wops for dinner? italian flag bowties. that’s wop.

(originally from april 4th 2011.)

italian flag bowtie primavera.

i’m a pretty genuine italian. i grew up in a pizzeria, i call my grandparents nonna and nonno, i played soccer my whole life and my favourite hobbies are talking loudly and gesturing emphatically with my hands. 

however, in all my years of being italian, which has involved a great deal of italian cooking and eating (and believe me, there has been a fair bit of eating) i have never encountered something as italian as this.

seriously, this makes spaghetti and meatballs seem about as italian as chicken fried rice. 

when i stumbled across these in the byward market yesterday, i knew i was under a cultural obligation to purchase a bag of them. or to get my mama to purchase it for me - my favourite shopping is free grocery shopping. you should try it some time. 

please note: i am not promoting the heinous crime of grocery theft. 007 theresa does not make appearances in the presence of her mother. get real. 

so, after picking up the pasta, i knew that i couldn’t just throw some tomato sauce on it and be done with it. where’s the fun in that? nowhere, that’s where.

to make things a bit more fun and to stay true to my roots, i decided i was going to make these little bowties worthy of the wop flag they represent. 

wop: (n) a derogatory term used for italians, derived from the neopolitan word “guappo” which means ‘one with swagger’. 

*fun fact: italians had swag before soulja boy even learned how to turn his on. werd.

ANYWAYS. here’s what i used, a series of ingredients either from italy or typical of italian dishes: the pasta (obviously), olive oil, black olives, sun-dried tomatoes, onions, basil, oregano, and of course, garlic. a meal isn’t really italian unless the garlic content renders you repulsive to the opposite sex. who cares when you’re single, right? *sob* 

another fun fact: this combination of olive oil and garlic on pasta with a variety of vegetables is called primavera. 

here’s how you make it. begin by crafting each tri-coloured bowtie by hand. this should take you several days. or you can buy it from la bottega in the byward market. lazy. 

next, you chop anything that can be chopped, not including your fingerlings, and put them in a pan with some olive oil. sautee this for a few minutes. meanwhile, you should be boiling your bowties.

please note: the addition of actual neckties to this dish may result in an unsatisfactory taste. but hey, with enough garlic, who knows! 

after the pasta is done, strain it and toss it into the pan with all that other good stuff. toss. toss. toss. floss. okay, just making sure you’re paying attention. don’t floss. 

then plate it and garnish it with some freshly grated parmigiano reggiano. 

parmigiano reggiano: (n) a glorious cheese that is as sensational as it is salty, commonly referred to by non-italians as “par-miz-anne”. blasphemy. 

this is what it’ll look like. 

so beautiful. so patriotic. so delicious. don’t believe me? ask the dishes! 

or my roommate lisa.

“the colourful noodles added some fine asthetics, while the sundried tomatoes gave it a delicious chewy charm :) good colours+awesome taste=damn good meal! i’d have it again any day. i give it a definite 9/10.” 

i have to agree with her. it was everything i hoped it would be. the olive oil became infused with all the spices and garlic and having every noodle coated in that was fantastic and would have been good enough in itself. but no, it got better thanks to the onions that were still just a bit crunchy, the salty olives and the sun-dried tomatoes. okay, i would eat sun-dried tomatoes even if they were covered in dirt (which, as you saw in the last entry, may actually come to pass in my kitchen) so having adding them to this pasta just completed the package. you complete me, sun-dried tomatoes. i wish i knew how to quit you. [insert other profound movie quotes about love.] that’s how i feel about sun-dried tomatoes. and this dish. 

it’d be great with any kind of pasta. green peppers, red peppers or snap peas would be great additions to this. you could even throw it in the fridge and eat it cold as a pasta salad. i really wish i had thought of that before lisa and i ate it all. this is the definition of regret. 

all in all, it was as italian as eating an actual italian flag.

a final note: if you’re in the mood for something really italian, you’ve got to try this dish! it’s much more tasty than eating an actual italian flag. also, eating an actual italian flag would be looked down upon by many italians. if you do not wish to wake up next to the head of your prized race horse, do not do this.

well, that’s what’s cooking in rez tonight! 

thanks for reading :)