polenta

I'm pasting this here because I did it elsewhere by mistake.

Thanks Baldur for your information about Wednesday Pasta Day.
I really didn't know. Here it's Thursday and Sunday, that doesn't mean you MUST eat pasta on these days or you CAN'T eat pasta any other day. LOL

Here we have TWO KINDS OF PASTA.

1- Dry Pasta which you can buy packaged or a sealed transparent bag.

2 Fresh Pasta which you used to buy only at FABRICA DE PASTAS (factory
of pastas) and you can still do so or in their branches inside super-
markets.

Pastas are a tradition in Uruguay because many people are of Italian descent. We have ravioli, caneloni, gnocchi, spaghetti and others. You find them in every house and every restaurant, be it small and inexpensive or fancy. What sauce do you use most?

Baldur

Thank you Polenta.

The most common sauce that I use here is a smooth tomato sauce flavored primarily with olive oil, garlic, oregano and basil.
Robert does not like lumps in his tomato sauce. If I were cooking just for myself there would be cubes of tomatoes and visible pieces of onion in the sauce. Also a bit of hot pepper.

Sometimes instead of a sauce I dress the pasta with a bit of finely minced garlic, cooked briefly in olive oil. Then I add sliced cured black olives and some chopped parsley.
There is always grated Romano cheese to sprinkle over it.

polenta

Do you have dry and fresh pasta in US?

marius

Hi Polenta, we do have dry and fresh pasta in the US.

Baldur, thanks for letting me have airspace to tell my story today. It's fun to recall those early days, isn't it! I told spouse I'd shared our story of meeting and he said, "And, did you tell them how you put me to work before the ink on my volunteer application had a chance to dry? And that you haven't let me stop working yet?" : )

Love and sweet dreams to all TD-ers. Early night tonight. zzzzzzzzzzzz

And Login ... you are right. It is a beginnning!

Baldur

Polenta, marius is correct, we do have both types of pasta.
The dry is the most common and the cheapest.

Baldur has made his own fresh pasta occasionally, I especially love gnocchi.

Baldur

Robert seems to prefer Capellini (angel hair) but I like small shapes with pockets to hold the sauce. Orecchiette (little ears), Conchiglie (shells), Farfalle (bow ties) or Campanelle (bells).
Baldur finds that eating spaghetti-like pasta is quite messy when one has a long beard.

sheftali52

Sheftali has thoroughly enjoyed the "how we met" tales and the pasta discussions. Oh, and thanks, Baldur for the +10 for foisting in another thread. Dad was an erudite (+20) fellow raised on the East Coast and educated at Brown University and Oxford. He never graduated from college, though he had the capability, and instead wandered the world, spending most of his time in the Pacific. Dad was quite a stickler regarding the English language. When I was a kid, we did not say "yeah" or use any slang terms in Dad's house. Also, we did not use any of the local (Hawaii) pidgin English language common to the Islands. As a result, Sheftali was an oddity among the locals in Hawaii. Dad loved to play word games, so our family often engaged in Scrabble, anagrams, and assorted other games which he usually won!

sheftali52

One particular Scrabble game will never be forgotten. Now, one must know that Sheftali's mother was a very proper, demure Japanese lady, not given to swearing or any improper language (guess that's why she and Dad got along!) Also, Dad's rule for Scrabble was that any word used must be in the rather large dictionary our family owned. Well, during this Scrabble game, Mom spelled the f word and arranged it in such a way that she garnered a lot of points. Shocked, I said "Mother!!!!" And she said, in her demure way, "It's in the dictionary." Indeed it was, so she got to keep her points. Mom was very competitive at Scrabble!

Login

No wonder your English is so good. It flows and makes easy reading ... and I enjoyed your personal story.

polenta

I've heard there is Pig Latin. Anyone knows how it works?

marius

Sheftali - great story about your family, and the unforgettable scrabble game! Your Mom's a funny woman!

Olenta-pay, ig-pay atin-lay is-ay ostly-may a ild-chay ame-gay.

To "play" pig latin you remove the first letter of a word, put it at the end of the word and add the letters "ay" to it. Every word ends with the "ay" sound. Excecption: the words "a" and "i" don't have the ending added to them and also if there is a word that begins with two consonants, both consonants go to the end of the word. So child becomes ildchay, break becomes eakbray.

We love polenta becomes eway ovelay olentapay!

You can get very fast at speaking it and if you are fast enough, your parents can not understand a word you say ... something we kids enjoyed.

sheftali52

Pig Latin! Loved it when I was young, but of course it was never spoken in Dad's presence. Aldurbay, olentapay, agondray, oginlay, ariusmay all have a nice ring to them

polenta

olentapay ikeslay igpay atinlay

Oh.... my God!!!!!

Robindcr8l

Ha! I had almost forgotten pig latin! I became quite fluent at it when I was a kid, but then learned another language that equally confused the adults in my life! It was on a PBS children's show called ZOOM! and it was called "ubba dubba talk". Basically, one just inserts a "b" in the middle of each syllable. So my name became Robobibin and Polent would be Pobolebentaba. Mabaribiubus aband Babaldubur aband Ibindibigobo aband Shebeftabalibi abare abalsobo ibinteberebestibing nabames. Ibit loobooks habardeber thaban ibit reabealliby ibis aband Ibi caban speabeak ibit abas fabast abas Ibi speabeak rebegubulabar Ebenglibish!

polenta

Iba libakba itba.

Oh... my God!!

Robindcr8l

LOL Polenta!! You are multi-lingual indeed! Plus, you are very funny in EVERY language!

Dragon

Robin, sounds like one we used to speak called Foo. Only difference is we used a daga sound. So I'd say Hidagi Rodagobidigin, hodagow adagre yodagou? (Hi Robin, how are you).
Once you're used to it it actually rolls off the tongue quite easily.

Dragon

sheftali, I think I would've gotten along very well in your family. I've always loved word games. We didn't play many games when I was growing up, but the whole family (with the exception of my poor mother) is ridiculously competitive. Actually that may be the reason we didn't play many games, it would always end in arguments. One good thing about playing against competive family members is that you know no one will just let you win cause you're young or it's your turn. When we won a game against our dad we could feel really good about ourselves because we knew we'd won it fair and square and it was quite an accomplishment.

Baldur

Baldur got banned for life from playing Scrabble with his sisters and parents.
No real big loss there actually.
It happened during a game in the 70s.
There were plenty of short low scoring words on the board as was tusually the case when my family played.

What Baldur noticed on this particular evening that the words 'DOG' and 'OMIT' were sitting with just a single space between them. That space was a red triple word score space.
Baldur placed a 'V' in the space.
Admittingly it was at best a hyphenated word and perhaps not even valid but some people have no sense of humor.

Baldur

2400 posts on this thread already.
Do you think we will ever get cut off?