Flour+Water

Swimming
I swam in the summers growing up. 

The kids I shared the pool with swam year round, at the university pool and for club swim teams, fighting for a spot at Speedo’s and Nationals. 

We practiced together at our neighborhood pool and competed against the other pools around town. Team swimming like this was a numbers game — points were awarded to places 1-6, so it didn’t matter how many events the smaller team’s swimmers won if the larger team took places 2-6. 

Top prize at the end of the summer swim season went to one of two pools every year. None of it really mattered.

A better way to define the fastest team in the city was captured by the efficiency award, which was awarded to the team with the highest number of podiums per capita at the end of each season.
Our team retained the efficiency award for years, on behalf of our half-land-half-water hybrid children who swam year-round. 

My amphibious teammates took comfort in the fact that our morning practice sets had to consider the ability level of someone like me. I was kicking as hard as I could, pulling as much water as possible, and they handled me with grace, choosing the most polite times to touch my feet and glide past me. 

Drew Teduits, the fastest swimmer on our team, went on to swim for Wisconsin, where he won the national championship in the 200 back.
Ivy Martin, another teammate of mine,
nearly qualified for the Olympics.

I never got faster, I never caught up, and I never had my breakthrough with swimming. My greatest victory from my time as a swimmer remains that I learned how to swim. 

This year, I got back in the pool. And once again, I felt helpless. I fought hard, doing everything I could to remain buoyant, and I recalled how much easier swimming used to feel when I was 12. The people I shared a lane with didn’t have great form, they were twice my age, and I struggled to pass them. Something was wrong.

After some research – “How to swim” – I came across an explanation of the 2-beat kick. 

The best distance swimmers in the world don’t kick to go fast, they kick to remain balanced and buoyant — the 2-beat kick helps them achieve both. As one arm pulls their body through the water, one kick with the opposite leg keeps the back half of their body afloat and balances their body out, making the next stroke easier.

The difference in my stroke was immediate.
Now that I was kicking less, I was using less energy and I could catch my breath. Less kicking with more buoyancy also meant less drag. I was gliding through the water. And I had learned to swim. 

My body and breath reached equilibrium and it felt like I could swim forever. 

Pasta Water
I wasn’t a good cook when I learned about the classic Roman pastas. 

Five ingredients — cheese, peppercorn, tomato, guanciale, and egg — compose four pastas: Gricia, Cacio e Pepe, Amatriciana, and Carbonara.
These four pastas define Roman cooking,
and Rome has been around a long time. 

But anyone can buy five ingredients. Ingredients are tools. And the best tools are wasted on those who do not know how to use them. 

When I learned to make Carbonara, I didn’t know what I was doing. My carbonara was rich, gloopy, parmesan forward, and my girlfriend loved it. 

It was the first pasta I learned to cook.
And I loved it too.

When I really learned to make Carbonara,
I learned that Roman pastas are measured by their execution and the execution of most pastas is measured by emulsification: combining two liquids that do not wish to be combined.
In the case of carbonara, combining fat, cheese, egg, and, crucially, pasta water. 

Carbonara is not cheese, pepper, guanciale, and egg — it is those ingredients emulsified with pasta water. As pasta boils, it releases starch. As time passes, water evaporates, starch concentrates, and pasta water thickens. As fate would have it,
pasta starch is a natural emulsifier. When added to carbonara, starchy pasta water smooths out an otherwise gloopy egg mixture and creates a sauce. 

Render your guanciale, bloom your pepper, add pasta water, let that reduce, add more pasta water, let it reduce and repeat until you have a nice pool of sauce. Add your cooked pasta along with the water that comes with it, and toss toss toss. Off the heat, add cheese and egg along with another splash of pasta water, toss toss toss, stir stir stir. If it’s thick, add more water. If it’s loose, keep stirring. As long as there’s steam coming off the pasta, water is evaporating and your sauce is thickening. Taste for seasoning, top with cheese and cracked pepper, and serve.

Rich and gloopy becomes smooth and glossy in the presence of pasta water – it remains the most important ingredient in all of my pastas – and learning to use pasta water marks a before-and-after moment in cooking for me, my revelation of the presence of science of cookery.

Flour + Water
When I got really into cooking pasta,
I started cooking for work. 

Everyone was better than me at cooking.
But Evan was better than everyone. 

He was faster, his food tasted better, he stayed calm, and he was the boss — our Chef de Cuisine. Evan didn’t spend much time working pasta,
but there was never anyone better for the job. 

When I swam with Drew Teduits, it was clear to everyone that Drew looked different than the rest of us when he swam. Evan’s pastas were the same way. I still recall the way an amatriciana of Evan’s glowed bright red as it sat steaming in the window, as though it had been glazed in a kiln. 

On the nights we worked the line together, Evan told me war stories about his time at Flour + Water, where he started as a line cook, worked his way up to CDC, and ran the place for years. 

At its peak, Flour + Water was as busy as any restaurant in the city has ever been. They opened to a line around the block every night and didn’t get out of there until after midnight, at which point they often closed down Trick Dog before returning to the restaurant for late night snacks. At the height of their powers, Flour + Water turned away Steve Jobs because he didn’t have a reservation, which turned heads, and blew the place up even more. 

By the time I eventually worked with Evan, he was CDC and partner at Che Fico. He was, and remains, immensely proud of his time at Flour + Water and the menus he helped build. He continues to reference them all of the time.

And rightfully so. 
Restaurants like Flour + Water and Delfina pioneered Northern Californian Italian, and Northern California has been around a long time too. 

Eventually, I had to see it for myself. 

When I texted Evan that I was going to
Flour + Water for the first time, I asked him what I should get. 

He responded, “Scarpinocc.” 
“If it’s not on the menu, ask for it anyway,” he added.
They always have a couple portions set aside.

Taleggio stuffed bowtie pasta, aged balsamic, and good parm. When Flour + Water was firing on all cylinders, Scarpinocc was their flagship pasta. It remains their signature dish relegated to a secret menu as needed.

This is the only dish that came to mind when I asked Evan, a man raised to define Flour + Water and all that Flour + Water went on to define, what I should get on my first visit. 

If you like balsamic and parmesan, the Scarpinocc is a remarkable pasta. It remains my most precise example of umami as I have come to understand it. And it’s the most simple thing on Flour + Water’s menu.

The best things I've ever had are dishes like these.
Dishes so good, and so simple, that they feel impossible. Cheese, balsamic, flour + water.
The right ingredients, a capable cook,
a little pasta water, and a 2-beat kick.