
Michael Calore: OK.
Lauren Goode: Mike is an excellent chef.
Joe Ray: So I hear.
Lauren Goode: He’s really, really good. When I first moved into my current apartment, this was about a year ago, Mike and Boone happened to be over one night and things were going late. We were getting hungry, and I said, maybe we should just order some food. And Mike said, “No, no, no … Let me just see what you have in the kitchen here.” Rummaged around, made us this delicious vegan—because he is a vegan, for those of you who listen to this podcast know this, because we talk about it all the time.
Joe Ray: Mushroom man.
Michael Calore: No, we don’t.
Lauren Goode: Right? No, we do.
Michael Calore: Anyway, please go on.
Lauren Goode: We talk about it all the time.
Michael Calore: Continue to sing my praises.
Lauren Goode: Mike’s like, please go on.
Michael Calore: Please go on.
Lauren Goode: Please continue. He made this delicious spaghetti with capers and red pepper flakes. And what else was in it? Onion.
Michael Calore: Tomato.
Lauren Goode: Well, tomato. Yeah. And then I think maybe we had some vegan cheese on it. I definitely had regular parmesan. It was so delicious. Boone, do you remember this? Yeah. Boone is nodding. He’s nodding. Not audibly. And then I went to your house and enjoyed Thanksgiving last year with you and your wife Hilery. And you guys made a vegan “sidesgiving,” which was absolutely delicious. And I ate the leftovers for about three days afterwards.
Michael Calore: Me too.
Joe Ray: The best part of Thanksgiving.
Lauren Goode: So good. The absolute best part. There was this cannellini bean dish.
Michael Calore: Oh yes.
Lauren Goode: And the stuffing was fantastic. And then Mike recently came over to my place and we were doing some batch cooking for a friend of ours who needed some food and made this pasta e ceci. Am I saying that correctly?
Michael Calore: Yeah. Or—
Joe Ray: Ceci.
Michael Calore: It was pasta e ceci.
Joe Ray: Oh.
Lauren Goode: It’s pasta e ceci.
Michael Calore: Yeah. The beans were chickpeas.
Lauren Goode: But you say ceci right?
Michael Calore: Si, certo.
Lauren Goode: OK. Gosh, my Italian great-grandmother would be very disappointed in me right now. Didn’t speak a word of English. But yeah, it’s fantastic. And I think it’s a New York Times recipe?
Michael Calore: It is, yeah. It’s adapted. Adapted.
Lauren Goode: It’s so, so good. So I’ve made it like five times since then. And then, this also includes red pepper flakes and you can be a little bit generous with them. The first batch you made, Mike, there was a lot of spice in it. And so then I froze it and by the time I opened it up and heated it up again, the flavors had really settled and it was, wow. Just mind blown.