Mara’s Broccoli and Scallop Pasta Sauce

Mara Martin is one of the most precious friends I have gained through cooking. When she and her husband Maurizio were teenagers, they borrowed money to buy Da Fiore, an old wine bar in Venice, and proceeded to transform it into one of Italy’s most sought-after seafood restaurants. They had no professional experience of food or of any other kind, but they had taste, cooking’s principal root from which all other qualities germinate.