What's the best pasta shape?

Friends and culinary luminaries (Ruth Reichl! Joe Yonan! Anya von Bremzen! Domenica Marchetti!) share their faves — along with inspiring ideas about how to enjoy them.

Happy Friday, empathetic cook!

It’s a bit hard to focus, with all the devastation in L.A. — my home town, where I still have family, and where my heart belongs. My kinfolk are all OK. I hope the same is true for you, if you live there or have friends and family there. It’s all just so crushing and incomprehensible.

Here in North Texas, it has been snowing, which is pretty cozy, provisioned as we are. Of course there’s nothing cozier than pasta — which I would eat every single day if the authorities suddenly decided it was great for your health.

I do feel I’ll be leaning heavily into it this year, thanks to the shaky state of the world combined with the fact that wine has become potum non grata with the health authorities.

We need to find joy where we can, and for me, a bag of trottole — especially the trottole from Pastificio G. Di Martino — is a bag of happiness. The trottole, meant to evoke spinning tops, are each about the size of a walnut. They cook up huge and luscious, even succulent; they’re great at grabbing lots of sauce. Pesto trapanese; rapini and sausage; ragù bolognese — these are a few ways I’ve enjoyed them. Meanwhile, even its packaging is a mood-changer. The $5-ish bag of pasta is as close as I’ll probably get to dressing in Dolce e Gabbana.

Thinking about it a few days ago made me think: Trottole, which I only fell in love with last summer, has become my favorite dried pasta shape!

Does everyone have a favorite dried pasta shape? And if so, does their favorite shape make them as happy as trottole makes me?

I started asking around: What is your favorite dried pasta shape, why do you love it and how do you like it sauced?

I asked pasta-loving friends, family, acquaintances and clients, including chefs and cookbook authors. Here’s what amazed me: Nearly every one asked responded immediately and excitedly. Most expressed a distinct favorite — along with definite ideas about how to sauce it. Reading their responses made me want to instantly buy their adored shape and cook their dreamy pastas.

Their favorite pasta shapes

Here’s how my pool of pasta people answered the question “What is your favorite pasta shape, and why? How do you like it sauced?”