Pastafest 2011: Some Final Notes

Earlier this week I went over to the Cohabitat to enjoy some savory roast chicken with rosemary and mashed sweet potatoes that Emily made. She's gotten a lot of cooking equipment from Art's mom's recent "Getting Married/Moving/Giving Away All My Crap" kick, and has grown-up lady items like a food processor and meat thermometer. So Emily made the main dish and main side, as well as honey butter, and I provided cornbread muffins and wine.

I am totally daunted by making a roast chicken (Emily has no fear about cooking any kind of meat). It was one of my 2010 resolutions and has rolled over into a 2011 resolution. The funny thing is, I do have cooking skills. Mainly, name an Italian food, and I can make it. I am fearless! And I cook tasty things. My basic metric is a scale of 0 to "my grandma made this," and if it doesn't rate high, I keep adding things. So I don't so much do recipes as I do permutations of many similar ingredients and cook by feel. (I also make amazing cakes.)

Some additional backstory to bring you up to present day: This fall Emily and Julie came over to make pasta sauce and knit, because I know pasta sauce, Julie knows knitting, and Emily is the buffer because while Julie and I have a mutual lady crush, you never want the first "date" to be awkward. And sadly, that night was the first time I made a sauce I wasn't happy with. In my rush to serve tasty things, I had the heat up a little too high and the sauce scorched. Mounds of cheese helped the final result, but my pride was wounded. I have my dad's secret recipe, which to me tastes just like my grandma's sauce, although my cousin makes his own variation that he swears tastes just like grandma's sauce and I swear tastes just like grandma's sauce but with more sugar. Ahem. Anyway, my family treats pasta sauce as serious business, is the moral of the story.

So I was excited, on roast chicken night, to propose a Pastafest 2011 day, in which I would come over to the Cohabitat and have a re-do, this time with more meat! Emily, Art and I planned a great afternoon of sauce-making, followed by lots of eating and wine, and watching of DVDs, and then sleeping on the couch because of the wine, and then homemade waffles in the morning. It was going to be great! And then I remembered I was going to REI's Winter Trails Day at Ft. Snelling State Park with my friend Beth, and we had to come up with a plan B.

Plan B ended up being me feeling like a schmuck for proposing Pastafest 2011 and then not being able to make the sauce, leaving Art and Emily with the responsibility of sauce-making and me with the responsibility of delegating my dad's secret recipe, which makes me nervous, because Emily is not related to me. (My family really does take food seriously. My dad didn't even give me his sauce recipe until I was 20 and is still holding his pizza recipe hostage. He's tried to "teach" me, but I always do it wrong. I think he likes having this proprietary knowledge and doesn't actually want to pass it on.)

And because she's "cooking for an Italian," Emily is feeling the pressure. But I'm sure the sauce smells great right now, and Art is wanting it to be ready, but it's not going to be ready for a long while yet, so Art, why don't you sit down in the living room and watch some Star Trek?

I will leave Emily with these final tips:
Sometimes, for science (and spice proportionality), you have to try the sauce along the way. And sometimes it's delicious to use a slice of bread or a piece of cooked penne to do so. Call it Italian French Fries, like my dad does. Just dip a piece of pasta (or bread, if you're less committed to the French fry similarities than my dad is) into the sauce as if you were dipping a fry into ketchup. Now you have combined testing (necessary!) with snacking (which Art will beg for anyway!).

Also, if you want to add more wine to the sauce to make it richer, go for it. Don't limit yourself to what I instructed, because my notes were imprecise at best. Do what you think will taste good! And just know that no matter what, I appreciate your effort, and will judge you harshly regardless. Xoxo, Stephanie