Linguine w/ White Clam Sauce

The restaurant across the street from my apartment, Quartino's, makes phenomenal linguine with white clam sauce -- sometimes. When it's good, it's just oily enough and you occasionally get a bit of spice in the sliced red peppers they throw in. When it's not, it can be too dry or too soupy, and you don't get the bit of spice or cleanse of parsley.

Ingredients:

• Olive oil
• Garlic cloves - couple
• Clams, minced
• White wine
• Red pepper flakes or sliced cayenne peppers
  
• Linguine
• Parsley (if you have it)

In saucepan on medium-high heat, add enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan. Smush garlic and cook until tender (be ready to act fast, as garlic will start to burn pretty quickly). Stir in clam juice, white wine, parsley. Simmer 10 minutes. If you add the red pepper before you simmer, the sauce gets spicy quickly. Might consider just sprinking a few flakes on the pasta at the end.

A word of caution: the sauce may need salt, but remember that clams are salty, so don't salt until the end.

Cook linguine until al dente. Add cooked linguine and chopped clams to saucepan, cooking until clams are heated through.

Serves: about 2 people (I saved about a bowlful for lunch tomorrow)
Cost: Clams ($2), Linguine ($2), Olive Oil ($1 - I buy the big jug), White Wine (depends on how much you drink while cooking) = ~$5