As a cook, I am my toughest critic. Around eight out of 10 times I don’t like what I make. But when somebody else doesn’t like what I whip up that night, thats's another story.

The other night I was watching Rachael Ray and she made a Linguini in red clam sauce. I am always looking for a good tomato sauce recipe. She used cherry tomatoes, and since we had grape tomatoes in the fridge, dinner was in the works.

I chopped up a lot of garlic and after the anchovy paste melted away in the oil (don’t worry, it doesn’t taste like fish just a natural salt), I threw in the garlic and sautéed it up for a couple minutes. After I threw in a shallot and sautéed them up. I added oregano and basil and after about 5 minutes, I threw in a shot of white wine.

When it reduced, I dumped in the pint of grape tomatoes. Here’s the thing.. I waited for a long time for the suckers to burst, and they barely did. After the meal was finished, I saw in my cookbook you have to throw a lid of to move the cooking process along...whoops

Anyway, I went to taste it after it had finished, and I wasn’t impressed. I thought it was alright, just bland. I added some parmesan cheese, the fresh kind from Fairway. Add that cheese onto anything and the dish greatly increases.

Even though this wasn’t my favorite dish, my mom really enjoyed it, saying it had a kick. I call this a success.