cooking

I'm un-wholesomely jealous of all you people from Rhode Island right now because I have a total craving for quahogs. A quahog, for you poor souls who have never had the supreme privilege of eating one, is a large, hard shelled clam. I even feel bad for Italians in Italy who think they have eaten linguini and clams but have only ever had those poor sad little Mediterranean clams. Do not comment that you have the greatest clams in Cornwall or Brittany, I will delete the comment, you do not know what you are talking about. Some ocean quahogs have lived up to 410 years! Not if I can help it...

Here it is, linguini and quahogs. My mother ate this nearly every Friday night of the 40 years of her married life.

1 pint frozen whole quahogs or about 18 quahogs if you are cleaning them yourself.
liquor from the quahogs (this just means the juice...)
1/4 cup olive oil
4 or 5 cloves garlic, finely chopped
zest and juice of 1/2 lemon
fresh parsley
pepper
salt, but it probably wont be necessary.
linguini (about 1/2 lb)

Boil some water. While it is boiling, use a scissor to cut up your quahog into thumb sized bits. Put the olive oil, garlic, quahogs and liquor, lemon zest and juice in a medium sized frying pan, in that order. Do not put the heat on.
When the water boils, add the linguini and then, and only then, turn the heat on (medium) under your clams. Stir occasionally, dont let it come to any kind of rolling boil, but it's ok if it bubbles.
When the linguini is done, clams should be done too, they will be opaque and slightly rubbery (that's ok, part of the deliciousness is to chew them a little...). Put your linguini in a bowl and pour the clams over, season with salt and pepper and use a scissor to cut a generous portion of fresh parsley over the top.

This is a clip from the very bad movie, Federal Hill, which features a shot of a beautiful grapevine my dad grew.