Finally Pasta!

As a nice Italian Girl, you would have expected that I'd have posted pictures of pasta earlier or more often.  (Actually, maybe I have.  I can't keep track anymore.)  The truth is:  I eat pasta so often, that I don't think it's "special" enough for this blog.   I mean, what's the point about writing about something you eat all the time? 

Did you really think there would be leftovers?

I know what you're thinking -- if you actually exist and are reading this --, you're thinking "What about coffee?  Do you know how many stupid pictures of Chartreuse Mug you've subjected me to?"  But coffee is special!  Coffee is always special!  The mere act of preparing and drinking a coffee is special. 

I would go so far to say that Chartreuse Mug deserves its own blog.  Something like "Life According to Chartreuse Mug".   It's coming.  You don't have to read it -- and I'm sure you won't -- but it's coming.  That's what happens when you offer free blogging.


In other words:  lay off the coffee.

Anyways: pasta.

The other night we made a big vat of meat sauce.  Please note that pasta and meat sauce is not the same as "Pasta Bolognese".  Bolognese sauce is some kind of magic, voodoo, slow-simmer sauce made with pork sausage and minimal tomato.  The Bolognese people are very sensitive about it. 

What we made was ground beef, fried with garlic and hot pepper, covered in pulverised canned tomato and then simmered for 20 minutes, just to warm it up.  Yeah, it sounds lame, but it's pretty damned tasty, especially when you smother it all in ground parmiggiano reggiano and wash it down with red wine.  And who are you to argue with me, a Genuine Italian Girl Who Learned How To Cook From Her Italian Mother? 

And, most importantly, who are you to argue with the clean plates?

Irene's Starchfest: Spaghetti and Potato Salad

The trouble with being back in the office after a week away sick is that you end up having to catch up on a bunch of things (like all the meetings you were supposed to have) and the small things -- like taking pictures of your food -- fall by the wayside.

And it's too bad because I had some pretty damned tasty food this week: take-out butter chicken; pasta with meat sauce; and, of course, lots of coffee.

At least there wasn't risotto, too.

Thankfully Irene sent me two pictures of her eaten meals.  Unfortunately, she didn't tell me much more than what was in the plates.  She just sent me two emails: one titled "Spaghetti and meatballs" and the other "Potato salad".  She didn't expand on it.  I can only assume that she had some kind of midwinter nervous breakdown that resulted in a carbfest.

Did you ever see the movie "Big Night"?  I'm guessing you haven't because I'm the only person I know who has seen that movie.  It's this movie about two Italian brothers who open an authentic Italian restaurant in the US (New York?  I don't know) in the 1950s.  The movie opens with this scene where this couple orders risotto and spaghetti and they're disappointed that the risotto is just rice and the spaghetti is meatball-free.  Then they order more spaghetti to go with the risotto, which is, like, not done.  The brother in the kitchen flips out and is like, "Do they want some mashed potatoes with that?!"

This spaghetti wanted the company of meatballs.

Anyways, I thought of that when I saw Irene's pictures. 

At least Irene didn't make risotto.  Or maybe she just didn't take that picture.   I imagine her eating some kind of leftover hash made of potato salad and spaghetti-and-meatballs, with some risotto mixed in for good measure...maybe she's huddled on her sofa, wrapped in a caftan, watching Days of Our Lives as she eats it as snow falls outside.



But that isn't like Irene.  She most likely had some nice wine with it, or some sparkling water and then went out to work on a video project about the joys of cold climates.