Pasta Under The Influence

My new favorite thing is making pasta. And when I say making pasta, I mean making a pile of flour and then making a well inside of it, filling the hole with egg and oil and then going to town.

Two days ago I went to buy David Sedaris' latest book at the Borders near my house. I normally like to go to Barnes & Noble because they are a more homo friendly co., but i was already en route and what with the gas prices...

Books stores and I make an interesting mix. I love to read, especially really random books, or how-to's. I do a lot of reading online because it's free. But I really, really love sitting down with a book of own choice and disappearing.

I especially love David Sedaris. And say what you will about him, the man cracks me up without fail. If I crack open one of his books (which I have read and re-read, ps), I am guaranteed to have a good time.




Oh, and by the way, I didn't even know he had a new book out until I read it in a article that was linked to in another blog. I left work a little early, raced to the book store and then stopped dead at the entrance.

The entire entrance was blocked with rows and rows of bargain books. Those bastards, i thought. There were so many books for less than ten dollars that included a how-to section on all sorts of random things like sculpture, underwater basket weaving, brain surgery, plumbing, masonry, paper airplanes... I could have learned how to do all sorts of things. The how-to's were accompanied by a sea of crisp new journals just begging to be cracked open and tear stained.

I panicked. So many books that I could browse endlessly. They even had 1700 different books specifically written to be read whilst taking a dump in the bathroom, my favorite kind of book really. I've been known to wander out of the bathroom still reading, pants no longer around my ankles though.

And then, amidst the sea of bargains I saw one that I could not pass up: “Pasta: a culinary how-to for this classic Italian staple”. Sold.

It was $5 and the David Sedaris book was only $18 and thank god that was the first book on display. I would've been screwed. I'm already inching towards the poor house with this impending lay-off. The last thing I need is to scramble for rent money, digging around through piles and piles of books instructing me to pick up hobbies I cannot afford.

From the bookstore, I drove straight to the grocery store and sat in the parking lot flipping through the book. So many choices! And for me, only half as many because I don’t eat meat. But still! There were hundreds of things I could've made.

After sitting in the parking lot for probably 30 minutes sweating my ass off, I put together a list of ingredients and headed into the grocery store. A storm was moving in, so there were dozens of people scrambling to leave and it seemed I was the only moron heading IN to the store.

I grabbed the few things I didn’t already have at home, including a rolling pin, eggs and oil, thanked the robot lady inside the u-scan and was on my way.

Making pasta from scratch is no easy task. Anyone who's done it, understands that it involves a certain amount of logic that I am trying to learn by a trial and error approach.

Lesson #1: Do not make pasta dough while drunk.

It seems pretty obvious, but then again, who thought they'd be drunk after 1 and 1/2 beers? Not me. By the time I had put a decent size dent into the new David Sedaris I was at least mildly drunk.

I stumbled into the house, surprised at how wobbly my legs were.

"Was I sitting down for that long?" I asked myself. Aloud, ps.

I set my book down and started to kick off my shoes, which of course, I was wildly unsuccessful at. I moved my feet and the flip-flops moved with them, instead of off of them. I kicked and kicked and nothing. I was basically dancing like a Russian in my living room.

I grew angry, bent over and yanked the stupid sandals off. "There!" I shouted and slammed the shoes to the ground. I haven't the vaguest idea what I thought "hurting" my shoes would've accomplished, but it seemed logical at the time.

"Wow. I am really drunk," I said. Again, I was speaking aloud and intentionally to myself. I laughed. "I am so retarded."

Yep.

I stumbled into the kitchen and arranged all of the ingredients and tools in height order. Don't ask me why.

I measured the flour and dumped it into a big pile on the counter (that was clean, ps). I made a hole in the middle, eyeballed the picture in the book, decided it was plenty big enough and then started dropping the eggs in.




I've gotten pretty good at cracking eggs one handed, but had to fish out a few egg shells because I was a touch sloppier than normal. As I cracked the third egg, I thought to myself, that hole doesn't really look big enough for one more egg. It will probably spill over and make a mess. But then I decided I'd have time to catch the egg, so I dropped it into the well.

Of course, the egg went everywhere. It broke through one part of the well and went spilling onto the counter, spreading like the Terminator in liquid form. I scrambled. Crap! I forgot to add the oil!

I reached for the oil, measured it and then poured it into the well and that too joined the egg miss taking over my counter at an alarming rate. What did I reach for next? The whisk.

In the directions it states: once you've added the eggs and oil, use a whisk to work the liquid, gently adding flour as you go.

I started whisking from the inside out, worsening the volcanic eruption of egg and oil exponentially. I reached around the back of the broken mound with my free hand and tried to guide the egg back into the well.

I was whisking frantically, trying to absorb what I could of the egg. I was sweeping my hand around like a greedy child hording candy on Halloween, trying to manage the river of salmonella.

Once I had gotten rid of most of the moisture, I looked back at the book, but had to get really close, because, let me remind you, I was drunk off of less than two beers.

The next step: knead the dough on a surface lightly dusted with flour until the mound is soft and pliable, but dry to the touch.

hmm...I thought. How in the hell is that possible with this mess of sticky, tacky dough?

I started kneading anyway, without first putting flour on my hands, but that surface was "dusted" pretty well. I really couldn't tell you how much flour was on the surface because my counter top is white. So, it was probably “caked” more so, than “dusted”.

Clearly, the project was destined to fail from the beginning.

I kneaded until I had more dough on my hands than on the counter and then just sort of stared at my hands, like, how the hell am I gonna fix this?

I know! A spoon...

I grabbed the spoon next to me and started scraping the dough off of my hands. It took probably 15 minutes to clean my hands off enough to coat them in flour and start over with the kneading. It took a combination of the spoon, a little flour and rubbing my hands together quickly, feverishly, even.

Once I was done kneading the dough, I put it in a bag, like I was instructed to do and sat down on the couch exhausted and hungry. I looked at the clock: 8:45pm.

Holy hell, I was running way behind schedule. Rori was due home in 15 minutes and dinner wasn't even kind of ready.

She arrived home late, but not late enough because I was still pinching the dough into little bows, lining a covered cutting board with rows and rows of little hand made noodles.

She walked in, "Dinner isn't ready yet?"

"Um..." I stumbled. "Almost."

"How much longer?"

"I dunno." I guessed, "Maybe 20 minutes."

Yeah, I was way off. By the time, I'd been to bed the pasta hadn't finished drying yet. But we settled for a couple of chick'n patty sandwiches. I ate mine cold, because it was ready before I was done laying out the pasta.

The moral of the story?

Making pasta is really fun and therapeutic as long as you are sober or are much better at being a functioning alcoholic.

I'm totally trying again on Saturday. Wish me luck!