I don’t know if anyone’s ever written an ode to spaghetti. It deserves an ode. Noodles are the only kind of food that you don’t just chew, but actually let slide through your mouth, and Italian noodles are the only kind that really pick up the flavor and substance of the other ingredients, so that your tongue is in sympathy not only with the durum wheat, but also the cheese, also the products of the orchard. You can make spaghetti out of a box and a screw top can, or you can spend hours preparing a gourmet sauce and rolling your own noodles. As a kid I ate spaghetti in the kitchen and I had it at checkered tablecloth restaurants. Today I make it myself, or I order it at Cristina, the restaurant in the neighborhood where I avoid the salads but I can always recommend the spaghetti. It’s what I can eat when I can’t or won’t cook anything else. I’ve made it using only butter and cheese. I’ve made it on Valentine’s Day for my new boyfriend. It’s what I eat the night before a long-distance race. It presents itself as an opportunity for creative restaurant concepts, like the place in Arlington where you order four kinds of sauce for the table and pass them around to share. It’s Baltimore near the harbor. It’s tiramisu and cannoli. It’s the place in Adams Morgan where people have lined up around the block for decades to eat the fresh noodles. It’s when you show up in Florence as a college student and only order the first course because it’s all you can afford. It’s with mussels and lemons. It’s with broccoli and anchovies. It’s a big nest of noodles that you slip from a pan onto a plate, and on top of them goes a feast.
(Photo: Shop window, Dupont Circle.)
365 Days of Food 