Open Letter to Pasta

Dear Pasta,

I have loved you for as long as I can remember. From the time I was a child, and I met your noodlely goodness, I was hooked. Wagon wheel shaped pasta was my gateway pasta, and now I am forever doomed to crave your carbohydrate laden crevices. You are staple in my life, pasta. I just can’t quit you.

You are like sex, and I like you all sorts of ways. I like you with cheese, with marinara, alfredo, or rosa sauce. With meatballs, with sausage, with spinach, with squash. You are great as a main course, or a side dish. I will eat you in a house, I will eat you with a mouse, though either way, I admit I won’t be too good at sharing. Whether dried or fresh, makes no difference to me, I am just relieved whenever we meet because without you, it’s a dark world... a dark world filled with foods that don’t understand me.

I must admit that there are times when I am doling out portions of pasta, and I give others smaller portions because I want MORE. There is just no bowl deep enough for my love.

When I am upset, you know just how to soothe me. One look from you, pasta, and the world is a better place. It’s like I’m out there, in the world... and that world is great, big place filled with all kinds of food to taste. I love those foods, if only for a minute, and then I realize: these foods would be so awesome with some pasta! And then my thoughts are right back to you again. Here we are, pasta, destined for togetherness. I accept.

Thank you, pasta, for infiltrating the American way of life so permanently and making an Italian-American girl feel like she has something to call her own. Be it penne, fettucine, thin pasta, lasagna, or farfale, you are the cream of the crop. For that, I thank you.

Atkin’s diet be cursed... I will never ditch my beloved pasta--never could, never would. And I promise not to overcook you and make you all soggy. [It breaks my heart when people treat you that way.]

Your adoring fan,

Billie