Does This Taste Funny? A Half-Baked Look at Food and Foodies Read Free Page B

the way, I’ll give you some insight into my ‘process.’

    MRI of my brain deciding what to cook
    First
of all, I always have a notepad nearby, because at any moment, I might come up
with the next big thing. Like when I woke up and scrawled THREE SLIDERS SEALED
PANINI-STYLE INSIDE A WIDE FRENCH ROLL. It didn’t really matter that we never
buy French rolls, and I don’t have a Panini press.
    I’ll
ask myself questions for a jumpstart, like, “Why don’t you see vanilla and
peanut butter together more often?” or, “What if I shredded some macaroons,
threw ‘em in a pan and fried them?”
    If
you think something will taste good, why not try to make it? There’ll be some
messes along the way, and you’ll throw out some food once in a while, but
you’ll also, sometimes quite by accident, make some surprisingly good meals.
    For example, one
morning, with no set plan, I shredded some potatoes, chopped up some carrots,
onions, garlic and celery, threw it all in a skillet and made the most amazing
vegefied hash browns (I think the key was the dollop of horseradish).
    The
meal we’re going to analyze here is a simple meat/sauce/pasta concoction, but
there was one hurdle to overcome when I made this.
    As
a Jew, I’ve never kept strictly kosher, but at the time I made this dish, I wasn’t
eating or cooking swine.
    The
thing is, we won a free pound of pork sausage in a contest at our grocery
store, and money was tight that month. So, after minutes of deep spiritual
questioning, I decided God wanted me to cook it.
    Note:
since the night I made this dish, I’ve relaxed my position on pork. Mostly because
I remembered how much I love bacon.
    About the following
recipe: be sure to follow the measurements and steps precisely or . . . well, I
have no idea what might happen, but I’m not going to be responsible for it.

Capellini C
on Carne Gratuito
    E
Sugo Insolito
    (Long Skinny Noodles with Free Meat and Unusual Sauce)
    prep time: 10
minutes
    cooking time: from
30 minutes to an hour
    servings: 6 or so
    Ingredients
    1 box

of angel hair pasta
(‘capellini’)
    1 handful
of sliced
mushrooms
    1 piec
e
of onion
    1 stalk
of

celery
    1

carrot
    A few shakes
of rosemary
    The last of a small
container

of sage
    1 shake of

parsley
    More than I intended
of

cumin
    Some
dill
    1 can of

organic tomato
sauce
    1 can

of green beans
    Plenty of

extra virgin olive
oil
    A few splashes of Tabasco™ sauce
    A little
kosher salt
    1 lb.
of  ground pork
sausage
    zero cloves of fresh garlic

 
    What
I Was
Thinking
    I open my cupboards for
inspiration.

Capellini
(
which I believe is
Italian
for ‘a dollar a box’) is enough like spaghetti that I figure
I’ll just make my own red sauce.
    I can
cook
the sausage in a skillet
, a
nd
I’ll
just
use
some
kosher
salt to offset the whole pork thing.
    Now, the onion is looking a
little tired, and the mushrooms look they might turn in a couple days, so I
have
to
use those.
    And the carrot is in
because, even though I’ve never seen either of us grab a carrot for a snack,
for some reason we buy carrots every week, and I’m tired of throwing out
carrots.
    I know it’s borderline
heretical
to make a pasta dish withou t garlic, but I was out of garlic.
Since
i
t
was too hot to walk to the store, I said to myself “Screw it, I’ve got other
spices,” and
,
“Who needs garlic anyway
?”
    For the sausage, I grabbed
parsley, sage, and rosemary, and for the next ten minutes, I had th e song “Scarborough Fair” stuck in my head.
(
Good
thing I didn’t have any thyme, or I might have actually
conjured
up
Simon and Garfunkel

right
there
in my kitchen.
)
    I also grabbed some dill,
because it was next to the rosemary
,

and
I used cumin, because my baby
loves her some cumin. Which
would be a great
name
for
a
blues song.
    The tomato sauce I used was
organic, because The Girlfriend always buys organic, even though I’m pretty
sure most of the pesticides are gone by the time the tomatoes
are turned