pasta petrone

I made dinner last night. Whenever I get the chance, I make pasta for my children. My recipe started with chopped onions and garlic in olive oil. Then I added sliced zucchini, diced carrots, and pignoli (pine nuts).

Sometimes I think about where I would live if I was all alone, and I always come back to this idea of the Italian urban neighborhood, where they sell stuff like pignoli at the corner store. Then I think that if I really did live in such a place, I'd get really fat, because I'd be eating cannolis with every meal.

Anyway, my favorite pasta is spaghetti. I know, how boring. But all other pastas to me seem like wannabe spaghetti. Vermicelli is like spaghetti, but too thin. Fettuccini is too thick. But spaghetti? Spaghetti is just right. The only other pasta I love as much as spaghetti is gnocchi and they are so different that they do not compete.

I like the tricolore spaghetti the most. To me, pasta should look appetizing. It should be colorful. It shouldn't just be white pasta and red sauce. That's why I put the carrot in, too, though it adds a new dimension to the taste. Occassionally, I add pesto too. I favor the Genovese pesto over pesto rosso for some reason. It's smoother.

So we are happy eaters in our home. The only problem is that I have no idea what to call my recipe. I just call all pasta dishes I make "Pasta Petrone." But if you went to any Italian restaurant, you couldn't order it. It's a homemade pasta dish.