Guy Gone Wild
My favorite solo bachelor's dinner: Pasta all'aglio e olio, a bottle of Tuscan red wine, and a green salad to finish. Put water on to boil. Mince some garlic, chop some Italian parsley, and wash the greens for the salad. When the water is near a boil, sauté the garlic in olive oil. Put salt and the pasta in the boiling water. I use Rustichella d'Abruzzo Chitarra pasta because the shape is cool - long, spaghetti-like noodles that are square in cross-section - and because I play the chitarra. So, in the old days, did they make use of old guitar strings to cut the pasta? And did they wash them first? And what happens if you use mandolina strings instead?
Sorry - back to our sizzling garlic.... Add some of the parsley, red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper to the garlic and olive oil. When the pasta is al dente, drain it and toss it into the sauce. Add a little more parsley and salt and pepper to taste. My usual simple salad is some red leaf lettuce, a healthy quantity of arugula, and a few Italian parsley leaves for good measure. My standard salad dressing is olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and salt and pepper... and basta così.
The wine tonight is Sassotondo Rosso 2004 ($15) from the southern corner of Tuscany. It's mostly ciliegiolo with a little alicante and sangiovese. But who cares? - the important thing is that it tastes really good and really Italian and goes great with pasta. The producer (Carla Benini Ventimiglia) farms organically. Even better, she'll be here, along with four or five other producers from different regions of Italy, at our Italian Invasion party on June 11th.
Sorry - back to our sizzling garlic.... Add some of the parsley, red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper to the garlic and olive oil. When the pasta is al dente, drain it and toss it into the sauce. Add a little more parsley and salt and pepper to taste. My usual simple salad is some red leaf lettuce, a healthy quantity of arugula, and a few Italian parsley leaves for good measure. My standard salad dressing is olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and salt and pepper... and basta così.
The wine tonight is Sassotondo Rosso 2004 ($15) from the southern corner of Tuscany. It's mostly ciliegiolo with a little alicante and sangiovese. But who cares? - the important thing is that it tastes really good and really Italian and goes great with pasta. The producer (Carla Benini Ventimiglia) farms organically. Even better, she'll be here, along with four or five other producers from different regions of Italy, at our Italian Invasion party on June 11th.
