Spaghetti Dinner Quotes

Oh fuck, he was right there. I was wet as hell and he could probably smell me now. I should have eaten strawberries or melon or a dozen roses or an entire mint plant. Did that work for women? I read an article that it worked for men. Their spunk tasted like what they ate. Did my vagina taste like spaghetti right now? God dammit! I shouldn't have eaten dinner!

Nick explained that an aperitif was an pre-dinner drink. Nick came from an aperitif-drinking family. Alice came from a family with one dusty bottle of Baileys sitting hopefully in the back of the pantry with the tins of spaghetti.

Loving dark men is a seesaw. They never tell you everything. You always wonder if the tiny red spot on a shirt is really from a spaghetti dinner like they claim. But then they put a bird back in a nest. They pull a drowning kid out of the water. And that’s all it takes. The spaghetti is not blood.

Hey, my spaghetti’s moving!” cried Mr. Twit, poking around in it with his fork. “It’s a new kind,” Mrs. Twit said, taking a mouthful from her own plate which of course had no worms. “It’s called Squiggly Spaghetti. It’s delicious. Eat it up while it’s nice and hot.

Dinner alone is one of life’s pleasures. Certainly cooking for oneself reveals man at his weirdest. People lie when you ask them what they eat when they are alone. A salad, they tell you. But when you persist, they confess to peanut butter and bacon sandwiches deep fried and eaten with hot sauce, or spaghetti with butter and grape jam.

Once, when her brothers had been fighting over who got more spaghetti for dinner, her mother had said, You don’t look at another person’s plate to see if they have more than you. You look to see if they have enough.

Three or four days later he was still thinking about seal flipper pie. Remembered the two raw eggs Petal gave him. That he invested with pathetic meaning. 'Petal,' said Quoyle to Wavey, 'hated to cook. Hardly ever did.' Thought of the times he had fixed dinner for her, set put his stupid candles, folded the napkins as though they were important, waited and finally ate alone, the radio on for company. And later dined with the children, shoveling in canned spaghetti, scraping baby food off small chins. 'Once she gave me two eggs. Raw eggs for a present.' He had made an omelet of them, hand-fed her as thought she were a nestling bird. And saved the shells in a paper cup on top of the kitchen cabinet. Where they still must be.

I want you to know I’m serious about you, Lily.” “I believe you’re serious. Now kiss me.” He laughed. “Tomorrow. Can you wait until tomorrow?” “I have Spaghetti-O’s in the kitchen.” I was almost whining. “Can we make those and call it a dinner?” “Nope.” “Ugh, West.” I groaned. His

What terrified her was the set of circumstances that allowed her to eat a full pound of spaghetti, the unmoored, untethered quality of her life, in which no one—no mother, sister, roommate, professor, boyfriend, anyone—was there to monitor her habits and behaviors, to say, “Haven’t you had enough?” or “Can I share that with you?” or “Let’s have dinner together tonight” or even “What are you doing for dinner?” She woke up, went to work, came home, alone.

If I were on death row, my last meal would be from Steak ’n Shake. If I were to take President Obama and his family to dinner and the choice was up to me, it would be Steak ’n Shake. If the pope was to ask where he could get a good plate of spaghetti in America, I would reply, “Your Holiness, have you tried the Chili Mac or the Chili 3-Ways?” A downstate Illinois boy loves the Steak ’n Shake as a Puerto Rican loves rice and beans, an Egyptian loves falafel, a Brit loves bangers and mash, a Finn loves reindeer jerky, and a Canadian loves doughnuts. This doesn’t involve taste. It involves a deep-seated conviction that a food is right, has always been right, and always will be.

Dinner was served on mismatched plates with paper napkins and silverware that looked like it had been stolen from a school cafeteria. The spaghetti was from a box that was still poking out of the garbage pail, the sauce from a jar that was sitting beside the sink. I got the definite impression that he chose to make dinner because he couldn't afford to take me out.

He was serious. He didn’t want her to hold him close. He didn’t want to pretend she was his mother. He didn’t want to imagine going home in her car to pet her black labs. He didn’t want to dream about sitting down to a home-cooked spaghetti dinner at her kitchen table with her family. Those things would never be his. He watched her eyes switch from hazel to green.

Dinner is leftover spaghetti, with meat sauce, warmed up in the microwave. I eat spaghetti nine times a week, every week, and it is my favorite food. And yet, tonight, I wonder if I'm in a rut.

I said, "I want to wear something funny and cool. Marjorie, could I wear your sparkly baseball hat?" The three of us looked at Marjorie. Now I remember thinking that her answer could change everything back to the way it was; Dad could find a job and stop praying all the time and Mom could be happy and call Marjorie shellfish again and show us funny videos she found on YouTube, and we all could eat more than just spaghetti at dinner and, most important, Marjorie could be normal again. Everything would be okay if Marjorie would only say yes to me wearing the sparkly sequined baseball hat, the one she'd made in art class a few years ago. The longer we watched Marjorie and waited for her response, the more the temperature in the room dropped and I knew that nothing would ever be the same again. She stopped twisting her spaghetti around her fingers. She opened her mouth, and vomit slowly oozed out onto her spaghetti plate. Dad: "Jesus!" Mom: "Honey, are you okay?" She jumped out of her seat and went over to Marjorie, stood behind her, and held her hair up. Marjorie didn't react to either parent, and she didn't make any sounds. She wasn't retching or convulsing involuntarily like one normally does when throwing up. It just poured out of her as though her mouth was an opened faucet. The vomit was as green as spring grass, and the masticated pasta looked weirdly dry, with a consistency of mashed-up dog food. She watched Dad the whole time as the vomit filled her plate, some of it slopping over the edges and onto the table. When she finished she wiped her mouth on her sleeve. "No, Merry. You can't wear my hat." She didn't sound like herself. Her voice was lower, adult, and growly. "You might get something on it. I don't want you to mess it up." She laughed. Dad: "Marjorie..." Marjorie coughed and vomited more onto her too-full plate. "You can't wear the hat because you're going to die someday." She found a new voice, this one treacly baby-talk. "I don't want dead things wearing my very special hat.

If I were you, I'd wake up every day at dawn to see the sun come up. Then I'd go back to bed. I'd screw a different woman every night and mean it when I told her I loved her. I'd read a mystery and stop halfway through so I'd have something to wonder about. I'd see how many grapes I could fit in my mouth. I'd drive a hundred miles an hour. I'd stay sober in the morning, drunk in the afternoon, high at night. I'd have Chinese food an tacos for dinner, spaghetti for breakfast and blueberry pie for lunch. Then I'd have anything I wanted in between, 'cause son"—here he took another hit, then looked at the ground, shaking his head—"pretty much all your choices are about to go away.

At around 8 pm we heard the sound of sirens. As the sound drew nearer and nearer, we caught sight of a fire truck. As it reached the hotel, the truck pulled into the parking lot with emergency lights shining and horns blasting. It came to a stop in front of our congregation. We didn’t see a fire or any other emergency in the immediate vicinity, so this was quite unexpected. Perhaps our smell had been reported as some kind of toxic leak or spill? Firemen began to pour out of the truck carrying different trays covered in foil. I could hardly believe my eyes. The local Franklin Fire Department had brought us all a spaghetti and meatball dinner! They also brought salad and pudding for desert. This was an example of trail magic at its finest.

Church is important to most folks in the South. So the most important thing going is basically ruled by men as decreed by the Big Man himself. Not only that, but the church puts pressures on women that it does not put on men. Young women are expected to be chaste, moral, and pure, whereas young men are given way more leeway, ’cause, ya know, boys will be boys. Girls are expected to marry young and have kids, be a helpmate to their husbands (who are basically like having another child), and, of course, raise perfect little Christian babies to make this world a better place. So while it’s the preacher man who controls the church, it’s the women—those helpmates—who keep that shit going. They keep the pews tidy and wash the windows; type up the bulletins; volunteer for Sunday school, the nursery, youth group, and Vacation Bible School; fry the chicken for the postchurch dinners; organize the monthly potluck dinners, the spaghetti supper to raise money for a new roof, and the church fund drive; plant flowers in the front of the church, make food for sick parishioners, serve food after funerals, put together the Christmas pageant, get Easter lilies for Easter, wash the choir robes, organize the church trip, bake cookies for the bake sale to fund the church trip, pray unceasingly for their husband and their pastor and their kids and never complain, and then make sure their skirts are ironed for Sunday mornin’ service. All this while in most churches not being allowed to speak with any authority on the direction or doctrine of the church. No, no, ladies, the heavy lifting—thinkin’ up shit to say, standing up at the lectern telling people what to do, counting the money—that ain’t for yuns. So sorry.

You know what she's made of." "Yeah, good stock, good breeding, a hard head and a hunger to win." She flashed him a smile as they approached the kitchen door. "I've been told that describes me. I'm half Irish, Brian, I was born stubborn." "No arguing with that. A person might make the world a calmer place for others by being passive, but you don't get very far in it yourself, do you?" "Look at that. We have a foundation of agreement. Now tell me you like spaghetti and meatballs." "It happens to be a favorite of mine." "That's handy. Mine, too. And I heard a rumor that's what's for dinner." She reached for the doorknob, then caught him off guard by brushing a light kiss over his lips. "And since we'll be joining my parents, it would probably be best if you didn't imagine me naked for the next couple of hours." She sailed in ahead of him, leaving Brian helplessly and utterly aroused.

I opened the front door of my parents’ house the next evening. His starched blue denim shirt caught my eye only seconds before his equally blue eyes did. “Hello,” he said, smiling. Those eyes. They were fixed on mine, and mine on his, for more seconds than is customary at the very beginning of a first date. My knees--the knees that had turned to rubber bands that night four months earlier in a temporary fit of illogical lust--were once again as firm as cooked spaghetti. “Hello,” I answered. I was wearing sleek black pants, a violet V-necked sweater, and spiked black boots--a glaring contrast to the natural, faded denim ensemble he’d chosen. Fashionwise, we were hilariously mismatched. I could sense that he noticed this, too, as my skinny heels obnoxiously clomped along the pavement of my parents’ driveway. We talked through dinner; if I ate, I wasn’t aware of it. We talked about my childhood on the golf course; about his upbringing in the country. About my dad, the doctor; about his dad, the rancher. About my lifelong commitment to ballet; about his lifelong passion for football. About my brother Mike; about his older brother, Todd, who had died when he was a teenager. About Los Angeles and celebrities; cows and agriculture. By the end of the evening, I had no idea what exactly I’d even said. All I knew was, I was riding in a Ford F250 diesel pickup with a cowboy--and there was nowhere else on earth I wanted to be.

I have been all over the world cooking and eating and training under extraordinary chefs. And the two food guys I would most like to go on a road trip with are Anthony Bourdain and Michael Ruhlmann, both of whom I have met, and who are genuinely awesome guys, hysterically funny and easy to be with. But as much as I want to be the Batgirl in that trio, I fear that I would be woefully unprepared. Because an essential part of the food experience that those two enjoy the most is stuff that, quite frankly, would make me ralph. I don't feel overly bad about the offal thing. After all, variety meats seem to be the one area that people can get a pass on. With the possible exception of foie gras, which I wish like heckfire I liked, but I simply cannot get behind it, and nothing is worse than the look on a fellow foodie's face when you pass on the pate. I do love tongue, and off cuts like oxtails and cheeks, but please, no innards. Blue or overly stinky cheeses, cannot do it. Not a fan of raw tomatoes or tomato juice- again I can eat them, but choose not to if I can help it. Ditto, raw onions of every variety (pickled is fine, and I cannot get enough of them cooked), but I bonded with Scott Conant at the James Beard Awards dinner, when we both went on a rant about the evils of raw onion. I know he is often sort of douchey on television, but he was nice to me, very funny, and the man makes the best freaking spaghetti in tomato sauce on the planet. I have issues with bell peppers. Green, red, yellow, white, purple, orange. Roasted or raw. Idk. If I eat them raw I burp them up for days, and cooked they smell to me like old armpit. I have an appreciation for many of the other pepper varieties, and cook with them, but the bell pepper? Not my friend. Spicy isn't so much a preference as a physical necessity. In addition to my chronic and severe gastric reflux, I also have no gallbladder. When my gallbladder and I divorced several years ago, it got custody of anything spicier than my own fairly mild chili, Emily's sesame noodles, and that plastic Velveeta-Ro-Tel dip that I probably shouldn't admit to liking. I'm allowed very occasional visitation rights, but only at my own risk. I like a gentle back-of-the-throat heat to things, but I'm never going to meet you for all-you-can-eat buffalo wings. Mayonnaise squicks me out, except as an ingredient in other things. Avocado's bland oiliness, okra's slickery slime, and don't even get me started on runny eggs. I know. It's mortifying.

He hefted the drill. “Now let me do the guy stuff while you go to the kitchen. Trust me, it’s a perfect arrangement.” “Luke’s going to cry,” I said darkly. “No, he won’t. He’ll love it.” To my disgust Luke didn’t make a sound, watching contentedly as Jack built the crib. I heated a plate of spaghetti and sauce, and set a place for Jack at the kitchen island. “C’mon, Luke,” I said, picking up the baby and carrying him into the kitchen. “We’ll entertain Cro-Magnon while he has his dinner.” Jack dug into the steaming pasta with gusto, making appreciative noises and finishing at least a third of it before coming up for air. “This is great. What else can you cook?” “Just the basics. A few casseroles, pasta, stew. I can roast a chicken.” “Can you do meat loaf?” “Yep.” “Marry me, Ella.” I looked into his wicked dark eyes, and even though I knew he was joking, I felt a wild pulse inside, and my hands trembled. “Sure,” I said lightly. “Want some bread?” -Jack & Ella

The sky had changed again; a reddish glow was spreading up beyond the housetops. As dusk set in, the street grew more crowded. People were returning from their walks, and I noticed the dapper little man with the fat wife amongst the passers-by. Children were whimpering and trailing wearily after their parents. After some minutes the local picture houses disgorged their audiences. I noticed that the young fellows coming from them were taking longer strides and gesturing more vigorously than at ordinary times; doubtless the picture they‟d been seeing was of the wild-West variety. Those who had been to the picture houses in the middle of the town came a little later, and looked more sedate, though a few were still laughing. On the whole, however, they seemed languid and exhausted. Some of them remained loitering in the street under my window. A group of girls came by, walking arm in arm. The young men under my window swerved so as to brush against them, and shouted humorous remarks, which made the girls turn their heads and giggle. I recognized them as girls from my part of the town, and two or three of them, whom I knew, looked up and waved to me. Just then the street lamps came on, all together, and they made the stars that were beginning to glimmer in the night sky paler still. I felt my eyes getting tired, what with the lights and all the movement I‟d been watching in the street. There were little pools of brightness under the lamps, and now and then a streetcar passed, lighting up a girl‟s hair, or a smile, or a silver bangle. Soon after this, as the streetcars became fewer and the sky showed velvety black above the trees and lamps, the street grew emptier, almost imperceptibly, until a time came when there was nobody to be seen and a cat, the first of the evening, crossed, unhurrying, the deserted street. It struck me that I‟d better see about some dinner. I had been leaning so long on the back of my chair, looking down, that my neck hurt when I straightened myself up. I went down, bought some bread and spaghetti, did my cooking, and ate my meal standing.I‟d intended to smoke another cigarette at my window, but the night had turned rather chilly and I decided against it. As I was coming back, after shutting the window, I glanced at the mirror and saw reflected in it a corner of my table with my spirit lamp and some bits of bread beside it. It occurred to me that somehow I‟d got through another Sunday, that Mother now was buried, and tomorrow I‟d be going back to work as usual.Really, nothing in my life had changed18

The Inaugural Heroes Against Heroin Spaghetti Banquet was to be held on New Year's Day in the rec center, the first town event of the new year. It was forty-five dollars a ticket, not exactly cheap, and people weren't really sure what kind of event it was--Was it supposed to be fancy or casual? How do you dress for a spaghetti dinner? Would there be food to eat besides spaghetti?

Marzluff tells me that while he doesn’t know for certain, he thinks there might be about one crow for every five to ten humans. This would be consistent with his studies showing that nesting pairs in suburban areas tend to claim and defend two houses with their accompanying yards as breeding territory. There is, then, roughly one crow per family. I like to think about this when I set the table for dinner; I imagine a dark visitor, our allotted crow, perching on the back of a chair with one of our best china plates in front of it, waiting for the spaghetti.

After Patrice had moved downstairs, Sherrena discovered that she had been pirating electricity. The meter-repair bill would cost $200, and Sherrena refused to pay it while Patrice was living with Doreen. “I ain’t incurring shit,” she said. “They black asses are gonna incur everything, or they gonna be cold this winter.” It took the Hinkstons a couple months to save $200; during that time the back of the house, including the kitchen, was without power. Everything in the refrigerator spoiled. The family ate dinners out of cans: ravioli, SpaghettiOs.

Even more depressing than the idea of having Theo’s parents over for dinner was the knowledge that they would do so. Just as they would have the parents of the friend after Theo, and the friend after that, too. Then eventually, Matthew would have girlfriends and wives and in-laws and it would all involve a lot of spaghetti marinara, but Graham would do it. He would do it because that was what you did when you loved someone. You kept pushing until you broke on through to the other side, as Jim Morrison may have said. Only Morrison didn’t add that on the other side, you found another obstacle and had to keep pushing. Forever.

I put a pot of water on the stove to boil. I don’t know what I’m going to make for dinner, but it’s probably going to involve some sort of noodle being boiled in water, be it of the ramen or spaghetti or spiral noodle variety.

Tensions spread from the front office to backstage. At the Raleigh, North Carolina, stop the first week, Mickey Hart told manager Cameron Sears he didn’t want to see Weir on his bus that night. In the middle of Hart’s spaghetti dinner, however, Weir climbed aboard Hart’s bus and started making his way down the aisle. “Don’t you RatDog this band,” shouted Hart. Weir unceremoniously dumped Hart’s plate of spaghetti on his lap. Judo black-belt Hart leaped out of his seat, slapped a quick move on his erstwhile bandmate, threw him down to the floor—“You understand that I love you,” he told Weir—and escorted him off the bus. Nobody said a word.

The next night was an off night in Virginia Beach, and Hart sent a room service spaghetti dinner to Weir and his girlfriend, Natascha. “I love you more than spaghetti,” read the note. When he joined them for the dinner, they sat down talking like nothing had ever happened the night before. Brothers will fight.

him?” “Not me. Not Calvin. I just have to wait. Maybe he’ll come over or something.” She sighed. “I wish life didn’t have to be so complicated. Do you suppose I’ll ever be a double Ph.D. like you, Mother?” Mrs. Murry looked up from slicing peppers, and laughed. “It’s really not the answer to all problems. There are other solutions. At this point I’m more interested in knowing whether or not I’ve put too many red peppers in the spaghetti sauce; I’ve lost count.” They had just sat down to dinner when Mr. Murry phoned to tell them that he was going directly from Washington to Brookhaven for a week. Such trips were not unusual for either of their parents, but right now anything that took either her father or mother away struck Meg as sinister. Without much conviction she said, “I hope he has fun. He likes lots of the people there.” But she felt a panicky dependence on having both her parents home at night. It wasn’t only because of her fears for Charles Wallace; it was that suddenly the whole world was unsafe and uncertain. Several houses nearby had been broken into that autumn, and while nothing of great value had been taken, drawers had been emptied with casual maliciousness, food dumped on living-room floors, upholstery slashed. Even their safe little village was revealing itself to be unpredictable and irrational and precarious, and while Meg had already begun to understand this with her mind, she had never before felt it with the whole of herself. Now a cold awareness of the uncertainty of all life, no matter how careful the planning, hollowed

We had driven miles to find the world's creamiest cheesecake and the world's largest pistachio nut and the world's sweetest corn on the cob. We had spent hours in blind taste testings of kosher hot dogs and double chocolate chip ice cream. When Julie went home to Fort Worth, she flew back with spareribs from Angelo's Beef Bar-B-Q, and when I went to New York, I flew back with smoked butterfish from Russ and Daughters. Once, in New Orleans, we all went to Mosca's for dinner, and we ate marinated crab, baked oysters, barbecued shrimp, spaghetti bordelaise, chicken with garlic, sausage with potatoes, and on the way back to town, a dozen oysters each at the Acme and beignets and coffee with chicory on the wharf. Then Arthur said, "Let's go to Chez Helene for the bread pudding," and we did, and we each had two. The owner of Chez Helene gave us the bread pudding recipe when we left, and I'm going to throw it in because it's the best bread pudding recipe I've ever eaten. It tastes like caramelized mush. Cream 2 cups sugar with 2 sticks butter. Then add 2 1/2 cups milk, one 13-ounce can evaporated milk, 2 tablespoons nutmeg, 2 tablespoons vanilla, a loaf of wet bread in chunks and pieces (any bread will do, the worse the better) and 1 cup raisins. Stir to mix. Pour into a deep greased casserole and bake at 350* for 2 hours, stirring after the first hour. Serve warm with hard sauce.

In the nine-to-twelve category: number twelve, traditional turkey dinner and cranberry pumpkin pie! Number forty-nine, caramel beef stew with vegetables and caramel apples! Number three, barbecued catfish and king cake! Number eighteen, Asian noodle stir-fry and vanilla soy cookies!

A kerfuffle again last night at dinner: Indonesian fried rice on the menu. Most of the old folk in here are of the potato-and-cabbage-hash persuasion: none of that fancy foreign fare for them. Even back in the mid-sixties, when spaghetti was first introduced to the Netherlands, they’d said no thanks.

He starts down the trail again, running even faster than before, almost rejuvenated. That or he really doesn’t want to talk to me. I don’t follow him, because it’s hard to escape when someone’s riding your tail and you have to look back constantly when you should keep your eyes forward. But the boy with the buzzed hair asks really good questions. I may have met my match. I ask Mom if I can go out tonight. It’s Friday. We’re standing in the kitchen making dinner. Tom is still at the bank. Mom fills up my “Esther” water bottle and sets it down next to me. “With who?” I keep my head down as I chop onions for the spaghetti sauce. They sting my eyes. “Color. The girl who cleans our house,” I say. “You said we need to make friends.” “Color,” Mom says. “Interesting name.” She doesn’t answer my question right away, but takes some of the chopped onions and adds them to the cooking meat. I keep dicing as tears begin to form in my eyes and fall down my cheeks. “You know, I wanted to name you Violet, but your dad didn’t like names that were colors, like Ruby and Hazel.” Mom tucks loose auburn hair behind her ear. Hannah does the same motion with her hair, too. “Amber . . . Jade . . . Goldie?” I say. “How about Olive?” “Raven?” “Scarlet.” I gag. “I still love the name Violet, though,” Mom says. “It’s nice for a girl.” “I like it, too.” I keep chopping. Mom keeps cooking. I add more onions to the pot. She turns to me then, with tears running down her face, just like mine. We stare at each other. It’s the wettest thing to happen in the desert since we arrived. I ask Mom in my head, Why did you let this happen? It’s the most selfish thing I’ve ever asked because I made this happen. I wrote the equation and asked Mom and Tom to answer it. And they did. “From the onions,” Mom says, with a sniffle that knows it’s a lie. I hand her a napkin. She points at the “Esther” water bottle as she pats her face dry. “Drink that.” I follow her orders.

mother. Just thinking about it still hurt a little too much. So much so that Lindsey was beginning to believe that Mark Jenkins might be right. Dave plopped into the seat next to her. Lopez claimed the chair on her other side, and she was mostly safe. All she needed now was someone who wasn’t Jenk to sit directly across from her, and she might make it through the meal without massive heartburn. Izzy didn’t save the day, the bastard. He sat next to Lopez. It was then that Lindsey spotted Jenk, still helping himself to the food—spaghetti with meat sauce—kept hot in warmers over on the other side of the kitchen. Tom Paoletti was with him, and the two men were deep in conversation. Clearly the best thing for her to do was to eat fast and get out of here. She put her head down, dug in and, whoa. She’d expected military rations or school cafeteria food at best, but this sauce was delicious. The salad dressing was excellent, too. She hadn’t realized just how hungry she was. “Stella told me her husband Rob cooked dinner,” Izzy announced. “I begin to understand why she hasn’t left him for me. This shit rocks.” Decker sat down across from Lopez. Two of the SEALs Lindsey didn’t know that well—their names were Stan and Mac—sat next to Izzy and immediately began arguing the pros and cons of setting up that bad-weather

Li Pin Chu tells them that if he could eat one dish every day for the rest of his life it would be sliced pork and egg in palm sugar. Han says he would enjoy some chicken stewed in onion yogurt sauce. Sirine thinks she might like some reheated spaghetti and meatballs- a breakfast that her mother used to make from the previous night's dinner.

For dinner, he serves dishes such as raw local fish accented with touches like fresh basil and balsamic vinegar; roasted pumpkin soup laced with ishiri; fat, chewy handmade spaghetti with tender rings of squid on a puddle of ink enhanced with another few drops of fish sauce. It's what Italian food would be if Italy were a windswept peninsula in the Far East. If dinner is Ben's personal take on Noto ingredients, breakfast still belongs to his in-laws. It's an elaborate a.m. feast, fierce in flavor, rich in history, dense with centuries of knowledge passed from one generation to the next: soft tofu dressed with homemade soy and yuzu chili paste; soup made with homemade miso and simmered fish bones; shiso leaves fermented kimchi-style, with chilies and ishiri; kaibe, rice mixed with ishiri and fresh baby squid, pressed into patties and grilled slowly over a charcoal fire; yellowtail fermented for six months, called the blue cheese of the sea for its lactic funk. The mix of plates will change from one morning to the next but will invariably include a small chunk of konka saba, mackerel fermented for up to five years, depending on the day you visit. Even when it's broken into tiny pieces and sprinkled over rice, the years of fermentation will pulse through your body like an electric current.

Let’s put it this way,” he retorted. “My future wife’s idea of a good time is sitting in Soldier Field in January with the wind blowing in off the lake at thirty knots. She can feed half a dozen college athletes a spaghetti dinner with no warning and play eighteen holes of golf from the men’s tees without embarrassing herself. She’s sexy as hell, knows how to dress, and thinks fart jokes are funny. Anything else?” “It’s just so darned hard to find women who’ve had lobotomies these days. Still, if that’s what you want…

Fideos secos, also known as sopa seca or Mexican “dry soup,” is typically made with thin spaghetti cooked in a guajillo pepper and tomato sauce, topped with avocado, queso fresco, and sometimes chicharrón (fried pork rinds). This grain-free version replaces the pasta with carrots—and I have to say, they just might be the tastiest carrots I’ve ever eaten (and this is coming from a girl who doesn’t really like carrots). Spiralized carrots are great as a pasta swap in dishes like this where you want a noodle with a good bite. Zucchini tends to get watery if cooked too long, but the carrots stay firm, creating a very pasta-like experience. 1 large (13-ounce) carrot (at least 2 inches thick) 2 dried guajillo chiles,* stemmed, split open, and seeded 4 teaspoons olive oil ⅓ cup chopped onion 3 garlic cloves 2 medium tomatoes, quartered 1 teaspoon adobo sauce (from a can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce) ½ teaspoon ground cumin ¾ teaspoon kosher salt 4 ounces thinly sliced avocado (from 1 small Hass) 2 ounces (scant ½ cup) crumbled queso fresco 1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro *Read the label to be sure this product is gluten-free. Using the widest noodle blade of your spiralizer, spiralize the carrot, then cut the “noodles” into 6-inch lengths. Set aside on a plate. Soak the guajillo chiles in a bowl of ½ cup hot water until softened, about 30 minutes. Transfer the chiles and soaking liquid to a blender. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add 1 teaspoon of the oil, the onion, and garlic and cook, stirring, until the onion is golden brown, 3 to 4 minutes. Transfer the mixture to the blender. Add the tomatoes, adobo sauce, cumin, and ¼ teaspoon of the salt to the blender and blend well. In the same skillet, heat the remaining 3 teaspoons oil over medium-high heat. Add the carrot noodles and the remaining ½ teaspoon salt. Cook, stirring, until softened, about 5 minutes. Pour the sauce from the blender over the carrots, increase the heat to high, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the sauce thickens, about 5 minutes. To serve, divide the carrot noodles between 2 bowls. Top each with half the avocado, queso fresco, and cilantro.