When people ask me, “If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?” I cheat. My response is always “pasta.”
With pasta coming in many different forms, it’s more than one type of food — it’s a plethora of meals. Not only are there different pastas but different sauces. For me, it’s sort of like heaven on Earth.
My usual types of pasta are ravioli, angel hair, fettuccine and, of course, spaghetti. I mix any of these pastas with either Alfredo or marinara sauce. It’s always delicious and always what I want.
This week, I ran out of sauce. I had no way of getting to Wal-Mart and I wanted pasta. My mom and my roommate used to always talk about buttered noodles.
The thought of that was always bizarre. Butter and noodles — that’s it.
I couldn’t see how that could be delicious in any sort of way. However, I was supposed to be expanding my palate. Whether or not buttered noodles are the right kind of expansion is up for interpretation.
I boiled the noodles, strained the spaghetti and added the butter. I wasn’t sure how much butter to add but apparently I guessed correctly. To my surprise, they were delicious. The butter had an almost Alfredo-like taste and the addition of Parmesan cheese only improved the meal. Of course, in my brain, the perfection of this meant that I must eat buttered noodles for the next five meals.
No regrets.
Every time I decide to cook, there is always a point where I don’t do so well.
There are two pumpkins sitting in my apartment. I assumed they were calling my name. I wanted to make a pumpkin pie from scratch, and it was going to be my greatest success yet.
I didn’t get as far as getting off the couch when I decided that it wasn’t going to happen. I did a quick search for a pumpkin pie recipe and immediately sent myself into a slight tizzy.
The very first recipe that I pulled up suggested using canned pumpkin pie filling.
Now, I know I’m not a top chef, but I was hoping to try something incredibly impressive. Don’t get me wrong, I know I could have clicked another link or specified my search. However, it concerns me that the first thing that comes up for a recipe is already halfway made.
I realize that my cooking skills might not be advanced enough to even make it through a simple egg casserole. I might forget the tuna in Tuna Helper. I will most likely try to make chicken salad again and use more eggs than necessary.
My favorite meal at the moment might be buttered noodles. But when I am feeling ambitious and ready to try something extravagant like a pumpkin pie from scratch, it should be the first link.
After finding another link for a recipe, I realized I couldn’t make a pumpkin pie no matter what link came up. I didn’t have cinnamon, cloves, allspice, ginger, mace, vanilla extract, eggs or evaporated milk.
The ingredients I did have were a pie crust and a pumpkin.
Although I was feeling adventurous, I wasn’t ready to see what happens when you put pumpkin guts in a piecrust and bake it for thirty minutes.
A week filled with half-baked thoughts of pie and buttered noodles is not necessarily a complete win, but it’s not a loss either.
Mesha Baylis Blalock is a senior studying journalism at Ohio University. Tell her what she should cook next at mb345109@ohiou.edu.
