This morning I found the above photo of Gianni Motta downing some pasta while racing, and I have to say it makes the perfect intro photo for today’s Cat 5 Cooking post on Spaghetti alla Puttanesca.
Spaghetti alla Puttanesca translates into “whore’s spaghetti ” or what my favorite voluptuous, turned thin(ish) recreational drug using celebrity chef Nigella Lawson calls “Slut’s Spaghetti.” I’m not real sure why slut is better than whore, but I digress. When a dish translates into a combination of pasta and whorism* I’m all in.
I first heard of Spaghetti alla Puttanesca on Monday afternoon as I folded laundry and watched the skinny like a smack addict Gabriele Corcos make it on the Cooking Channel’s Extra Virgin. [allow me to pause for five or ten minutes with my face in my hands while I sob and contemplate the depressing reality of what I just typed, and what my life has apparently become]… OK, I’m good. It may have helped that I was starving but within minutes of finishing the folding up of some of Wifey’s melvin covers I was making a list of what I needed to attempt making it on my own.
And as you can see, I did indeed make it and I must say it was gooooood. For the record I did use canned tomatoes as all the “fresh” tomatoes in-store now are nasty ass right now.
I won’t bore you with the details of how to make it, just that it was good and I plan on making it again ASAP so as to try to improve a few things [adding a bit more salt and ditching the chopped fresh parsley. Not a fan of parsley]. You can check out the Extra Virgin recipe I followed [HERE] or if you want to up the difficulty, use Nigella’s recipe found [HERE]. You can get yet another version of the recipe and see more of its saucy history at garrubbo.com.
The meal ended up being great fuel for this morning’s session at the gym. Hoping to carry some of that energy over to something outside tomorrow.
You can see my first installment of Crush Pasta [HERE],
*I have come to realize via the dictionary (and Google) that “whorism” is not a word. As you just read, it didn’t stop me from using it. Words, they can’t hold this guy down. Now cue Toni Braxton’s Un-Break My Heart as I stare at a photo of “jello on bed springs” era Nigella Lawson.
