Episode Details

In this episode of Five Rules for the Good Life, chef and cookbook author Joshua McFadden breaks down his Five Rules for Building a Pasta Dish in the Skillet. Drawing from his new book, Six Seasons of Pasta, Joshua shares game-changing insights that demystify the process and empower home cooks to make incredible pasta right in the pan. It’s about intuition, flavor, and letting the pasta do what it does best: bring comfort, joy, and a little magic to the table.

Few things in life hit like a bowl of perfectly cooked pasta. It’s comfort food with soul, a dish that can be humble or heroic depending on what you bring to it. Learning how to master it, how to build flavor, balance, and confidence in a single skillet, is a real key to living the good life. Joshua’s rules take away the guesswork and give you a blueprint for something deeply satisfying. It’s not just about eating better, it’s about cooking smarter and feeling more connected to what ends up on your plate.

Last week marked the first anniversary of the LA Fires. To honor the moment, I sat down with my good friend Travis Hayden for a profile in Fine Dining Lovers by Pellegrino. The piece is about his first year at the incredible Bar Etoile—equal parts celebration and reflection, especially as it coincides with him losing his home in the Palisades Fire. It’s a story about rebuilding, cooking through the chaos, and finding beauty in both the fire and the aftermath.

Transcript

Hello, and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life.I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz.

Today, I’m joined by author and chef Joshua McFadden, whose new book, Six Seasons of Pasta, is out on Artisan and available everywhere. He shares his five rules for building a pasta dish in the skillet, a method of cooking pasta that he has perfected.

For anyone who’s ever wanted to learn how to salt your water, build the different layers of a dish, and how to finish with a seasonal flair, this is the episode for you. If you’re already an expert at cooking pasta and want to refine your skills, or you’re looking for a new advanced method, this is a conversation for you to enjoy.

Let’s get into the rules.

Joshua, so good to see you.I think it’s been a decade since the last time we ran into each other in Austin at your book event on South Congress. Thank you for making the time to sit down right now. It’s the busy season. Your book’s out. So good to see you.

Good to see you too. Thanks for having me.

I love the book. I think it’s really beautiful. One of the opening musings you have in the intro comparing the practice of cooking pasta to the art of writing poetry—and haiku specifically—are tied together. Why do you see these two disciplines as parallels?

There’s the simplicity of it that really is fascinating to me. And when you really nail a perfect Pomodoro or a perfect pasta from its texture to all the things, it’s just so much more than the sum of its parts. It’s just a really special little moment in life. There’s very few things that give more joy than pasta. And arguably, push come to shove, it’s the most popular thing in the world. Even more than pizza. Start a war.

One of the things I love about the book—and you’ve really built your career around—is the idea of seasonality. You’re known for your Six Seasons. Something that isn’t always tied to pasta is that it is a seasonal dish. Why do you think it is so important to think about pasta in this way?

I think I just think about everything in that way, seasonality-wise. I just think it’s so fun to dive so deep into the moments that we’re in within a calendar year. I had my last strawberry several, several months