YOU KNOW!

spaghetti?
spaghetti!
yup.
sometimes,
the best way to follow eastern noods is with western ones.
and really, what better method is there for manhandling a monday night?
spaghetti is good.
i mean,
i'm not about to flip the F* out over a plate of it all on it's own,
but at the same time,
it is the perfect wing man to assist a little tasty somethin'-somethin'
in a full-force flavorful love connection.
that's real.
and maybe that's just the DNA talking,
but the main course,
standing on a mountain of slippery semolina snakes?
that just seems victorious and glorious,
and how could you not be all about that?
c'mon.
victory is pretty tight, neighbors.
and i'm thinking about building an arch in honor of last night's spaghetti supper.
mmmmhmmmmmm.
check the marinara/melanzana/monday-type teleport:

ABBONDANZA, BRO!!
word up-
al dente perfection had those skettis all sorts of just right.
the chunky chunky homemade marinara was DOPE.
the sourdough slices on the side,
freshly baked with that crisp crust and soft crumb,
were molto expert.
and that eggplant?!?!
dudes,
that eggplant was the spoken voice of the lord an' sh!t, for real.
uh-huh.
*
variegated light purple and white thin-skinned graffiti-style superior itailan eggplant,
sliced thinnish,
salted to banish bitterness, rinsed,
and dunked in aflax/chia/soymilk mixture, to give it a gummy adhesive surface.
that's how you get it to stick to the good stuff.
and in THIS instance, the good stuff was in F*ing full effect, man.
cornstarch and flour, with salt, pepper,
plus wheat and oat bran for texture;
parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, oregano, basil; cayenne, GPOP;
and a decent dash of nutritional yeast.
y'gotta activate all that flavor, and all the herbs, or you're doing it wrong...
and nana won't rest easy in her grave if you disrespect the eggplant.
so, take care of your nana, and do it right, friends.
fried up in hot oil, until both sides gget that crunchy crispy skin,
and the insides are soft and pull-apart perfect.
guys,
this jaun had almost NO seeds. it was like i was gifted a perfect egglessplant experience.
and i maximized my enjoyment of it, for sure-
*
especially with the addition of the homemade CHUNKY MARINARA!!
YEAH!
a good sauce is the make-or-break between die-alone-in-a-hole,
and live-a-long-life-and-die-alone-in-a-bed, y'feel me?
wooohooo.
that's the ticket!
-
i had half an onion, minced, a clove of crushed garlic,
and 1 1/2 cups of grape tomatoes, quartered,
simmering in olive oil,
before i added the first pass of herbs.
yup, a sweaty pot of veg is where it all begins.
then, it's GPOP, and marjoram, and oregano, and basil-
give that a second to activate the aromatics,
and zap it with a heavy splash of red wine vinegar.
yep, that's the stuff.
add 1 1/4 cups crushed tomatoes;
2 T tomato paste;
1/2 cup water;
a dash of soy sauce (oooooh, mommy, y'dig? hahaha. no? c'mon.)
salt, pepper, thyme, a spoonful of sugar, a little crushed red pepper,
and a big scoop of nootch.
Wu-TANG!
now that's a tasty base for your big pasta power pack attack!
simmer it, covered, for as long as it takes to bring water to a boil and make pasta,
while you fry up the eggplant and whatever,
so that your sauce scene is BOSS when the time arrives
for serving up a big ol' plateful of that luscious from-scratch chunky hottness.
believe me, it's worth it.
*
and the bread?
oooooooh.
you all already know how i feel about bread, don't you?
that's riiiiiight.
i'm positively passionate that good bread makes better people,
and that even better bread makes the world worth way more of a damn.
real talk.
so, a fresh baked barbarian boule was exxxactly what was good and true in the universe,
and precisely what the plate needed to be considered complete.
i had a whole other other 'nother slice (or two) just for dippin' in sauce
after all the skettis were slurped into history.
mmmmmmmm.
-
i could've left well enough alone.
....if i was a diapery little poopiepants'd waterbaby-
but, i'm not that, at all,
and i know full well that too much is the right amount,
so,
i also hit the whole thing with MORE nootch,
and parsley garnish sprankles,
AND fried garlic sprankles,
because tomatoes and fried garlic are best friends,
and like to hang out together.
that's a thing.
***********
have you ever stressed so hard you actually fall asleep?
on the ones,
that's a new level of mental exhaustion, for me at least.
i crashed out at some point,
literally,
and found myself with rug lines ingrained on my face,
and one arm more asleep than the rest of me, from where i'd been laying on it.
dudes!
worrying is not productive.
everybody knows that's not effective usage of time.
but, good luck not doing it.
what's the problem?
well,
i don't think this new spot is EVER going to open.
that's an exaggeration, of course.
but,
it feels real.
i'm so ready my toes are tapping,
and my feet are fleet in their flight from the titanic turd-tornado that
constitutes my daily workplace purgatory.
how quickly emotions can change, huh?
i am very grateful, in a way,
for the post-credits scenes i'm watching over here-
as the old studio transitions into whatever it's becoming,
and all the precounted eggs hatch and leave the basket with haste-
it comes complete with meltdowns, tirades, genuinely unsound conversations,
petulant power-trips, and monumentally unpleasant phone skills-
damn.
what an angry last-days-in-a-berlin-bunker batch of buggery i'm faced with.
i didn't want the ending to be like this.
fraught and frenzied, rife and replete with resentments.....
yuck, yuck, YUCK.
friends,
i can empathize with the stresses of being overwhelmed,
it's currently my default mindstate most minutes of most days
but,
i can't hang out with the way things are wrapping up as this second encore
finally finishes resonating through the week.......
it doesn't HAVE to end ugly, even though i don't see why it wouldn't.
and yeah,
NObody leaves with the title, for sure.
i get that.
...but c'mon, man.
this is medieval in it's final throes.
just as long as i still actually eventually leave,
i'll endure whatever snipes and snaps come at me before the coda.
after all,
the height of good manners is exiting while you're still wanted around-
by which i mean:
i guess i missed my window by about a decade;
never quiet,. never soft.....