Spaghetti Sauce Quotes

William leaned forward and pointed at the river. “I don’t know why you rolled in spaghetti sauce,” he said in a confidential voice. “I don’t really care. But that water over there won’t hurt you. Try washing it off.” She stuck her tongue out. “Maybe after you’re clean,” he said. Her eyes widened. She stared at him for a long moment. A little crazy spark lit up in her dark irises. She raised her finger, licked it, and rubbed some dirt off her forehead. Now what? The girl showed him her stained finger and reached toward him slowly, aiming for his face. “No,” William said. “Bad hobo.

Standing in the corridor was a large plastic bin on wheels. He looked inside. Empty tins of dog food. That explained the spaghetti with meat sauce. Oh well, he'd eaten worse.

My handshake is as firm as cooked spaghetti. So, do you prefer your introductions with Alfredo or marinara sauce?

A house on the park. He'd seen it a million times. And now was in it. It smelled of man sweat and spaghetti sauce and old books. Like a library where sweaty men went to cook spaghetti.

We all do it (or I used to-yes, once in a while, Franklin, what did you think?), we all know we all do it, but it isn't customary to say, "Honey, could you keep an eye on the spaghetti sauce, because I'm going to go masturbate.

Once again Bobby Tom glanced at her over the top of Cheryl Lynn’s fluffy blond curls. “How was the spaghetti you ordered?” “It was excellent.” “I’m not much for the green stuff they poured over it.” “Are you referring to the pesto?” “Whatever. I like a nice meat sauce.” “Of course you do. With a double rack of greasy ribs on the side, I’ll bet.” “You’re making my mouth water just thinking about it.” Cheryl Lynn lifted her head from his shoulder. “You’re doin’ it again, B.T.” “Doing what, sweetheart?” “Talkin’ to her.” “Oh, I don’t think so darlin’. Not when I got you on my mind.

He’d spent the night in the boat. Next to the spaghetti queen. William glanced at the hobo girl. She sat across from him, huddled in a clump. Her stench had gotten worse overnight, probably from the dampness. Another night like the last one, and he might snap and dunk her into that river just to clear the air. She saw him looking. Dark eyes regarded him with slight scorn. William leaned forward and pointed at the river. “I don’t know why you rolled in spaghetti sauce,” he said in a confidential voice. “I don’t really care. But that water over there won’t hurt you. Try washing it off.” She stuck her tongue out. “Maybe after you’re clean,” he said. Her eyes widened. She stared at him for a long moment. A little crazy spark lit up in her dark irises. She raised her finger, licked it, and rubbed some dirt off her forehead. Now what? The girl showed him her stained finger and reached toward him slowly, aiming for his face. “No,” William said. “Bad hobo.” The finger kept coming closer.

I decided to make spaghetti for lunch again. Not that I was the least bit hungry. But I couldn't just go on sitting on the sofa, waiting for the phone to ring. I had to move my body, to begin working toward some goal. I put water in a pot, turned on the gas, and until it boiled I would make tomato sauce while listening to an FM broadcast. The radio was playing an unaccompanied violin sonata by Bach. The performance itself was excellent, but there was something annoying about it. I didn't know whether this was the fault of the violinist or of my own present state of mind, but I turned off the music and went on cooking in silence. I heated the olive oil, put garlic in the pan, and added minced onions. When these began to brown, I added the tomatoes that I had chopped and strained. It was good to be cutting things and frying things like this. It gave me a sense of accomplishment that I could feel in my hands. I liked the sounds and the smells.

Nothing mitigates the throes of depression like a steaming plate of spaghetti and meatballs with marinara sauce and grated parmasan cheese, with a good fresh bread to wipe up.

1971 was the year of spaghetti. In 1971 I cooked spaghetti to live, and lived to cook spaghetti. Steam rising from the pot was my pride and joy, tomato sauce bubbling up in the saucepan my one great hope in life... This is the story from the Year of Spaghetti, AD 1971.

It smelled of man sweat and spaghetti sauce and old books. Like a library where sweaty men went to cook spaghetti.

Honey, could you keep an eye on the spaghetti sauce, because I’m going to go masturbate.” It

Incidentally, you're not a baby because you have nightmares, Natty. Something terrible happened to you when you were little, and that's why you have them. It isn't your fault." "You never have them," she pointed out. "No, I go around pouring spaghetti sauce over boys' heads," I said. Natty laughed. "Good night, brave Anya.

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.

Why did you put spaghetti sauce into your cousin’s drink?” “Because I like it that way,” said Sarah, taking the glass. “You have your chemical stimulants and I have mine, monkey.

…Sugar has become an ingredient avoidable in prepared and packaged foods only by concerted and determined effort, effectively ubiquitous. Not just in the obvious sweet foods (candy bars, cookies, ice creams, chocolates, sodas, juices, sports and energy drinks, sweetened iced tea, jams, jellies, and breakfast cereals both cold and hot), but also in peanut butter, salad dressings, ketchup, BBQ sauces, canned soups, cold cuts, luncheon meats, bacon, hot dogs, pretzels, chips, roasted peanuts, spaghetti sauces, canned tomatoes, and breads. From the 1980's onward manufacturers of products advertised as uniquely healthy because they were low in fat…not to mention gluten free, no MSG, and zero grams trans fat per serving, took to replacing those fat calories with sugar to make them equally…palatable and often disguising the sugar under one or more of the fifty plus names, by which the fructose-glucose combination of sugar and high-fructose corn syrup might be found. Fat was removed from candy bars sugar added, or at least kept, so that they became health food bars. Fat was removed from yogurts and sugars added and these became heart healthy snacks, breakfasts, and lunches.

On April 1st, 1957, a BBC news program ended with a three minute segment about a Spaghetti farm in Switzerland. In the segment, spaghetti (not being a popular dish in England at the time) was said to grow on trees. Many people believed the report and called the BBC to ask how to grow their own spaghetti tree. The response: "Place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.

In the window I smelled all the food of San Francisco. There were seafood places out there where the buns were hot, and the baskets were good enough to eat too; where the menus themselves were soft with foody esculence as though dipped in hot broths and roasted dry and good enough to eat too. Just show me the bluefish spangle on a seafood menu and I’d eat it; let me smell the drawn butter and lobster claws. There were places where they specialized in thick and red roast beef au jus, or roast chicken basted in wine. There were places where hamburgs sizzled on grills and the coffee was only a nickel. And oh, that pan-fried chow mein flavored air that blew into my room from Chinatown, vying with the spaghetti sauces of North Beach, the soft-shell crab of Fisherman’s Wharf — nay, the ribs of Fillmore turning on spits! Throw in the Market Street chili beans, redhot, and french-fried potatoes of the Embarcadero wino night, and steamed clams from Sausalito across the bay, and that’s my ah-dream of San Francisco…

The top bag popped, and a metric ton of old lasagna spilled onto my pants. The stench of soured spaghetti sauce washed over me. Ew. Of all the trash from this whole giant building, I had to step on a bag from the food court. Damn it.

Look at yourself. Do you want to be a bland pot of spaghetti with no sauce and spice? You are just as normal as everyone else. Do you want to perish with time?

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.

Secret kabals of vegetarians habitually gather under the sign to exchange contraband from beyond the Vegetable Barrier. In their pinpoint eyes dances their old dream: the Total Fast. One of them reports a new atrocity published without compassionate comment by the editors of Scientific American: "It has been established that, when pulled from the ground, a radish produces an electronic scream." Not even the triple bill for 65˘ will comfort them tonight. With a mad laugh born of despair, one of them throws himself on a hot-dog stand, disintegrating on the first chew into pathetic withdrawal symptoms. The rest watch him mournfully and then separate into the Montreal entertainment section. The news is more serious than any of them thought. One is ravished by a steak house with sidewalk ventilation. In a restaurant, one argues with the waiter that he ordered "tomato" but then in a suicide of gallantry he agrees to accept the spaghetti, meat sauce mistake.

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.

There's a moment everyone knows, when you look down at your fresh white shirt and realize you've spilled Coke or egg yolk or spaghetti sauce down the front. There's that flash of denial, followed by the realization that the shirt is probably ruined; it'll certainly never be the same. Then, for some people, it's "Well, that's life.Move on." I still haven't reached that point with the scar.

By one estimate, about half the sugar we consume is lurking in foods where we are not even aware of it—in breads, salad dressings, spaghetti sauces, ketchup, and other processed foods that don’t normally strike us as sugary. Altogether about 80 percent of the processed foods we eat contain added sugars. Heinz ketchup is almost one-quarter sugar. It has more sugar per unit of volume than Coca-Cola.

In an Italian restaurant we expect to find spaghetti in tomato sauce; in Polish and Irish restaurants lots of potatoes; in an Argentinian restaurant we can choose between dozens of kinds of beefsteaks; in an Indian restaurant hot chillies are incorporated into just about everything; and the highlight at any Swiss café is thick hot chocolate under an alp of whipped cream. But none of these foods is native to those nations.

A stranger left a white jacket, and it’s tempting for me to grab it, put it on, and use it like a shield against the spaghetti I’ll soon be eating. When I splatter red sauce all over myself, I don’t feel like a slob—I feel like a warrior.

Yōshoku is the Japanese take on Western foods; much of it was created during the Meiji period (1868-1912), when, after centuries of isolation, Japan began importing goods and ideas from the outside world, including food. Yōshoku dishes such as hambaagu (salisbury steak in brown sauce), curry rice, potato croquettes, and "spaghetti naporitan" are now much-loved comfort food. They're also so unlike the dishes that inspired them that they tend to be really hard for Westerners to appreciate.

That night, Jas wore the only dress she owned.It was made of soft,clingy fabric.The skirt was short, showing off her now tan and muscular legs.When she came down the steps barefoot,Chase's eyes widened in surprise. "Um...what happened to your jeans?" he asked. "Never mind." Linking her arm with his,she steered him away from the kitchen door."Is Danvers here?" "In the kitchen standing very close to Miss Hahn,tasting spaghetti sauce." "Okay.Here's the plan." she lowered her voice."Call him into the living room for something. I'll run up and get the album." Chase nodded his head with utmost seriousness"And I'll drop the salad." "Right." He was bent slightly to hear her and without warning, he suddenly angled his head and kissed her. When he pulled back, he was grinning like a little kid."Sorry.I couldn't help myself. It's all this intrigue." "Right it's the intrigue," Jas repeated, too surprised to say anything else. Her heart was beating like a drum, and when he went into the kitchen, she thumped up the steps, touching her lips. Thinking to herself "Did he really just kiss me?"...........

In the window I smelled all the food of San Francisco. There were seafood places out there where the buns were hot, and the baskets were good enough to eat too; where the menus themselves were soft with foody esculence as though dipped in hot broths and roasted dry and good enough to eat too. Just show me the bluefish spangle on a seafood menu and I’d eat it; let me smell the drawn butter and lobster claws. There were places where they specialized in thick red roast beef au jus, or roast chicken basted in wine. There were places where hamburgs sizzled on grills and the coffee was only a nickel. And oh, that pan-fried chow mein flavored air that blew into my room from Chinatown, vying with the spaghetti sauces of North Beach, the soft-shell crab of Fisherman’s Wharf—nay, the ribs of Fillmore turning on spits! Throw in the Market Street chili beans, redhot, and french-fried potatoes of the Embarcadero wino night, and steamed clams from Sausalito across the bay, and that’s my ah-dream of San Francisco. Add fog, hunger-making raw fog, and the throb of neons in the soft night, the clack of high-heeled beauties, white doves in a Chinese grocery window . . .

Anyway, a bunch of penguins were living in a ceramic bowl of cold spaghetti noodles. There was no tomato sauce because it didn’t exist yet, but that was okay. As the spaghetti was cold, moisture condensed upon it. This kept the spaghetti from sticking, or from sticking to the penguins, or the bowl. It also kept the penguins from sticking to the bowl, and from sticking to each other. As I mentioned, tomato sauce did not exist yet. You should realize since this was a beginning, the moisture didn’t either. Neither did the bowl. I think you can guess about the penguins. How could there be penguins if nothing existed yet?

LIVE FROM THE PASTA FARMS, THIS HAS BEEN AL DENTE: The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) aired a documentary on its new show Panorama about Spaghetti growers in Switzerland-- on April 1, 1957. The joke broadcast showed Swiss spaghetti farmers picking fresh spaghetti from 'spaghetti trees' and preparing the spaghetti for market. It also mentioned that the pasta farmers had a bumper crop partly because of the 'virtual disappearance of the spaghetti weevil.' Soon after the broadcast, the BBC received phone calls from viewers eager to know if spaghetti really grew on trees and how they might grow a spaghetti tree of their own. To the last question, the BBC reportedly replied that they should 'place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.

asked about the food because i loved it: curried chicken, groundnut stew (chicken in peanut sauce), and corn bread that you cook over the stove. You would break off a little piece, roll it into a ball, dip your thumb in the middle and make a spoon that you would fill with gravy and eat. It really made me think about how bad they’ve done us. We know everything about spaghetti and egg rolls and crepes suzette, but we don’t know the first thing about our own food. When i was a little kid, if you had asked me what Africans ate, i would have answered, “People!

She had never eaten food like this before. No: she had never eaten before. It was as if these flavors had always existed, had always been there in her imagination, but now she was tasting them properly for the very first time. Each course was more intense than the last. The spaghetti was coated in a thick sauce of meat, tomatoes, and wine, rich, pungent, and sticky. The lamb, by contrast, was pink and sweet, so tender it seemed to dissolve in her mouth. It was served without vegetables, but afterward Tommaso brought the first of the contorni to the table: a whole artichoke, slathered in warm olive oil and lemon juice and sprinkled with chopped mint. Laura licked every drop of oil off her fingers, amazed by the depth of the flavor.

Fish roe and butter makes for a truly exquisite pairing! By adding butter to pollock roe, with its clusters of firm little orbs just like miniature egg yolks, you take away any unpleasant fishiness from the roe, instead producing a sauce with an inexplicable fullness of taste that forms a perfect coating for the carbohydrates, setting off their plumpness and texture like a dream. Perhaps best of all is the pretty pink hue of the roe, like a gorgeous spring evening (you may know by now that pink is my favorite color!). The butter and rosy-colored roe combination coats each and every spaghetti strand, bringing out that delicious semolina scent and generating a flavor that feels like a wave of kindness rising up uncontrollably from inside your chest.

I began by preparing my pasta: my deft fingers forming the intricate shapes of rigatoni, ravioli, spiralli, spaghetti, cannelloni, and linguini. Then I would brew sauces of sardines, or anchovies or zucchini or sheep's cheeses, of saffron, pine nuts, currants, and fennel. These I would simmer in the huge iron cauldrons, which were constantly bubbling above the fire. My pasta dishes, I have to say, were famous throughout the province, and the scent of my sauces carried by the breeze was sufficient to fill a poor man's stomach. I also kneaded bread and produced the finest pane rimacinato, the most delicious ciabatta and focaccia that had ever been tasted in the region. Sometimes I would add wild thyme to the dough, or fragrant rosemary; plucked fresh from the hedgerow, with the dew still on the leaves.

Hey beautiful,” Trey answers, sounding exhausted. “Hey you.” My heart clenches in my chest from the sound of his voice. He breathes heavily. “I’m sitting here, shirt off, beer in hand, TV on, and I feel so fucking empty.” The image of him lying on the couch we bought together, his beautiful body stretched out across the cushions, makes me ache in places I haven’t ached in a long time. I want him so bad. “I’m missing my girl tucked against my chest.” “I would give anything to be there right now,” I answer honestly. Sighing, he asks, “Remember that piece of spaghetti I threw on the ceiling the night before you left?” “Yeah.” I smile to myself, thinking about that night. Trey insisted upon making spaghetti and meatballs for me. He came home with a grocery bag full of pasta, spaghetti sauce, and pre-made meatballs. When cooking the noodles, he told me an “old wives’ tale.” He said if you throw the noodles to the ceiling and it sticks, then the pasta is done. What he didn’t realize is if that pasta never comes down, you overcooked it. “It fell this morning. Scared the shit out of me. I thought it was a spider trying to bury itself in my hair while I was making eggs.” A laugh bursts out of me as I think about Trey bouncing around the apartment, spaghetti in hair thinking it was a spider. “Oh no. Miss Pasta-relli finally fell?” “She did and that squirrely bitch knew exactly what she was doing, too. Trying to scare the crap right out of me.” “Seems like she did.” I chuckle. “But I got the last laugh when I turned the trash compactor on. Her little pasta self squiggled down the drain. Revenge never felt so sweet.” Still laughing, I shake my head. “Is this what your life has come to? Fighting with old, overcooked pasta?” “I’m telling you, Amelia, with you gone, I’ve lost my damn mind.” “Sounds like it

I see bacon, green peppers, mushrooms... those are all found in Napolitan Spaghetti. I guess instead of the standard ketchup, he's used curry roux for the sauce? The noodles look similar to fettuccini." "Hm. I'm not seeing anything else that stands out about it. Given how fun and amusing the calzone a minute ago was... ... the impact of this one's a lot more bland and boring..." W-what the heck? Where did this heavy richness come from? It hits like a shockwave straight to the brain! "Chicken and beef stocks for the base... with fennel and green cardamom for fragrance! What an excellent, tongue-tingling curry sauce! It clings well to the broad fettuccini noodles too!" "For extra flavor is that... soy sauce?" "No, it's tamari soy sauce! Tamari soy sauce is richer and less salty than standard soy sauce, with a more full-bodied sweetness to it. Most tamari is made on Japan's eastern seaboard. " "That's not all either! I'm picking up the mellow hints of cheese! But I'm not seeing a single shred of any kind of cheese in here. Where's it hiding?" "Allow me to tell you, sir. First, look at the short edge of a noodle, please." ?! What on earth?! This noodle's got three layers!" "For the outer layers, I kneaded turmeric into the pasta dough. But for the inner layer, I added Parmesan cheese!" "I see! It's the combination of the tamari soy sauce and the parmesan cheese that gives this dish its incredible richness!" "Yeah, but wait a minute! If you go kneading cheese right into the noodles, wouldn't it just melt back out when you boiled them?" No... that's why they're in three layers! With the cheese in the middle, the outer layers prevented it from melting out! The deep, rich curry sauce, underscored with the flavor of tamari soy sauce... ... and the chewy noodles, which hit you with the mellow, robust taste of parmesan cheese with every bite! Many people are familiar with the idea of coating cream cheese in soy sauce... ... but who would have thought parmesan cheese would match this well with tamari soy sauce!

We eat spaghetti all' amatriciana, with a sauce of guanciale, which is the pig's" ---he ran his finger down her cheek, briefly, a touch so fleeting she was hardly aware it had happened---"this part of the pig's face. We fry it in olive oil with a little chile, some tomatoes, and of course some grated pecorino romano, hard cheese. Or if you don't want spaghetti, you could have bucatini, or calscioni, or fettuccine, or pappardelle, or tagliolini, or rigatoni, or linguine, or garganelli, or tonnarelli, or fusilli, or conchiglie, or vermicelli, or maccheroni, but---" he held up a warning finger---"each of them demands a different kind of sauce. For example, an oily sauce goes with dried pasta, but a butter sauce goes better with fresh. Take fusilli." He held up a packet to show her. "People say this pasta was designed by Leonardo da Vinci himself. The spiral fins carry the maximum amount of sauce relative to the surface area, you see? But it only works with a thick, heavy sauce that can cling to the grooves. Conchiglie, on the other hand, is like a shell, so it holds a thin, liquid sauce inside it perfectly.

Carbonara: The union of al dente noodles (traditionally spaghetti, but in this case rigatoni), crispy pork, and a cloak of lightly cooked egg and cheese is arguably the second most famous pasta in Italy, after Bologna's tagliatelle al ragù. The key to an excellent carbonara lies in the strategic incorporation of the egg, which is added raw to the hot pasta just before serving: add it when the pasta is too hot, and it will scramble and clump around the noodles; add it too late, and you'll have a viscous tide of raw egg dragging down your pasta. Cacio e pepe: Said to have originated as a means of sustenance for shepherds on the road, who could bear to carry dried pasta, a hunk of cheese, and black pepper but little else. Cacio e pepe is the most magical and befuddling of all Italian dishes, something that reads like arithmetic on paper but plays out like calculus in the pan. With nothing more than these three ingredients (and perhaps a bit of oil or butter, depending on who's cooking), plus a splash of water and a lot of movement in the pan to emulsify the fat from the cheese with the H2O, you end up with a sauce that clings to the noodles and to your taste memories in equal measure. Amatriciana: The only red pasta of the bunch. It doesn't come from Rome at all but from the town of Amatrice on the border of Lazio and Abruzzo (the influence of neighboring Abruzzo on Roman cuisine, especially in the pasta department, cannot be overstated). It's made predominantly with bucatini- thick, tubular spaghetti- dressed in tomato sauce revved up with crispy guanciale and a touch of chili. It's funky and sweet, with a mild bite- a rare study of opposing flavors in a cuisine that doesn't typically go for contrasts. Gricia: The least known of the four kings, especially outside Rome, but according to Andrea, gricia is the bridge between them all: the rendered pork fat that gooses a carbonara or amatriciana, the funky cheese and pepper punch at the heart of cacio e pepe. "It all starts with gricia.

We still talk a lot about ‘authentic’ cultures, but if by ‘authentic’ we mean something that developed independently, and that consists of ancient local traditions free of external influences, then there are no authentic cultures left on earth. Over the last few centuries, all cultures were changed almost beyond recognition by a flood of global influences. One of the most interesting examples of this globalisation is ‘ethnic’ cuisine. In an Italian restaurant we expect to find spaghetti in tomato sauce; in Polish and Irish restaurants lots of potatoes; in an Argentinian restaurant we can choose between dozens of kinds of beefsteaks; in an Indian restaurant hot chillies are incorporated into just about everything; and the highlight at any Swiss café is thick hot chocolate under an alp of whipped cream. But none of these foods is native to those nations. Tomatoes, chilli peppers and cocoa are all Mexican in origin; they reached Europe and Asia only after the Spaniards conquered Mexico. Julius Caesar and Dante Alighieri never twirled tomato-drenched spaghetti on their forks (even forks hadn’t been invented yet), William Tell never tasted chocolate, and Buddha never spiced up his food with chilli. Potatoes reached Poland and Ireland no more than 400 years ago. The only steak you could obtain in Argentina in 1492 was from a llama. Hollywood films have perpetuated an image of the Plains Indians as brave horsemen, courageously charging the wagons of European pioneers to protect the customs of their ancestors. However, these Native American horsemen were not the defenders of some ancient, authentic culture. Instead, they were the product of a major military and political revolution that swept the plains of western North America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a consequence of the arrival of European horses. In 1492 there were no horses in America. The culture of the nineteenth-century Sioux and Apache has many appealing features, but it was a modern culture – a result of global forces – much more than ‘authentic’.

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.

Spaghetti alla puttanesca is typically made with tomatoes, olives, anchovies, capers, and garlic. It means, literally, "spaghetti in the style of a prostitute." It is a sloppy dish, the tomatoes and oil making the spaghetti lubricated and slippery. It is the sort of sauce that demands you slurp the noodles Goodfellas style, staining your cheeks with flecks of orange and red. It is very salty and very tangy and altogether very strong; after a small plate, you feel like you've had a visceral and significant experience. There are varying accounts as to when and how the dish originated- but the most likely explanation is that it became popular in the mid-twentieth century. The first documented mention of it is in Raffaele La Capria's 1961 novel, Ferito a Morte. According to the Italian Pasta Makers Union, spaghetti alla puttanesca was a very popular dish throughout the sixties, but its exact genesis is not quite known. Sandro Petti, a famous Napoli chef and co-owner of Ischian restaurant Rangio Fellone, claims to be its creator. Near closing time one evening, a group of customers sat at one of his tables and demanded to be served a meal. Running low on ingredients, Petti told them he didn't have enough to make anything, but they insisted. They were tired, and they were hungry, and they wanted pasta. "Facci una puttanata qualsiasi!" they cried. "Make any kind of garbage!" The late-night eater is not usually the most discerning. Petti raided the kitchen, finding four tomatoes, two olives, and a jar of capers, the base of the now-famous spaghetti dish; he included it on his menu the next day under the name spaghetti alla puttanesca. Others have their own origin myths. But the most common theory is that it was a quick, satisfying dish that the working girls of Naples could knock up with just a few key ingredients found at the back of the fridge- after a long and unforgiving night. As with all dishes containing tomatoes, there are lots of variations in technique. Some use a combination of tinned and fresh tomatoes, while others opt for a squirt of puree. Some require specifically cherry or plum tomatoes, while others go for a smooth, premade pasta. Many suggest that a teaspoon of sugar will "open up the flavor," though that has never really worked for me. I prefer fresh, chopped, and very ripe, cooked for a really long time. Tomatoes always take longer to cook than you think they will- I rarely go for anything less than an hour. This will make the sauce stronger, thicker, and less watery. Most recipes include onions, but I prefer to infuse the oil with onions, frying them until brown, then chucking them out. I like a little kick in most things, but especially in pasta, so I usually go for a generous dousing of chili flakes. I crush three or four cloves of garlic into the oil, then add any extras. The classic is olives, anchovies, and capers, though sometimes I add a handful of fresh spinach, which nicely soaks up any excess water- and the strange, metallic taste of cooked spinach adds an interesting extra dimension. The sauce is naturally quite salty, but I like to add a pinch of sea or Himalayan salt, too, which gives it a slightly more buttery taste, as opposed to the sharp, acrid salt of olives and anchovies. I once made this for a vegetarian friend, substituting braised tofu for anchovies. Usually a solid fish replacement, braised tofu is more like tuna than anchovy, so it was a mistake for puttanesca. It gave the dish an unpleasant solidity and heft. You want a fish that slips and melts into the pasta, not one that dominates it. In terms of garnishing, I go for dried oregano or fresh basil (never fresh oregano or dried basil) and a modest sprinkle of cheese. Oh, and I always use spaghetti. Not fettuccine. Not penne. Not farfalle. Not rigatoni. Not even linguine. Always spaghetti.

She had a smile like tomato sauce on Tuesdays, and she made my penis feel like spaghetti in the strainer. But I wouldn’t restrain her, so I just twirled my tongue like it was on a fork.

Creativity is a step beyond imagination because it requires that you actually do something rather than lie around thinking about it. It’s a very practical process of trying to make something original. It may be a song, a theory, a dress, a short story, a boat, or a new sauce for your spaghetti. Regardless, some common features pertain.

Here you have your spaghetti, which, with a delicious sauce of ripe tomatoes, basil, sleek eggplant, and ricotta you will eat for lunch, when office workers, acrobats, and slaughtermen return home for the siesta and for a few brief hours the restless city sleeps.

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.

Cal’s insides became spaghetti. This nicely complimented his brain, which temporarily took on the consistency of homemade pasta sauce with extra onions and garlic. His skeleton, which had seemed perfectly content to remain wrapped in muscle and skin throughout most of his life, suddenly made a break for freedom. He felt every inch of it as it tried to vacate his body through the front, taking full custody of his teeth as well.

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.

He took a moment to regain his composure, but he got it right on the next take and finally began to make the Bolognese sauce. The pan on the stove had butter that we had already partially melted, and he poured in some olive oil. Then he stirred in the previously identified chopped vegetables, and after several minutes (which would later be edited out), the vegetables were translucent. When he added the finely chopped beef, Sally told the viewers, "You could also use a very good grade of hamburger." He poured in some milk, let it evaporate, and then added crushed tomatoes, red wine, and broth. "Now you must cook the sauce two, three hours until it is done," he said. The cameras stopped and we swapped the pan for an identical one with a finished sauce. We also poured boiling water and cooked spaghetti into the pot that had been sitting empty on the stove.

The only legumes I have the patience to cook from scratch are lentils. They cook quickly and don’t need to be presoaked. You can just simmer them as you would pasta, in a pot with an abundance of water, for about half an hour. In fact, if you’re making pasta and have the time, why not let some lentils boil in the water for twenty minutes before adding in the pasta? Lentils are great in spaghetti sauce. That’s what I do when I make rice or quinoa: I throw a handful of dried lentils into the rice cooker, and they’re done when the grain is cooked. Mashed and seasoned cooked lentils also make a great veggie dip. Double check marks!

If their life together were a recipe, it would be this: tablespoons of late nights talking, a dash of fervent fingers across skin, and too many I love you's to count. Date nights and nights in and days spent in the sunshine or getting caught in the rain or sneaking cigarettes at family functions, and their wedding day. His homemade spaghetti sauce followed by her coffee cake. Their cat, Velcro. Their Greenwood home. Trust, laughter, tears, and pure joy, kneaded into one by years of togetherness.

MOM'S SPAGHETTI BOLOGNESE 6 stewed tomatoes 1 onion, diced 4 cloves garlic, minced 1 bunch basil leaves 1 pound ground beef 1/2 cup red wine 1/4 cup parmesan cheese 2 tablespoons red pepper flakes 1 tablespoon oregano 2 bay leaves 3 tablespoons olive oil Splash of balsamic vinegar

What confused Abu about Mama’s dishes was that they all seemed like variations of the same thing to him—tomato sauce, pasta, and cheese. He couldn’t tell the difference between spaghetti and linguini and ziti and lasagne other than the shape of the noodles. They all tasted the same, and pasta itself didn’t seem right to him. It looked like uncooked dough, pale and flabby. Who boils dough? Dough should be baked or fried. Pasta was a neglected doughy stepchild that didn’t quite complete the journey to being actually cooked.

William leaned forward and pointed at the river. “I don’t know why you rolled in spaghetti sauce,” he said in a confidential voice. “I don’t really care. But that water over there won’t hurt you. Try washing it off.” She stuck her tongue out. “Maybe after you’re clean,” he said. Her eyes widened. She stared at him for a long moment. A little crazy spark lit up in her dark irises. She raised her finger, licked it, and rubbed some dirt off her forehead. Now what? The girl showed him her stained finger and reached toward him slowly, aiming for his face. “No,” William said. “Bad hobo.” The finger kept coming closer. “You touch me, I’ll break it off.

How’s the spaghetti?” I ask. “So good.” She takes another bite, talking with her mouth full in the most un-Kennedy-like way. “I think I might want a second bowl.”  “I’m a fairly shit cook, but I have about three solid recipes in my arsenal and that’s one of them.” “Are you going to make me the other two someday?” “I’m sure you could talk me into that. But the spaghetti is my favorite. My mom taught me how to make the sauce when I was a kid.”  Kennedy takes her time chewing as she watches me. “She did a good job.” “She was a great teacher.” “She did a good job with you too.”  Fuck me. I’ve got my handle on snarky Kennedy, shy Kennedy, and even drunk Kennedy, but sweet and honest Kennedy? I’m a goner already.

WEEK#1 SHOPPING LIST   *FRUITS & VEGETABLES ALL ORGANIC AND/OR WILD *MEATS FREE RANGE, NO ANTIBIOTICS OR HORMONES ADDED *FISH OCEAN WISE & WILD *Remember to always read the ingredients and check for added sugars, chemicals and MSG etc.   1 LEMON 2 LIMES 4 MEDIUM YELLOW ONIONS 1 BUNDLE ORGANIC GREEN ONIONS 1 RED ONION 1 GINGER ROOT 2 WHOLE GARLIC 1 BUNDLE OF ASPARGUS 2 CAULIFLOWER HEADS 2 ORGANIC RED PEPPERS 2 GREEN PEPPERS 3 AVOCADOS 1 PACK BOK CHOY 15 ORGANIC TOMATOES 1 SPAGHETTI SQUASH 3 SWEET POTATOES 1 YAM 2 BUNDLES OF ORGANIC BROCCOLI 6 ZUCCHINI 4 CARROTS 3 BEETS 12-15 BROWN MUSHROOMS 1 SMALL BAG/BOX ARUGULA SALAD 1 BUNDLE OF ROMAINE LETTUCE 1 BUNDLE FRESH BASIL   2 APPLES 1 BANANA 1 SMALL PACKAGE FRESH OR FROZEN WILD BLUEBERRIES 1 ORANGE   2 PACKAGES FREE RANGE NO ANTIOBIOTIC EGGS (24 TOTAL)   1 20oz (750Ml) TOMATO SAUCE 1 CAN 14OZ TOMATO PUREE 2 8oz (250mL) CANS COCONUT CREAM 2 16oz (500mL) CANS COCONUT MILK 1 12OZ CAN PUMPKIN PUREE   JAR OF OLIVES (no sugars added)   1 - ½ LB SMALL BAG (200G) OF REAL CRAB MEAT 2 – 2 LB BAGS (400G EACH) OF FROZEN WILD SHRIMP & SCALLOP MEDLEY 1 LARGE PIECE WILD SOCKEY SALMON (FRESH) 1 LB BEEF SIRLOIN 1LB GROUND BEEF 1 ½ LB (750G) NO-ANTIOBIOTIC CHICKEN SLICES 4 NO-ANTIOBIOTIC ALL NATURAL CHICKEN BREAST 7OZ (400G) ORGANIC GROUND TURKEY 1 PACKAGE MSG-FREE, NO NITRATE BACON   100G DRIED FRUIT (BLUEBERRIES, CRANBERRIES) 200G HAZELNUTS 100G ALMONDS 100G CASHEWS 100 WALNUTS 100G SESAME SEEDS 50G PUMPKIN SEEDS   1 BOTTLE NO SULFITE ORGANIC WHITE WINE (OPTIONAL)  

Marinara Sauce Tomato Sauce Makes about 3 cups 2 large garlic cloves, lightly smashed 1/4 cup olive oil 2 pounds very ripe plum tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped, or one 28-ounce can Italian peeled tomatoes, drained and chopped Salt 8 to 10 fresh basil leaves, torn into pieces In a large skillet, cook the garlic in the olive oil over medium heat, pressing it occasionally with the back of a spoon, until golden, about 4 minutes. Add the tomatoes and salt to taste. Bring to a simmer and cook, stirring often, until the sauce is thick, 15 to 20 minutes, depending on the tomatoes. Stir in the basil leaves. Serve over hot cooked spaghetti or other pasta.

To meet the demands and marketability of lowering fat in foods while maintaining flavorful options, food manufacturers got busy adding increasing levels of sugars in everything from spaghetti sauce to salad dressings. Labels and packages touted health claims because of low-fat ingredients, while completely forgetting to mention that the fat, that actually wasn’t bad, had been replaced by an overload of Sugar Calories that cause weight gain.

Now I was lying in my white stall, chained and smiling nearly hysterical. For what would my own life have become had I not been lactose intolerant? I sweated and trembled with relief at my luck. For, after starving us all for the first three days of the kidnap, some very tall and rank-smelling long-haired cunt in an apron had walked in nonchalant-like and asked us all in splendid pseudo-Sard if we ‘required spaghetti?’ As all of us were Westerners unused to three days of enforcèd fasting, we leapt at the chance and all but me accepted the lanky twat’s offer of ‘Pecorina’. A good cheese, explained Mick from his Sardu vantage point, and Brent and Dean concurred. Not me, sorry, says I. I’m lactose intolerant. How’s your tomato sauce? Only then did we discover how royally that long-haired cunt had set us up. The Sardu cheese ends in an ‘o’ – Pecorino. End it in an ‘a’ – Pecorina – and those three had all just agreed to anal sex. Thereafter, Mick, Brent and Dean got bummed every third day in the white stalls. Bummed and never fed.

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

medium spaghetti squash (about 2½ pounds) 4 tablespoons butter, ghee, or coconut oil, divided 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 medium carrot, diced 2 stalks celery, diced ½ medium yellow onion, minced 1 small red bell pepper, diced 1 pound ground chicken 1 teaspoon garlic powder 1 teaspoon fine sea salt ¼ teaspoon black pepper 1 cup hot sauce (I prefer Tessemae’s or Frank’s RedHot) ¼ cup Super Simple Mayonnaise (see here) or store-bought mayo (I use Sir Kensington’s or Primal Kitchen Foods) 3 large eggs, whisked chopped scallions, for garnish sliced avocado, for garnish Preheat the oven to 400°F. Cut the spaghetti squash in half lengthwise. Place the squash cut side down on a baking sheet and bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until the skin gives when you press your finger to it. Remove the squash from the oven and reduce the oven temperature to 350°F. Grease a Dutch oven or an 8-inch square glass baking dish with 2 tablespoons of the butter. Let the squash cool for 5 minutes, remove the seeds, and then use a fork to remove the threads and place them in the greased baking dish. In a large sauté pan over medium heat, melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter. Add the garlic, carrot, celery, onion, and bell pepper and cook for about 10 minutes, until the onion is translucent. Add the ground chicken, garlic powder, salt, and pepper and cook, using a wooden spatula to break up the chicken into small pieces, until the chicken is no longer pink, about 8 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, then add the hot sauce and mayo and mix well to combine. Add the chicken mixture to the baking dish and mix well with the spaghetti squash threads. Add the whisked eggs and mix everything together until you can no longer see the eggs. Bake for 1 hour or until the top forms a slight crust that doesn’t give when you press it in the middle. Let rest for 5 minutes before serving. Garnish with chopped scallion and avocado slices.

Spooning [10w] Love means tasting her spaghetti sauce on a wooden spoon.

The Irish loved their cabbage. The Germans pickled their cabbage and the Italians made spaghetti sauce and listed to the opera.

Missy: Great Mother-in-Law, Great Friend I learned 90 percent of what I know about cooking from watching Kay. At my wedding shower, I received a recipe card set. I took that set of blank cards and headed straight for Miss Kay’s kitchen. I pulled them out, took the first one, got a pen, and asked her to start giving me recipes for the things Jase liked to eat best. She happily obliged. There was only one problem. Miss Kay had no idea what any measurement was for any of her ingredients. She would say, “One shake of this” or “Two scoops of that.” Since I had no knowledge of cooking, I was looking for exact measurements. I did not want to mess up Jase’s favorite recipes. I had some big shoes to shill, for goodness’ sake! Miss Kay tried to give me her best directions while she was busy around the house. At that time she didn’t understand how little I knew, and we both became frustrated. One example of this was when she told me how to make mashed potatoes. She said to cut up four or five large potatoes and boil them. I asked, “How long do you boil them?” She replied, “Until they’re done.” “How many minutes does that take?” I asked, thinking I could set a timer. She said, “You can’t go by time.” “Then how do you know when they’re done?” “They’re done when they’re soft,” she answered. Thinking about how much I did not want to stick my hands in boiling water to see when they turned soft, I asked, “How do you know when they are soft?” At that point, Miss Kay had become completely frustrated at this whole ridiculous line of questioning on my part. She said rather abruptly, “You stick a fork in them!” I apologized for my ignorance, and Miss Kay realized I needed special attention. She then pulled up a chair, put her hand on my arm, and said, “Okay, let’s start from the beginning.” The next few minutes consisted of her gently instructing me in the ways of heating canned corn in a skillet, browning hamburger meat for her homemade spaghetti, making her famous homemade white sauce, and creating many other dishes I still make for my family on an almost daily basis.

Maybe she left The House one day and no one noticed her and she thought for a moment that she might have died in her sleep that night. That is, until she smashed a jar of spaghetti sauce in the international foods section at the grocery store or bumped into a surly old man on the bus, and then people noticed her. But not in a good way. She wanted to be noticed in a good way.

Bolognese Sauce Also called Bolognese or ragù alla Bolognese, this sauce combines vegetables and meat to create the perfect sauce for pouring over spaghetti. INGREDIENTS | SERVES 6 2 teaspoons olive oil ½ pound 94% lean ground beef ½ pound ground pork 1 onion, minced 1 carrot, minced 1 stalk celery, minced 3 ounces tomato paste 28 ounces canned diced tomatoes ½ cup fat-free evaporated milk ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper ¼ teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg Heat the oil in a nonstick pan. Brown the ground beef and pork. Drain off any excess fat. Add the meats and remaining ingredients to a 4-quart slow cooker. Cook on low for 8–10 hours. Stir before serving. PER SERVING Calories: 240 | Fat: 12g | Sodium: 350mg | Carbohydrates: 16g | Fiber: 4g | Protein: 18g

That spaghetti sauce is trying to kill me,” she said out loud, remembering what she had for lunch.

She pulled out the trash can from under the sink and before dumping her leftover sausage and meatball into the bin, she started to laugh so much she bent over her tummy. She stuck her fork into the opening of a discarded jar and lifted it out of the trash. She presented an empty jar of Ragú spaghetti sauce. He grimaced. “Old family recipe?” she asked, laughing. “Well, they’re an old family,” he said. “Or so I heard.” “Cameron,” she laughed. “You’re such a liar!” *

Welcome home, Master Cade,” I announce with a flourish as he walks into the kitchen, shooting me a scowl. An annoyed scowl? “What are you doing? And why are you calling me that?” Cade’s voice rumbles dangerously. “Stirring the spaghetti sauce that the young Padawan requested, I am.” Ask stupid questions, get stupid answers. He can clearly see that I’m moving a spoon around in a pot full of Bolognese sauce. He glowers at me like I’m the least funny person he’s ever met. “And I’m talking like this because it’s hard to get out of character after playing Star Wars all afternoon.

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.

Political activism while you stirred the spaghetti sauce? What could be better?

Bri says it this way: “I think that when we’re talking about … schizophrenia, we really want to be clear about what is rational, two plus two equals four; what is irrational, two plus two equals spaghetti sauce; and what is nonrational…. A lot of people who are diagnosed with schizophrenia that I have spoken with, that I have worked with … are not irrational at all.” The divine is nonrational and indicates the limits of symbolic understanding; insanity is irrational and indicates a structural failure of reality.

Later, we deepen our investigation into the drinking-while-standing phenomenon at Mashika, an Italian izakaya in a hip pocket of Nishi-ku. The Italian-Japanese coalition is hardly new territory in this pasta-loving country, but Mishika is a different kind of mash-up. To start with, the space isn't really a restaurant at all. During the day, grandma sells cigarettes out of the small space. When the sun goes down, grandson fires up the burners as a crowd of thirtysomething Osakans drink Spritz and fill up on charcuterie, sashimi, and funky hybrids like spaghetti sauced with grated daikon and crowned with a wedge of ocean-sweet saury tataki. The menu follows no particular rules at all. Nobody seems to notice.

I think of book development like cooking spaghetti. There are many ways to cook it, but the basic ingredients should be present: The pasta, and the sauce, and the cheese topping! If you’re a fabulous cook, and you plan on selling spaghetti to earn extra income, it should be obvious to you that there are a lot of other places where it is sold, and you would have to convince people that your spaghetti is better than the others. You’d do this by making sure that the noodles are perfectly al dente, the sauce is tasty, and to give it an edge, you’d make it cheesier, put it in a nice container, and maybe add a sprig of parsley on top to add to the appeal. You wouldn’t serve it on the floor and tell people to go on and taste it because it’s truly delicious, and that you have slaved for many hours perfecting the taste. Packaging and appearances are important, as much as the taste. In publishing, you could be the next great writer, but if you don’t present your words in the most appealing way possible, especially in this highly competitive industry, I doubt anyone would bother to read it except your friends and family, if at all.

other. I managed to read one that said. ‘What’s a superego?’ Written down, it looked very odd, like a sauce for spaghetti or a musical tempo mark – spiritoso, sforzando, superego. My headache was growing worse. I wished I had an Anadin (a rather poetic cry of pain). I was too tired to concentrate.

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.

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

Chicken Tenders (Italian Blend) 1 cup almond flour ½ teaspoon salt ½ teaspoon pepper 1 tablespoon Italian-blend seasoning 1 teaspoon garlic powder 3 egg whites 2 pounds chicken tenders Italian-blend cheese Low-sodium spaghetti sauce Preheat the oven to 450 ° F. Mix the almond flour, salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, and garlic powder in a small bowl and pour the mixture onto a plate. Put the egg whites in a nearby bowl. Dip the chicken tenders in the egg whites, then evenly coat them in the flour mixture and lay out on a cookie sheet sprayed with cooking spray. Bake for about 16 minutes, flipping them halfway through, until both sides are crisp. Lightly coat the top of the tenders with the cheese and, if needed, place back in the oven to melt it. Serve with spaghetti sauce for dipping.

Zucchini Noodles with Pesto and Tilapia 2 medium zucchini Grated Parmesan cheese Tilapia or other fish of your choice FOR THE PESTO: 1 bunch fresh basil leaves ½ cup toasted pine nuts ½ cup grated Parmesan cheese 2 garlic cloves (or 2 tablespoons minced garlic) ¾ cup extra virgin olive oil Blend all of the pesto ingredients in a food processor. Use a spiralizer to cut the zucchini into spaghetti-like strips. Place the zucchini noodles in a skillet and warm up over medium heat for a couple of minutes. Top with grated Parmesan and 2 tablespoons of the pesto. Mix well. Serve topped with grilled fish. Note: Pour any remaining pesto into ice cube trays and freeze. Warm up the amount you need whenever you want it for another recipe. You can also save time by using oven-ready fish from the grocery store and/ or low-sodium store-bought pesto sauce.

Sauerkraut Soy sauce Spaghetti sauce Tomato sauce Tortilla chips Worcestershire sauce

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

After an hour or so, I went to roast a round of tuna steaks. The kitchen was dense with spices and smells. I'd massaged the tuna with cumin and ground coriander, plus lots of chili, serving it with new potatoes and carrots. We mopped up the sauce from our plates with thickly cut bread. We tossed any bones onto the floor, throwing them over our shoulders as was now tradition. The fat and the tomatoes left a thin red tide line around our mouths, which we dabbed at with tissues. After the tuna we had a smaller course of spaghetti puttanesca- served in sundae bowls we'd found in the kitchen. The pasta was a little overcooked, but the fiery anchovy sauce was delicious, finished with an extra drizzle of chili oil, its carmine flecks spitting and popping from the pan.