Places

Here Rice Your Problem, And This Too Shall Pasta

Guess which Fluff Master has just turned a supposedly mouth-wateringly delicious risotto/pasta post into a facetiously philosophical article?

What do these carbo-turbos have to do with a quarter-life crisis? As a matter of fact — they do. They very much do. Sure, it’s a millennial thing. And guess what — it is, and there’s nothing we can do about it.

As a second matter of fact, the next time you stand over your stove watching pasta boil, you’ll find yourself lost in thought — thinking about this article, regurgitating my words. Because really, they are not nonsense merely dressed up as nonsense, but to be taken at a no-nonsense level.

BAM. Mind blown. I did warn you.

BTW.

Disclaimer*
I have no intention of satisfying your aching need to read about the “Top 10 Places to Eat in Milan”. This is not a food post. I’ve included pictures of food and copied-and-pasted Google descriptions because they seem to be the only things you’re interested in — and understand. Ouch. (You’ll find my apology somewhere buried in the main body of the text.)

How would I know the Top 10 places when I was only there for two days? How would I know what qualifies as “Top 10” when I like my wine with plenty of ice, my steak well done, and my chips soggy and cold?

But here — serving up some good rant-violi, right on the house.

Buon appetito. 🍝

Tanya’s “Why would you go out and order something you can cook yourself?” was one of the finest pieces of rhetoric from our university days. A nugget of wisdom, people. A nugget of wisdom. A beautiful bylaw that governed our nosh-picking behaviour throughout our student years and, believe it or not, lent real credence to our rather impressive budgeting skills.

On the rare occasions we decided to eat out, we almost never went for Italian — nor would we pay for pasta. Any kind of pasta. Or risotto. Why would we?

Two cupboard staples. The least exciting. Blokey. Barbaric, even. And heavy. (You didn’t think we went for the dainty Tesco Finest with brush-stroked Italian flags when the 3kg bag of penne was sitting there calling our names, did you? I swear, like Goyard, it practically had our initials monogrammed.) Yet these plain Janes always beat bacon and broccoli to the top of our grocery list. Why? Because after overspending on vodka and ASOS, we believed — or at least shopped ourselves drunk enough to believe — that we would always have rice and pasta, just as one will always have Paris.

These wonderful culinary creations — we never quite gave them the respect they deserved.

Things took a turn a few years into working life — that is, when my slaving away (contractually 9 to 6; realistically… not quite the same) finally afforded me the luxury of eating pasta and risotto freely, plated in deep, wide dishes on tables with actual tablecloths.

You know it’s true:

Making pasta at home is loneliness and laziness curled up together at 8:47 p.m. After a long day of gossiping and nail-buffering at work, you boil your boredom along with your quarter-life crisis, gut issues, career dilemmas, credit card bills and trust issues into something vaguely edible. Almost like de-sublimation. Almost defying the laws of nature.

On the outside, you scoff at pretend-Nigella Lawsons who make Bolognese from scratch on spotless kitchen islands in pretty Le Creuset pots. But inside, you are depressed — and just a little bit jealous.

So, to make yourself feel better, you prostrate yourself before the fridge, reach for the three-month-old Sacla, scrape off the mould, and slap cold blobs of pesto onto your overcooked spaghetti. To hell with the label that says “consume within a week of opening”. To hell with al dente. To hell with making everything from scratch — who has time for that anyway?

Then you fork into that plate of soft, wobbly sadness and sit there wondering what on earth to do with the next two hours.

These wonderful culinary creations — we never give them the respect they deserve.

In a restaurant, trained, apron-clad men bend over backwards to work magic on them. They mix flour, eggs and water — and, though they never tell you, blood, sweat and tears. They measure. They knead the life out of the dough, roll it, roll it again, cut and twist it into shapes that, hopefully, mirror the chaos of your own life.

They slaughter the pigs, blanch the tomatoes, and chop mountains of fresh vegetables and spices with those curious curved knives that look as though they’ve grown legs — all to convince you they know exactly how to make the perfect sauce.

And they do.

Likewise, of course, with risotto. They might as well grow Arborio rice from tiny hidden paddies tucked somewhere between the stove and the oven.

It’s hard work. It’s very hard work.

And then — when the timer chimes and everything is cooked to perfection — they plate it up, dress it, almost gift-wrap it, and bring it to you like a small celebration.

These wonderful culinary creations receive all the respect they deserve.

Why didn’t you do that at home?

You take a bite. You pause. You marvel. You might even shed a tear. God descends, and suddenly you realise — problems can be transformed into something delicious.

Now you see the difference.

The difference that comes from effort. From breaking a sweat. From taking your pain and turning it into something worthwhile — making a pasta hero out of nothing with your own hands.

You slurp every last strand of fettuccine as though it were some sort of Italian ramen.

You part with two twenty-pound notes — still with a hint of reluctance — go home, and turn Google upside down looking for a recipe for tagliatelle al ragù. Like a pretend Nigella Lawson, you learn to cook your problems into something edible.

And then — you eat them.

Risotto alla Milanese (saffron-infused risotto) with Osso buco (cross-cut veal shank with that marvellous marrow) at Trattoria Milanese — both absolute must-haves in Milan.

And the place? Traditional Milanese/Lombard dishes, served in a beamed dining room with an old-world ambience.

Well — that’s what Google says.