A little over a year ago, I shared a recipe on the blog for a chocolate cake made by Edna Miller, chef Omer Miller’s mom. I honestly don’t know how or why it happened, but that recipe became one of the most popular on the blog and quickly made its way into the top five.
Anyone who knows me knows I really, really appreciate Miller—his talent in the kitchen (and outside of it), and his honesty in food, but mostly in life. A few months ago I got to meet him over an excellent pizza, and we talked a bit about his new place, about journalism, and about his journey in the culinary world and where it’s heading.
Omer was as energetic as ever, rushing to do and get things done, but sharp and clear-eyed. I barely remember what he said except for a few sentences about foreign workers and homeless people who live on the street and pass by his place. Thirty seconds where I got a glimpse into his inner world—one filled with empathy and care for others. That was enough to give him extra credit, for me.
“A spaghetti with tomato sauce is the hardest thing to get right,” I wrote to him a few days ago, attaching the super tempting photo he posted on Instagram—a bright red plate of spaghetti straight out of a childhood dream.
“Either it comes out too acidic, or too sweet, or there’s not enough sauce, or it just doesn’t taste like the spaghetti you remember. Something is always wrong,” I added. Hopefully he didn’t think I was a total weirdo. Because honestly, it sounds like the simplest thing in the world to make spaghetti with tomato sauce, right?
But trust me—it’s not. Canned crushed tomatoes come in different levels of acidity, so they need different amounts of sugar or tomato paste to balance them. And if you add a little too much? Now you need more salt or black pepper to fix the sweetness. And how do you even write a recipe like that? How do you explain that constant need to taste, and that it will come out a little different every time? In short—it’s a mess.
The next day, I got this message from Omer: “Contrary to popular belief, chefs don’t eat soft scrambled eggs with caviar and truffle tortellini every day. Most of us, in our rented apartments, really love pita with an omelet, meatballs, salad, and other wonderful dishes like peas in tomato sauce with ptitim.
I don’t have the energy to invest every time I feel like spaghetti and tomato sauce—but the fear that it won’t be perfect always brings me back to this recipe.”
At the end of his message came the recipe, and for days it stayed in my head—and honestly, in my dreams—until I finally made it. On the surface, the ingredients looked so simple and logical, nothing special that could explain how his spaghetti looked so incredible. But I took a chance and made it. I shortened a tiny step here and there, but stayed true to his instructions—and after exactly 17 minutes, including cooking the pasta, I tasted the most delicious tomato spaghetti in the universe.
I have no idea how I never thought to make it like this before: no water, made with fresh tomatoes, and without sugar or pepper.
And if you think I’m the only one who fell in love—just know I sent the recipe to a friend who’s also in the food world before publishing it, and half an hour later I got a message: “Wow. This is genius.”