founded by Marcus Paslay<\/a>. Still, Lewis lives in the real world, where dinner needs to hit the table in a timely manner.<\/p>\nWe sat down with Lewis the day after National Spaghetti Day, which lands on January 4, to talk about how dried pasta earned a permanent spot in his personal pantry.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really isn\u2019t that complicated,\u201d he says. \u201cYou just have to know what you\u2019re buying.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lewis recommends shopping at places like Central Market and Whole Foods, where it\u2019s easier to find imported dried pastas made with minimal ingredients. \u201cRead the label,\u201d he says. \u201cFlour and water, or flour, egg, and water. That\u2019s it. No additives. Nothing extra.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also looks for pasta extruded through bronze dies, which roughen the surface and help sauce cling. \u201cIt frays the pasta a little,\u201d he explains. \u201cThat\u2019s what makes it work.\u201d<\/p>\n
The water matters just as much. \u201cI make it taste like the ocean,\u201d Lewis says. \u201cTaste as you go. Once you go too far, there\u2019s no coming back.\u201d<\/p>\n
At home, Lewis usually cooks a single pound for his family of five. \u201cThat\u2019s perfect,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd you don\u2019t want to waste it, especially with some of these pastas costing $8, $10, $12 dollars a box.\u201d<\/p>\n
He always saves pasta water, scooping a few cups into a container before draining. \u201cIt\u2019s got all that starch in it,\u201d he explains. \u201cThat\u2019s what helps the sauce stick and helps finish the pasta in the pan.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lewis pulls the noodles early, finishing them directly in the sauce and adding reserved water as needed. Then comes the quiet finishing move. \u201cDon\u2019t be afraid of the butter,\u201d he says. \u201cA knob at the end brings everything together. It gives you that silky texture and helps emulsify the sauce.\u201d<\/p>\n
That philosophy carries through everything Lewis cooks, whether it\u2019s a quick weeknight meal or a dish at Piattello. He favors minimal ingredients, careful seasoning, and letting quality shine. His marinara, for example, is little more than garlic, onion, good canned tomatoes, and basil.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the tomatoes are good, you don\u2019t need to do much,\u201d he says. \u201cLet them speak.\u201d<\/p>\n
That respect for ingredients is rooted in his relationships with local farmers and markets across Fort Worth.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can taste when something\u2019s been treated right,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s care in it.\u201d<\/p>\n
At Piattello, that care shows up in dishes like Sunday gravy, a slow-simmered combination of veal, beef, pork, and sausage that cooks for seven hours before being served with rigatoni and finished with a generous scoop of house-made ricotta \u2014 a dish that feels as comforting as it is indulgent.<\/p>\n
Still, Lewis is quick to separate restaurant cooking from home cooking. \u201cMaking fresh pasta is a labor of love,\u201d he says. \u201cBut after a long day, with kids running around, sometimes you just need to make something fast.\u201d<\/p>\n
That realization traces back to his early days in Dallas, when his mentor,\u00a0Julian Barsotti,\u00a0\u00a0challenged his all-or-nothing view of dried pasta. Lewis took a bag home, cooked it simply, and watched his kids devour it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were like, \u2018Dad, this is really good,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cIf it passes the kid test, you\u2019re in good shape.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Lewis, box pasta isn\u2019t a compromise. It\u2019s a tool \u2014 one that buys time, sanity, and a seat at the dinner table with his family.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all work hard,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you can put something good on the table in twelve minutes and spend that time with your kids, that matters.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By the time you\u2019ve put in a full day, crawled through rush-hour traffic, and stared down the refrigerator…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":501241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,3596,2105,7371,7372,224867,71382,152721,988,10763,358,7453,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-501240","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-chef","10":"tag-food-and-drink","11":"tag-fort-worth","12":"tag-fortworth","13":"tag-marcus-paslay","14":"tag-pasta","15":"tag-recipe","16":"tag-restaurants","17":"tag-stephen-montoya","18":"tag-texas","19":"tag-top-story","20":"tag-tx","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}