noodling around

~ jama

  
"No man is lonely eating spaghetti; it requires so much attention." ~ Christopher Morley

             

It’s simmering on the stove even as we speak.

The perfect spaghetti sauce. Perfect because no matter how I make it, it’ll be good. No fancy ingredients, no labor intensive preparation, never the same way twice. Ah, the suspense! Spaghetti loves everybody and everybody loves spaghetti. I bet your sauce is perfect, too.

No matter who you are, where you live, or how you were raised, the experience is the same. Spaghetti is heartwarming, basic, reliable grub that comes with this promise: eat me and you’ll feel satisfied, connected to childhood, family and friends, and happy that in this crazy world, at least we can count on something to stay the same. 

And how fun is eating the darn thing? Do you wrap your noodles around your fork and use a spoon? Cut up your noodles? Are you a sauce splasher or one-by-one noodle sucker? Have you ever overcooked your noodles, making them so starchy they stuck to the wall?

These are the ties strings, that bind. A more democractic food I cannot name. 

For some of us, it’s about a meat sauce on a bed of pasta.

For others, it’s about mixing things up.

Some of us are crazy for meatballs,

or find true love at the other end of a noodle.

Hey, it’s all good. Most of us fell in love with "little strings" at an early age and have never looked back.           

      

I was raised on homemade sauce. Margaret (my mom lets me call her that), always made a meat sauce — not too tomato-y, with onion, garlic, celery, bell pepper, sometimes mushroom. For seasonings, basil, oregano, salt, pepper, a teaspoon of sugar, and a piece of cheese melted in at the last minute. She always served it with the sauce and noodles mixed together. 

When I started to make my own, I added wine to my tomato trio (canned paste, sauce, diced pieces) instead of water — something I learned from a teacher I met in London. It gives the sauce that extra something, a robust kick. So, whenever I add the wine, I always think of Jane.

I’ve been trying to think if I’ve ever had bad spaghetti. No, I don’t think so. I’ve always marveled at how a simple dish can be so varied at the hands of others. Aunty Ella’s sauce was thicker, richer with tomato. Our Massachusetts friend, John, makes his in a crockpot, sometimes using different kinds of ground meat. And Len makes a lovely vegetarian version with fresh plum tomatoes, grated carrots, peppers, mushroom, and a splash of Worcestershire.

Spaghetti = personal expression. So flexible and forgiving, its only mission is to marry the noodles and make you swoon.

         

Oh, wait. There was one time I ate some questionable spaghetti. When I taught high school in London, we always had these great 4 or 5-day breaks which allowed us some travel time. One winter, a couple of us teachers decided to go to Crete for some warmer weather and sunshine.

Oh boy! The sparkling azure waters of the Mediterranean! The Palace at Knossos, where Daedalus built the famous labyrinth of the bull for King Minos. We would be feasting on grape leaves, baklava, souvlaki and moussaka!


photo by zobeiry

Not.

When we got there it was cold. It was off-season for tourists, so some of the places we hoped to see were closed. We hadn’t made hotel reservations or anything, and ended up at a youth hostel with dirty sheets and no heat. It was interesting riding the bus with the locals, though — they were friendly and allowed us to admire their chickens. 

After trudging around all day in the cold scoping out the area for places to eat, we finally found the only restaurant that was open. The place was packed with other sheepish-looking would-be tourists. We waited and waited for a table, and were famished and hallucinating by the time we got the menu.

But. Oh joy!! On the list of otherwise unfamiliar dishes comprised of organ meats and entrails, was our dearly beloved spaghetti! Thank you, God. Something familiar! Something we really really needed after all our misadventures. It was like our mothers had miraculously appeared in the kitchen to make things better. All four of us ordered it, quite relieved.


photo by Mimsan

Which is why we were a tad surprised when the waiter brought out four plates of plain noodles. ??? Maybe it was a Greek thing.
 
Politely: "Where’s the sauce?"

"Oh, you like sauce?" Strange, crooked smile on waiter’s face. Disappeared into the kitchen and proudly presented . . . a bottle of ketchup!

And four hungry American teachers passed it around, mixed it into their noodles, and ate.

We did have some real Greek food on that trip, but this is the meal I remember. Spaghetti is like that. 

                  

Hey, hey! March is National Noodle Month. Mention this in polite conversation and impress all your friends. And eat lotsa pasta.

For now, please dish. Any good spaghetti moments? Recipe tips? I really wanna know if you cut your noodles or twirl them around the fork, too.
 

21 thoughts on “noodling around”

  1. Fork twirler here. And, this is heresy, I know, but I don’t like tomato sauce including ketchup and especially the canned stuff. (Even on pizza!)

    The only tomato sauce I like is the kind I make myself, which is:

    chopped fresh tomatoes (not too finely chopped)
    garlic powder
    basil
    Italian herbs
    oregano
    (chopped black olives optional)

    Simmer lightly for about two minutes. The tomatoes should still look like tomatoes, but softer.

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  3. National Noodle Month. Who knew? I had this for dinner last night. Best meal ever. I think I’d be happy just living in Italy and never leaving.

    Jules
    7-Imp

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  4. Oh, and I cut. The husband twirls. His is more romantic, but I just can’t quite do it right.
    Jules
    7-Imp

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  7. Ha! Mind meld. We had spaghetti last night. What I like to do is make enough to have leftovers. Then you mix the sauce and noodles together, add Italian bread crumbs (Progresso is good) and lots of grated Parmesan cheese. Toss it all together and put into a 9×3 baking dish. Top with more breadcrumbs and cheese. Save and bake the next day until bubbly and warm. Yum.

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  8. Well, if you must know, I cut AND twirl. It depends on where I’m eating. If I’m allowed to make more of a mess, I engage in furious twirling. 😀

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  12. Just made it and just finished it – yum! Whole grain spaghetti with sauteed mushrooms, chicken and thick tomato-basil sauce, and I crumbled up a piece of turkey bacon in it too. Topped it off with shredded parmesan. Fabulous!

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  13. When my husband and I were on our honeymoon in Austria, we ate spaghetti bolognase (I know I’m spelling that wrong) for dinner every night. Why? Because it was usually cheap and guaranteed that we’d like it. He’s not that adventurous, and I’d had plenty of local cuisine when I’d been an exchange student to Austria five years prior. (We did eat local lunchmeats, cheeses, breads, etc for the other two meals.)

    We also often stuck to spaghetti at Lucy’s in Guangzhou, a stone’s throw from our hotel. Our view at that point was: we are here to get our daughters. Not to be adventurous with food we might not be accustomed to. Adjusting to a tiny little stranger is NOT the time to risk food poisoning or other negative reactions, so we either asked for help trying “safe” local cuisine, or we stuck to Western options. Plus, it was comforting during a very stressful time.

    You taught high school in London? HOW COOL!! How did you end up with that gig, and how long did you do it?

    I love, love, love spaghetti. It was often my after-school snack when I was a teenager. 😀 And I’d often have it for lunch, topped with melted cheese, as an adult – until I had to give up the quick-n-easy regular spaghetti and sauce, turning it into a labor of love (must make own sauce, and use matchstick zucchini or spaghetti squash). So, now I just have it for dinner if I’ve taken the time to make it, which is sometimes-but-not-often.

    I prefer meat balls (or plain sauce) but my husband prefers meat sauce. The latter is easier, certainly, so that’s what we usually do. And since my own diet is often separate these days, I can make my own meatballs if I please. 😉

    *has craving now* You need to put a warning sign on your posts!

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  14. Tanita Says 🙂

    I feel horrible admitting this but I hate spaghetti…

    Okay, I’ll admit to eating fusilli, and capellini. The occasional fettucine. But not spaghetti. When I first graduated from college I was so poor that’s all I ate. In my studio apartment, I had spaghetti in every conceivable way, almost every night. As soon as I got a better job I gladly gave up eating pasta for about a year.

    Now, I’ll eat capellini — the reeeeally thin, elegant-and-rich version of spaghetti — every once in awhile. And then, I’ll toss it with a fresh sauce of olive oil, wine, chopped tomatoes, torn basil, strips of fire roasted bell orange and yellow bell peppers, and a little oregano. Sometimes I’ll add mushrooms, and a few thin slices of dry, aged Parmesan cheese.

    It’s really good. And I save it — for those “every once in awhile” moments when I need to count my blessings that I can have the High Class version of a basic inexpensive pasta meal, and don’t have to eat it nightly!

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  15. Spaghetti is definitely a great stand-by, and if available, a welcome item of familiarity on a menu while traveling (if you’re not in Crete during off season) :D.

    Did you ever go to Demel’s Cafe in Vienna? Decadence in baked goods, the creme de la creme of cakes!!

    I taught HS in London for 2 years — that’s how I met my husband :)! First in Wimbledon, and then in Knightsbridge (near Harrods). Fabulous, fabulous time.
    It’s where I picked up my penchant for all things tea-related.

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  16. Re: Tanita Says 🙂

    Your cappellini sounds delicious! You’ve definitely upgraded your pasta palate and gone upscale. 🙂 Even though you don’t like spaghetti anymore, it was there for you when you needed it. And, I dare say, if you have kids, it will return to your life in some form.

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  18. I no longer remember the names of the places we ate in Vienna (or Salzburg). I do remember that we ate at a different place every night except for one: in Vienna, there was a place that served such a magnificent chocolate mousse for dessert, we went back a second time! 😀

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  19. I used to hate leftover spaghetti as a child/teen; I always had to make a fresh batch, so cooking exactly the right amount for how hungry I was at that moment was imperative.

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  20. Hi Sis, Didn’t know it was National Noodle Month, but we have some version of pasta at least once a week. Sometimes, it’s yakisoba, another time kook soo, our favorite Thai restaurant makes an outstanding Drunken Noodle. We just finished off some spaghetti a few days ago. I like to use spicy Italian sausage and then add even more hot pepper flakes, garlic, Italian parsley, canned tomatoes ( Mario Batali says canned for sauces is better) fresh basil and Italian herbs. Our most memorable pasta experience though, was not in Italy, but in Spain! We were having lunch in one of those picturesque sidewalk cafes in Cadaques, a beautiful town on the Costa Brava, and Jim decided to order Spaghetti Carbonara. It was the perfect unctuous blend of butter, egg, bacon, and perfectly cooked pasta. It was so good that I abandoned the lunch that I had chosen, and ordered another helping of the Carbonara for myself! Love, Syl

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  21. Mmmmm, that carbonara really does sound good!

    You’ve made me hungry for yakisoba now. Len loves Italian sausage with his spaghetti. We just went to our favorite Italian restaurant last night. They make their own pasta, bread, and desserts on the premises. Not a fancy place, but a good family place with a loyal following of repeat customers.

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