This pasta, with its punchy tumble of sweet and spicy peppers, garlic, parmesan, toasted breadcrumbs, and herbs, was inspired by a very special stuffed pepper I first encountered 16 years ago, when, at least to that 26-year-old me, it seemed like the world was falling apart.

On the morning of Sept. 26, 2008, I was walking to work along West Third Street in Los Angeles when the reality of the Great Recession first hit me. About 50 feet away, workers on a hydraulic lift were using a piece of tarp and bungee cords to cover the sign on the neighbourhood bank as uniformed officers chained and locked the door. Washington Mutual had failed the day before. It remains the largest bank failure in U.S. history.