Recursive Pasta
Sweet Junie has been an active participant in Obamania for some time now.
So it was with some chagrin that I bowed out of the local Colorado caucus on
Tuesday, opting instead to sip Lustau Manzanilla and watch the returns. I
was really intending to earn a hug by attending the caucus, but it sounded like
it would amount to 3 hours of the Hillary supporters and Obama supporters trying
to convince the Undecideds whom to vote for. It all seems rather
18th-century to me. If you're like me (and I know I am), you've already
gotten a zillion emails; read countless articles on both candidates in Time,
Atlantic, Harpers, what have you; cruised political websites and blogs. So
the whole idea of talking at someone until they succumb seems rather silly.
Since I didn't go, it may in fact be that cogent dialogue takes place and
convincing arguments about Obama's vision for change or Hillary's ideas about
Social Security. Junie, on the other hand, has become directly involved in
volunteer work prior to the Wisconsin primary. This involved meeting a
dozen plus people (many college aged) and shaking the hand of the governor of
Wisconsin, who was there for the kickoff. I told her not to wash her hands
for a while.
I'm experimenting on this dish called Recursive Pasta. It's actually Stone
Pasta, since the secret is to find new things to put into it every night.
On Sunday, I made whole wheat spaghettini in a sauce composed of the most common
things in my pantry: tomato paste, diced canned tomatoes, artichoke
hearts, capers. I added some spices and red wine and that was it. On
Monday, I sautéed some garlic and red peppers and threw them in with what was
left of the last night's pasta (at that point, about half of it). Yum.
On Tuesday, I still had half of what I started with on Monday, so I added
Kalamata olives, more capers, more fried garlic, and some frozen peas.
Last night, since I still had half a pot of pasta, I added the last two frozen
giant scallops (defrosted for 45 second in the microwave, and Ms. Emily got the
resulting juice), another red wine (actually a nice Chianti I ordered online)
and some frozen collard greens that looked like they were close to their
termination date. Yum. I still, of course, have half a pot of pasta,
but I'm running out of ideas (and ready ingredients). I could run down to
Safeway and get some shrimp, but I'm trying to watch my cholesterol. More
wine is never a bad idea, but where's the novelty in that. I've tried
adding good, firm high-end white albacore in the past, but it always ends up
badly. Peanut butter? Nah. I could use any one of a dozen
spices to push it toward the Putanesca locus of things, but it seems like
cheating. Mushrooms would be nice, but that means a trip to the store.
Still, I could return the Red Box video that I rented 5 days ago because it's
only $1.29 a day and BTW, it was some horrible movie with the current James Bond
and (of all people) Nicole Kidman and I only got through 15 minutes of it (which
is actually longer than I lasted with Crash) before putting on Road Warrior
for the zillionth time. Yeah, maybe I should do that.
À propos of nothing, Cath was asking me to look up a California State lien on her and me from 1992, which was reported by one of the big three credit agencies. I got it resolved pretty quickly, but it reminded me of when Sue, the secretary for our department (and with an IQ exceeding our combined total) was dating Larry Michels. Larry started TRW Credit or TRW Data Systems, I can't recall the particulars. What I do recall is eating chicken livers and bagels in Sue's apartment and talking to Larry, who was by that time a multi-millionaire. He told me that the premise was simple: Take the credit data of people and sell it back to them. Meanwhile, create credit scores and sell them to banks and credit card issuers. It was a fabulous idea, if you are Larry and not a consumer. Larry was very nice to me in the ensuing decade, after he started SCO with his son, the first commercial UNIX house. He showed up in my hotel room at COMDEX and told me I could have any discount level I wanted for SCO products, including that for IBM and Siemens. Larry has passed away now, and SCO is in other's hands, which is a shame as it was one of those crazy organizations in Santa Cruz, housed in a couple of Victorians one block from a sex shop and the area's best espresso bar.
BTW, nobody really believes the things I say. Sweet Junie says it's because I suffer from Forrest Gump Syndrome. You'll just have to trust me.