Pumpkin Ravioli

Raul gets ambitious after watching too much Lidia and decides to make pumpkin ravioli. "There are four kinds of sauces," he muses. "A cream sauce."

"Too rich with pumpkin," pipes in Drew.

"Tomato sauce which just isn't my favourite."

"Does tomato go with pumpkin?"

"Or butter and sage."

"That gets my vote," notes Drew. "But what is the fourth?"

"I forget," shrugs Raul. "My search ended with butter and sage."

Raul takes some frozen cooked pumpkin from the freezer and thaws it. He blends the pumpkin with cream cheese in the mini-food processor and then adds grated Parmesan cheese to thicken and add flavour. The resultant filling has a vivid orange colour and is packed with simple goodness.

He reluctantly admits to cheating slightly by not making the pasta from scratch. Instead he uses wonton wrappers that were purchased on a whim at T&T. Lidia will forgive him if she ever finds out.

A spoonful of filling goes on each individual wrapper and is then folded over and pressed tightly together so that it is completely sealed. The resulting raviolis go into a large pot of boiling water where they remain until they start to float, and then for five minutes more.

In a frying pan he melts butter and just as it begins to brown he adds a large helping of sage. The raviolis are drained, tossed in the butter and sage, and placed in bowls for serving. The crowning touch is a liberal sprinkling of grated Parmesan cheese.

"These are amazing," raves Drew. "Sweet and savoury."

"And buttery," notes Raul. "I wonder what the fourth sauce was."

Pumpkin Waffles

Raul wants to experiment for breakfast and there is leftover pumpkin. Lots of leftover pumpkin. He purees a half cup of the pumpkin and adds it to the best ever waffle recipe. It is an experiment - unlike Drew, Raul is not at ease just adding ingredients and hoping for successful results, science is crucial not whimsical notions - but one that pays extraordinary dividends. The waffles are crispy on the outside and thickly moist on the inside.

The pumpkin flavour is subtle but distinctive. "The best part," notes Drew, "is the bright orange colour when one slices into it. Vivid vivid vivid."

"And," comments Raul who refuses to be distracted by frivolous but happy Halloween haunting accidents, "the pumpkin isn't sweetened so the contrast with the syrup is perfect. And do you have to put so much butter on them? It's already moist enough."

"My bad," says Drew while licking his lips. "I like the pale yellow against the vivid orange and the smaller pieces melt too quickly. Are there more?"

Breakfast Sandwich

Drew departs for the weekend to visit his mother for Father's Day while Raul putters around the apartment waiting to receive accolades for his ace job of parenting. The banter and cooking extravaganza is put on hold until Monday morning when, sleepy but content after the emotionally satisfying celebrations, breakfast rolls around.

Raul has been up a good part of the night reading the vintage copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child, that Drew's mom has given them from her vast collection. "It's funny, you can almost hear her voice as you read," says Raul. "I have to dig out that enamelled frying pan so I can cook without affecting the colours of the food. Very important for the photographs."

"And I had no idea that I was supposed to wait until the butter started to foam before browning meat or cooking eggs," muses Drew. "That's when it apparently reaches its maximum heat. Julia does love her butter but then so do I."

"And she says to use lardon [pork belly] instead of bacon. If you want your dish to taste of bacon, use bacon. If you want it to be accented by pork, use lardon." The very idea of pork belly takes Raul back to his childhood in the Azores where the entire pig was used - the memories are bittersweet befitting post-Father's Day. "You use pork belly for the fat, from the days when you cooked everything in lard. Fat tastes good and some foods really benefit from it. But this whole pork belly craze is actually decades old. Julia was ahead of her time again." Raul has just bought bacon on sale at Food Basics, "It's a little bit fatty but you get what you pay for," but an expedition to T&T for pork belly is looming. "What do you feel like for breakfast?"

"I'm not awake enough to be hungry. A bagel with avocado?"

"We're out of avocado but I can put together a heart attack on a plate."

"Sounds delicious. And I can't wait until we have one with a la lardon."

Raul substitutes sauteed mushrooms for avocado, bacon for lardon, and rye bread for the bagels that have gone stale. The flavour is robust enough, yet subtle enough, to make Julia proud.