Cookbook news: ‘Anything’s Pastable’ by The Sporkful’s Dan Pashman, plus Nancy’s Pizza book in the works

CHICAGO -- Dan Pashman not only invented a new pasta shape just a few years ago, now he’s coming for your pasta sauce.

He’s best known as the creator and host of The Sporkful food podcast. His culinary legacy, however, may be immortalized as the inventor of the cascatelli pasta shape. He’s also the author of the upcoming new cookbook “Anything’s Pastable: 81 Inventive Pasta Recipes for Saucy People.”

So what’s up with our pasta sauce?

“When cascatelli first came out, it was obviously extremely exciting,” Pashman said. The first batch sold out in less than two hours three years ago, he added, when it went viral on social media. “And people were sending me pictures of what they were making with this from all over the country, all over the world.”

It was a nice feeling, he said, as if he’d been invited into people’s homes for dinner, which was very meaningful.

“But there was a problem,” said Pashman. Seventy-five percent of the pictures he saw were tomato sauce, meat sauce or macaroni and cheese. “A few party animals made pesto, maybe a traditional cacio e pepe