Books

Nora Ephron scarfs buttery mashed potatoes in bed. Ann Patchett tops saltines with white cheese and salsa, then spreads butter and jam on more saltines for dessert. For Beverly Lowry, it's salad, which she eats with her hands.

In the delightful essays-plus-recipes collection Alone in the Kitchen With an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone (Riverhead Books, $23), 26 writers expound on the challenges and freedoms that come when a meal's cook and its sole intended recipient are one and the same.

In the introduction, editor Jenni Ferrari-Adler writes that she came up with the idea for the book for one simple reason: She wanted a copy for herself. As a graduate student in Ann Arbor, Mich., living alone for the first time, she struggled to adapt to culinary solitude.

She found solace in essays by Amanda Hesser ("Single Cuisine"), Laurie Colwin ("Alone in the Kitchen With an Eggplant"), and M.F.K. Fisher ("A Is for Dining Alone"). Then she unearthed other essays, and then she sought original contributions.

Among the rewards: cookbook author Paula Wolfert's meditation on the Catalan specialty Pa amb Tomàquet (bread with tomato), Marcella Hazan's recipe for Il Tost (Italian-style grilled cheese and ham sandwich) and novelist Haruki Murakami's durum-filled remembrance "The Year of Spaghetti."

For anyone who lives and cooks alone, or remembers such days vividly, there's plenty here to savor, with or without a bowl of mashed potatoes in your lap.

Heat the olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, until it just turns brown. Add the zucchini if using and cook, stirring, until it has a yellowish sheen.

Add the fresh and boxed tomatoes. Lower the heat a bit and cook until all the tomatoes start breaking down and forming a sugo (sauce).

Add the butter, cheese and cream, but not all at once. Mix them in a little at a time, in at least 3 or 4 waves, so the sauce continues to cook and reduce. Once it's all in, set the heat to low and cover.

Boil water and cook the pasta al dente. It will finish cooking after it's out of the boiling water, so don't leave it in too long.

Strain the pasta and put it back into the pot with a nice pour of extra-virgin olive oil. Add salt and pepper; then pour the salsa rosa over the pasta. Mix, but not too roughly, just so it gets slithery with sauce. Makes 1 serving.

Notes: You can substitute canned whole tomatoes for the boxed ones; just be sure to include the fresh tomatoes. You can also substitute 8 ounces (half a pint) of heavy cream for the boxed panna (cooking cream). For the dry pasta, do not use fusilli, penne or farfalle.

SOURCE: Ben Karlin, "The Legend of the Salsa Rosa" from Alone in the Kitchen With an Eggplant