italian genius
i’ve sometimes survived for weeks on little other than pasta and sauce, but even with my very high tolerance for repeated italian meals (same with pizza), i reach a limit. with many foods, that would be the end of it until after a respite. italian food, however, has the added variation of pasta shape and size. astounding how merely changing the shape of an ingredient transforms the meal into something else.
i’ve a favorite restaurant where pretty much the only vegan entrée is pasta with red sauce (with mind-blowing field green salad, and fresh bread dipped in olive oil). when my regular waiter’s there i simply say “cap nap”, their abbreviation for cappellini with napolitano sauce. there’s another waiter though, who whenever i order cap nap turns it into linguine with napolitano sauce. no idea why, and i’d have said something if it hadn’t once again turned me onto that secondary beauty of pasta.
so for the first time in decades i bought linguine at the grocery store. just finished a hearty portion, and it was gorgeous. don’t understand it, but i know it works. probably in a few weeks i’ll go back to spaghettini (my usual), with an occasional change to cappellini and spaghetti. then there are the pasta ingredients, which gives even more variation. oh, i don’t know how i turned out not italian. maybe i was adopted. that would explain a few other things as well.