To me “cooking for one” and perhaps a date means a well stocked pantry with dependable, preserved ingredients. One of my own favorite things to play with is canned fish; but most particularly high quality imported tuna from Spain. As much as I like Italian tuna the quality of the Spanish product far surpasses it. We like Ortiz and As Do Mar labels. Usually we are talking about “bonito del norte” and the various ways it’s caught, butchered and tinned in olive oil. It’s a lengthy subject. <br />But I first discovered this preparation of pantry tuna, tomato and pasta in a Marcella Hazan cookbook more than twenty years ago and thought “what a cool idea”. But I’ve learned over time, that it’s not a Marcela invention and that other Italian cooks have their own riffs on it as do I. <br />The heart of the dish is the tuna. Don’t even think about substituting Starkist for even one single second. Tuna like this can be expensive with “ventresca” being the priciest. And the anchovies need to be good also. "Pizza anchovies" have no place in this.

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