Pasta with rosemary and lemon...

Although I could try to claim that the origin of pasta is in ancient Anatolia and Persia, --and some other cultures could put a claim on pasta, too-- I am not stupid enough to claim that we know pasta better than Italians. I can name a few, actually all the traditional Turkish pasta sauces here: ketchup, ketchup and feta cheese, tomato paste cooked in some oil, tomato paste cooked in some oil and feta cheese, and my favorite: cook ground beef and finely chopped onions in oil, salt and pepper, toss with cooked and drained pasta and chopped fresh parsley.

Yes folks, we Anatolians might not have achieved great success in cooking certain things, but we are smart enough to acknowledge and appreciate others' achievements. This is our heritage, this is the very Ottoman approach to culinary expedition. And today, I hope that my 58 million readers in Italy, who are reading this blog right now, are smart enough to appreciate this entry, in which I will give a recipe from a French cookbook, yes a "pasta" recipe from a "French" cookbook...(I have to confess though, I don't have high expectations for my 58 million Italian readers, those are the same folks that keep electing that shitfucker.)

This recipe is from "The Provence Cookbook" by Patricia Wells, tagliatelle with rosemary and lemon (the full excerpt from the book is here):

Ingredients:

- 3 tablespoons coarse sea salt

- 1 pound fresh tagliatelle pasta or imported Italian linguine (use whatever good quality pasta you find, doesn't matter really, the recipe calls for fresh pasta, I have used dried pasta)

- 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

- 1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

- 2 cups fresh rosemary leaves, finely minced (see below)

- 2 cups (8 ounces) freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

- Fine sea salt to taste

Here is how you do:

Cook pasta to your taste in boiling water with salt. Retain 1 cup of the cooking water. Then In a large nonstick skillet, heat the oil and lemon juice just until warm. Add the drained pasta and the pasta cooking water, tablespoon by tablespoon, until the pasta absorbs the liquid. Add the rosemary and toss. Add half of the cheese and toss once more. Cover and let rest for 1 to 2 minutes to allow the pasta to thoroughly absorb the sauce. Taste for seasoning. Transfer to individual warmed shallow soup bowls. Serve immediately, passing the remaining cheese at the table.

That woman is out of her mind, 2 cups of fresh rosemary leaves is a lot of rosemary leaves. But then if you adjust the rosemary to your taste, this is an absolutely brilliant recipe. I cut the rosemary by half the first time I made it and I was still suspicious until the first bite. That much of rosemary gives me some dusty feeling at the back of my throat, which is balanced well with the lemon juice. The second time I prepared that pasta, I replaced some of the rosemary with fresh thyme leaves from 6-7 thyme springs. That enhanced the herbal essence of the dish.

It is not easy to find a drink to accompany that dish. Your all time favorite diet coke would just kill it. Our sommelier came up with that wine, a 100% Counoise, a very unusual pick. This is a very highly acidic wine with a potential to kill any of your favorite dish in no time. But it was a brilliant match with the pasta. The lemon in the pasta helped open up the flavors of the wine that would otherwise have been masked by its high acidity. The wine helped clear the palate for the next bite without any distraction.

When you have a box of pasta and some good fresh ingredients, there is absolutely no reason to have a bad meal. It is easy to make, cheap, comes with infinite varieties. I don't know what the hell folks are thinking when they waste a dinner over some shitty food...I'll be posting more pasta entries, because that is what we eat at least once a week...