“Poot”anesca

Tonight we made fresh pasta. For those of you who have never had fresh pasta, you aren’t missing much – except being coated in flour for 5 grueling hours. Please, don’t try to convince me otherwise. My feet are aching, I have dough in places I’d rather not think about and I saw one of my fellow classmates smuggle a ball of pasta dough out of class in his pants.

Besides making fettuccini, papardelle, farfalle and tortellini, we made an assortment of sauces to go with the pasta. One being – Putanesca. I’ve heard it referred to in movies and shows – “I’d love to enjoy that bottle of wine with a nice Putanesca.” Sounds so extravagant. After learning about, and subsequently making Putanesca, I will not be enjoying it with a damn thing – not wine, not milk, not even smothered in cheese.

Made with a mixture of tomatoes (blehk, gross, eeew, yuck), capers, calamata olives and anchovy filets, it’s actually referred to as the “hooker’s dish.” In Italy of years ago, it was something easy for working girls to whip up this dish between…ahem, appointments. It became such a common dish amongst these women that the smell of it cooking became associated with the dirty deed.

Tasty, huh?