Tag Archives: al dente

Colander

Colander: (n) a perforated bowl used to strain off liquid

The key is in finding the secret.

For instance, the secret to good lasagna is the cheese blend.

The secret to good pizza is a toss-up between the crust and the sweetness of the sauce.

The secret to good sex is to make sure the woman has an orgasm before the man pursues his.

The secret to spirituality is to read less, be more.

The secret to politics is to tell the truth.

Which brings me to the secret for spaghetti. (You may not see any particular clarity in the path I’ve taken, but here we are.)

The secret to spaghetti is the colander.

Some would insist it is the texture–preferring al dente–but spaghetti can have perfect texture, but still cling to too much water, making the sauce ineffective.

The colander allows you to shake off the extra moisture, which puts the spaghetti on your plate drier and more able to make love with the cheese and tomatoes. Anybody who has ever tried to make spaghetti without a colander always finds that at the bottom of the pan is a whole bunch of liquid that hangs around to steal the taste.

Sometimes I wish I could be thrown into a colander and shaken around–just to get rid of all the extra meaningless residue. Of course, I would never fit into a colander, and the shaking would probably kill me.

So I shall not do that. I promise.

 

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Al dente

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Al dente: (adj) cooked so as to be still firm when bitten.

Even though I am not the type of individual to pursue conspiracy theories, I have to admit that occasionally there is great evidence of a conspiracy at work.

For you see, the minute I find something I deeply enjoy in life, it is only a short passage in time before it is revealed to me that this particular delight is going to kill me.

Perhaps it’s the only way God could ever get human beings off the earth–by creating pleasures that provide temporary satisfaction with terminal results leading to eternal life. Otherwise, we would hang around, indulging forever, and never be good dinosaurs, making our way to the tar pits of … in this case, carbohydrates. Yes:.

  • Spaghetti.
  • Fettucine.
  • And noodles of all types …

Are best eaten al dente.

Otherwise, they look and even taste like they’re waterlogged little swimmers, cast onto the side of the pool, gasping for air, requiring resuscitation.

Yet, as you probably know, the more you cook spaghetti, the healthier it is–and the less you cook it, the better it tastes, but the more insidious killer carbs remain.

It’s hard to believe this is not a conspiracy.

I sometimes wonder if the Creative Genius would have made sugars, salts and flours healthy if the end result would have been happier people, more contented, willing to sit down and listen to truth until sleep overtook them from their sugar high.

But it is a fact of life–a reality of our existence. So here’s what I do.

I don’t eat spaghetti very often, but when I do, I walk on the wild side: al dente.