Spaghetti for Secret Stoners

Dear Reader,

Oh my, it has been a long time since I posted anything.  This was the busiest summer on record, with camp, vacations, family visiting, and the birthdays! Oh my god, the birthdays!  In one week I made four cakes.  That's not an exaggeration.

A banana cake.

A coconut cake.

Plus two chocolate cakes that I didn't photograph because by that time I was totally over cake.  Also I have this to deal with:

I know, she looks super cute, and she is, but it has taken me forty minutes just to write this because she has been sitting at my foot, staring up at me and BARKING VERY LOUDLY since I sat down.  So I had to get up and take her out for a "walk" which consists of her yanking on her leash until she is gagging and wheezing, chasing every single squirrel, not to mention the moths and the butterflies, and only after all of that is she quiet and sleeping so that I can get down to business and answer some of this damn mail that has piled up in my absence.

I want to thank each and every one of you who has written to me either with encouragement or complaints.  You make my life a sunny day.  Not really.  But it is ever so comforting to hear about the misfortune of others, isn't it?

This email arrived way back in the beginning of August, and it is from someone who goes by the name of DoobyDebbie, from whom I do not expect great things.

Heather-

Got any recipes for what to eat when you are stoned out of your mind but told your boyfriend that you quit smoking pot months ago and then didn't even though you thought you were going to but then your friend came over and had a stash of weed that she got in vancouver so you smoked and she left it at your house and you smoked it all yourself after she left and you're super hungry but know that if you crack open the box of teddy grahams he's going to totally know what you've been up to?

Thanks,

DD

Dooby,

I certainly hope you're not still high, but I'm pretty sure you are.  This one is for you.  It may help, but I doubt it.  Enjoy.

Spaghetti for Secret Stoners

You will need:

Spaghetti

Peanut Butter

Red Wine Vinegar

Olive Oil

Tamari

Honey

Crushed Red Pepper

Garlic

Cherry Tomatoes

Broccoli

Newspaper

Eye Glass Repair Kit

First, you need to say something that you would never normally say if you were as high as a kite.  Avoid phrases like, "Dude, you have got to be kidding me," and, "Wouldn't it be cool if your car ran on slushies?"  Try instead, "Did you know that recent studies challenge conventional medical thinking about CPR?  It turns out that prolonged resuscitation for patients does not lead to permanent neurological damage.  No!  In fact, patients who underwent CPR for a long time fared just as well as those who were revived quickly," which I just read out of today's New York Times, or look to your own paper for ideas.  Then ask if he's ever performed CPR, and as he muses, put on a pot of salted water to boil and toss in the spaghetti.  If it is not time for spaghetti eating, say if it is nine o'clock in the morning, tell him that you are trying out a new Asian Breakfast Pasta you read about in Saveur Magazine.  Be careful saying "Saveur."

Just before the spaghetti is finished, toss some broccoli florets into the water.  In a large bowl, mix one half cup peanut butter, one glug red wine vinegar, one quarter cup tamari, one glug olive oil, and two squirts from the Honey Bear.  Resist urge to talk to the Honey Bear, or apologize for squeezing out his brains.  Crush one small clove garlic and add to sauce.  Drain pasta and broccoli and add to the bowl containing the sauce.  Chop some cherry tomatoes.  Do not say, "Fuck it all," and throw the tomatoes in whole.  That would be so obvious!  Patiently chop them and toss them into the pasta.  Sprinkle on some crushed red pepper flakes.  Do not eat pasta directly from the bowl in which is was prepared.  This is very important.  Find a normal, human serving-sized bowl and fill it with a small mound of pasta.  Do not attempt to use a plate.  A plate offers no sides against which to press the fork thereby easily getting slippery noodles to your mouth, and you will just wind up with peanut butter and spaghetti all over yourself.  Use a napkin.  Have something to drink.  Perhaps an iced tea.  When you are finished, clean off your dish.  If you sense he might be on to you, consider if it might just be marijuana-induced paranoia, and pretend to repair your eye glasses, a task requiring such nimbleness and agility, sure to convince anyone of your sobriety.

You Ate All the Halloween Candy After the Kids Went to Bed Linguini with Peanut Sauce

Dear Reader,

This one speaks for itself.  Oof.

 You Ate All the Halloween Candy After the Kids Went to Bed Linguini with Peanut Sauce

You will need:

Candy
Linguini
Peanut Butter
Apple cider vinegar
Garlic
Soy sauce
Crushed Red Pepper
Weight Watchers Membership
Broccoli florets
Cherry tomatoes
Scallions

First things first, you need to hide the evidence. Toss all wrappers and sweep up all crumbs before innocent children, still reeling from hauling in so much candy, realize you've eaten it all.  In future, remember the Mommy Tax on Halloween candy is 10%.  No more.  You've got to replace all of it, so head out to the store. Realize you'll have to buy one of every kind of bag, even disgusting circus peanuts, because your child has written a complete inventory of their loot and will know exactly what is missing.  This is going to leave you with a lot of leftover candy, so eat some in the car.

Start with the peanut butter cups, and nibble around the chocolate, saving the peanut butter centers.  Do this enough times until you have one half cup of peanut butter.  Put it in a bowl. Add two teaspoons of soy sauce, three minced cloves of garlic, three tablespoons of cider vinegar, don't use the rancid cider you bought when pumpkin picking now festering in the back of the fridge, it's not the same thing.  Sprinkle in some crushed red pepper.

Boil some salted water and put some linguini in to cook.  Log in to WeightWatchers.com and sign yourself up for a membership, because you've got a lot of candy in the house and you can not be trusted with it, lady.  Scoop half a cup of the pasta water out, and mix it with the peanut sauce.  When the pasta has about a minute left to cook, drop in your broccoli florets.  Drain the pasta and broccoli, mix it with the sauce and top with halved cherry tomatoes, scallions and candy corn.

Katie Holmes' Pasta Puttanesca

Another day, another email from a lady with a problem.  This one is easy though!

Heather,
My fiance is a really great guy, and I can't wait to be his wife, but there is one problem.  He's shorter than I am.  It's not the end of the world, I know, but it's not how I imagined my husband in my head.  I don't want to spend the rest of my life feeling huge when I'm at the dinner table with him!  Help me get over this!
-Gloria

There are many qualities which make up a good husband, that he be kind, that he be amusing, that he be helpful around the house, that he enjoy the same television that you enjoy.  Nowhere has it been proven throughout all of history that height has anything to do with it.  That said, I totally get why you wouldn't want to feel bigger than your man.  Here's what I suggest.  Replace your dining room chairs with adjustable bar stools.  Set his higher than yours and voila!  Here's something yummy you can serve for your little guy.  I mean your fiance.  Sorry.

Katie Holmes' Pasta Puttanesca

You will need:

35 oz. can plum tomatoes
Crushed red pepper
Sliced green olives
Sliced black olives
Olive oil
6 cloves garlic
Capers
Parsley
Parmesan
Step stool

Boil a large pot of salted water, and put in pasta.  Have slaves cold press olive oil.  Heat several glugs olive oil in a large pan.  Crush garlic with the side of your knife and add to the pan.  Let it cook for a few minutes while slaves get out the step stool.  Ask boyfriend or husband to climb up on step stool to help with the cooking.  Make sure slave keeps a hand on the stool while he climbs up so that he doesn't fall into the pan with the olives that you should now add to the garlic.  Pour can of tomatoes into pan, squeezing tomatoes to break them up.  This is a good job for him to do, as his wee muscles won't bruise their delicate flesh.  Add a few pinches of crushed red pepper.  Next have him measure out a fistful of capers - don't do it in your hand, that would be too many capers.  Simmer until pasta is ready, then drain the pasta and add to the sauce.  Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with Parmesan.

Pretentious Pasta Primavera

Dear Reader,

I know it has been quite sometime since I have posted anything, and I promise you, if I had remembered that the last thing I put on here were those DORKY photos of myself, I would have updated a lot sooner.  So here is something new to eat. 

Pretentious Pasta Primavera

You will need:

New Yorker tote bag
locally brewed beer
sustainably made shoes
nerd glasses
pasta
wine
garlic
fiddleheads
purple carrots
romanesco
ramps
morel mushrooms
habanero peppers


Good morning Brooklyn!  Drink a Kombucha, throw on those Toms shoes, hop on your skateboard and scoot over to the food co-op, but not before telling everyone about your do-gooding on Twitter.  Try to make friends with Adrian Grenier during your shift.  Decide that he is a stuck-up poser when your advances are rejected.  After work, fill your tote bag with fiddleheads, ramps, romanesco, morel mushrooms and a super spicy habanero.

Once home, chop and saute all veggies in white wine and garlic while listening to Radiohead.  Invite friends to whom you feel superior over for dinner and a lesson on the rare vegetables you have foraged from the market.  They will appreciate it, and at the same time be forced to recognize your intelligence and superiority in all things.  Play for them new music that they may not have heard, being less clued in than you are.  Toss with pasta with veggies, sprinkle with cheese - not the cheese made from that lady's breast milk.  That was a disaster.  Chop habanero and mix with guest's pasta for chance to belittle their intolerance to spicy foods.  Serve with local beer while discussing Art, Artaud, Proust, Globalization, and whether or not the piano is a percussion instrument.  When guests are gone, remove needless nerd glasses and catch up on back episodes of Gossip Girl while drinking your secret stash of Zima.