MY LIFE ACCORDING TO PASTA
by Dolores De Luce
Two of the 3 ingredients that go into making pasta are flour and water. These are the same ingredients we used to make paste for my first grade art projects. Pasta, the dish and the word were popularized on the nouvelle food scene in the 80’s. Up until then Asians called it noodles but Italians called it macaronie, spagetti, linguini, fettuccini, spagatini, cappelini, rigatoni, #1 , penne, ziti, ravioli, manicotti, cannelloni, lasagna, enoughi, vusilli, orzo, vermicelli, risotto, and pastina. These are just some of the terms of endearment for the wonder food that has been known to keep a broken heart mended.
I was weaned directly off formula straight to my fist solid food, pastina, the baby pasta. Spaghetti days in our house were always Wednesdays and Sundays, but we managed to have it almost everyday because there were always the leftovers. Grandma would throw the cold spaghetti into a frying pan with about a 1/2-gallon of olive oil to heat it up. That was my favorite lunch. I even liked it cold straight from the frig. And on other days, many lunches were of the educational variety when I got to have alphabet macaroni in my soup. No matter what went wrong in my childhood, no matter how hurt or isolated I felt, the one ritual that always united me with the others of my tribe was the sacrament of pasta or macaroni, as we called it in the 50’s.
____________________________________
SUNDAY NIGHT IS NOT FOR AMATEURS
by Erin Brown
“Where is the after hours party?” My friend Maura asks me in a panic on a hot summer Sunday evening in Newport Rhode Island.
“After hours?” I ask, “We just got here.”
“Here” was The Deck, the new Sunday night hot spot.
“Remember we’re in New Port not New York. Bars here close at 1am.”
(Sidenote: If I ever do a one person show, it will be titled “All My Friends are Alcoholics.” Don’t worry, they’re not bad alcoholics. They are more like Lindsey Lohan. She’s barely legal- how is she supp to know her tolerance level? Just like my friends – how are they supp to know their tolerance level? They are barely 40. I digress.
“Don’t worry Mog (that Maura’s nickname) this place is filled with 20-something prep-sters dying to invite us back to their boat, the Mayor is working on it right now.” Any of you unfamiliar with Newport RI, it’s really wealthy, preppy, and it’s got lots of boats.
____________________________________
DOES THIS QUALIFY AS A GIFT?
by Elizabeth Penn Payne
I quit smoking not long ago. This is the part where you’re supposed to clap. Thank you. My friend, Caroline Corday, had always nagged me about quitting smoking, and when I did she was very pleased. Caroline Corday is like so many 38-year-old women in Los Angeles: long and lean dressed in $300.00 jeans and Christian Louboutain stilettos, still beautiful but worried. Subsequently she’s developed a fascination with raw foods, manifesting workshops, and the healing power of crystals. Caroline doesn’t believe in putting anything inorganic in her body except for Botox.
As she is fond of saying, “sometimes natural isn’t enough.” Why she sounds like a cross between a surfer chick and the Queen of England is beyond me because originally she is from Fresno, California. In Caroline’s universe cigarettes not only kill a person but more importantly they ravage one’s skin and yellow one’s teeth; the advantage of cigarettes’ use as a weight control aid is trumped by their liability as a youth and beauty thief.
____________________________________
>> VISIT OUR ARCHIVES FOR PAST PODCASTS, STORIES, AND TROUPE MEMBER'S BIOS
