Welcome to a Taste of the Mediterranean

The first time I tasted something close to orecchiette with broccoli rabe & sausage, I was 24, sitting at a long wooden table in the Varoulko kitchen after a brutal Saturday service. One of the Italian line cooks — a Pugliese named Salvatore — had made a pot of it for the staff meal. The smell hit me from across the room: garlic sizzling in olive oil, something bitter and green transforming under heat, the meaty savor of seasoned sausage. I sat down without being invited and didn’t leave until the pot was empty.