I F’ing Love Pasta
I love pasta, and yes, I love reading about pasta. (Don’t roll your eyes at me!) And now I love looking at pasta, or at least at beautiful illustrations of pasta. I just bought The Geometry of Pasta and it’s so effing amazing, I can’t even stand it.
I should say, that when it comes to cooking, I rely heavily on The Encyclopedia of Pasta. I love this book because it does more than just catalog pasta. The author researched and shares the oral history of pasta and sauces, and describes the pasta traditions of every little town in Italy. It’s a real treasure, and when I read it, it reminds me of time spent with my bisnonna, in the kitchen, listening to her stories. Plus, it’s incredibly useful.
But The Geometry of Pasta is a wow-book, created by a chef and a designer. Look at it! Eye candy!
And yes, they have a website, and a video (ha!).
Ok, they are explaining a pasta, farfalle (butterfly), that originates in Lombardy, and playing music from Naples, but they get a pass because their book is so awesome.
The text of the book very clearly explains why pasta is made in different shapes and gives examples of appropriate sauces (in a lot less detail than The Encylopedia of Pasta, and without the warm fuzzies). And don’t think that I didn’t check the gnocchi entry!
- Dimpling them by pressing with your thumb when on the work surface, to give a smooth exterior and make a hollow that catches sauce.
- Performing the same action over the back of the tines of a fork, to give a similar hollow thumbprint, with a ridged outside to trap even more sauce.
This process is well-demonstrated in a rather sexy scene between Andy Garcia and Sofia Coppola in The Godfather: Part III. It is well worth practising at home — gnocchi are perhaps the easiest past to make, one of the quickest, and can be truly delicious, unlike the tasteless, almost bouncy balls that industrial manufacturers package under the same name.
Eh, Smitten Kitchen?
The illustrations are gorgeous. Samples: Campanelle, fusili, and pasta misto.
Seriously, it’s a coffee table book, it’s so flippin’ beautiful.
