The pasta incident...

Lent is considered to be a time when miracles happen. People who believe in magic and charms often perform their rituals at this time in order to make magical potions or acquire powerful amulets. I guess the same is true for me…

My family all left for Pampanga last Wednesday for the Holy week break. I was left at our home in Valenzuela all by myself because I still had to go to work and someone had to stay behind to watch the house and feed Beauty, our big black Labrador. I got by easily enough on Wednesday and Thursday with all the provisions left behind for me. I also spent Good Friday in our house in Pampanga and only came back that evening.



Beauty, the only company I had for most of the week

Then comes Black Saturday. Things started going wrong early on. The DVD player wasn’t working and the only thing I had to keep me busy was my PC. I was pretty much bored the whole day and I was looking for something to kill time with.

I had 3 packs of instant pancit canton for brunch but I was starting to feel hungry late that afternoon. I wanted something different from my usual fare of fried ham, hotdogs, or canned goods, stuff I usually had whenever I was alone at home. I had a craving deep down, I wanted pasta…

Let me admit now… I can’t cook… Unless you consider frying eggs, ham, and hotdogs cooking, and even that I can’t do well. I’ve messed up cooking rice even if I was already using a rice cooker. That’s how bad I am.

But I wanted pasta… Yes I could have easily just eaten out or ordered in, but I guess I wanted to prove something to my self. That I can cook… I also wanted to prove that I inherited even a few strands of DNA from my Mom who is a great cook. There it was a challenge, similar to scaling a very high peak or diving the deep blue sea. I was going to cook my self some pasta.

I took a quick inventory of available supplies in the kitchen. I found a can of Spaghetti Meat Sauce but we didn’t have any pasta nor cheese so I would have to go out and do some shopping.

Shopping, another thing I wasn’t really good at… This task is not going to be easy…

I wondered if the local sari-sari store had some spaghetti or any other type of pasta. I would have settled for elbow macaroni but delusions of preparing a dish that is similar to Sbarro’s Baked Zitti with meat sauce played in my head, so I decided to head for the nearest supermarket. That shouldn’t be too difficult. Or so I thought…

When I arrived at the nearest supermarket I found the parking lot full… and there were several cars waiting for parking space. Damn! I shouldn’t have brought the car and I should have just taken the ever reliable tricycle. I drove around for a while looking for parking space, but I eventually decided to drive to another supermarket, which was around 15 minutes away. Damn it! I am going to have pasta for dinner!

The sun had nearly set and it was getting dark when I arrived, and to think I started this whole operation at just around 5:00 pm. I haven’t set foot in this place for the longest time… I’m not sure if I was still in high school or college the last time I had been in this supermarket. There were obvious signs of renovation work so I started to methodically go around looking for the items I needed. I could not figure out the logic of their lay out and I’ve been walking around a few minutes and I still can’t find any pasta.

I eventually found what I was looking for at the back of the place. How could they put pasta at the back??? I spent few minutes thinking about what to get. Should I get spaghetti or those oddly shaped things? I eventually settled for what is called penne rigate, still with dreams of Baked Zitti floating in my head… Ok that’s done, now where did they put the cheese…

After what seemed like an eternity and a great exercise of patience on my part, I eventually found everything I needed and I headed home. I did recently help cook pasta during our last climb up Mt. Pulag. Cathie and Mella would be so proud if I could pull this off all by my self.

Remembering the mantra I had when it comes to assembling a PC, I said to my self: read the instructions… It seemed simple enough… Use 5 quarts of water for every pound of pasta. What the??? Quarts??? Haven’t they heard of the metric system??? I ran around the house looking for something that had the English system of measurement and even considered getting the weighing scale to measure the weight. Everything was in metric… No one said I would have to use math when cooking, should I find a conversion table??? Damn it! I want pasta for dinner!

I finally figured out what to do after I read the instructions again. Upon closer scrutiny the instructions did say that the water required would be around 1 liter, hehehe. Ok, I fired up the stove and brought the pot with a liter of water to a boil. I poured in the contents of the bag and added a tablespoon of salt just like what the label said. I also added some oil, stirred occasionally, and watched it closely.

Then I realized, how do I know when its ready?

I can’t really tell the difference between just right and overcooked, and what the hell is aldente???

I considered calling up my mom but quickly discarded the idea since I didn’t want to give her a heart attack. I think she’d always had this fear that I would burn down the whole house if I ever tried to do some serious cooking. I also considered going online to ask Mella since she was on B-shift and would probably still be online. But that would have been silly… “If I can assemble a PC and set up a whole network then I could do this,” I told myself. While I was contemplating what to do, I noticed that there was a layer of what seemed like starch on the ladle, I was no expert but I think its over cooked. That settled the issue.

I drained the pasta and set it aside. Now for the sauce… Ok, this is my element, just open the can pour it in and simmer till it starts bubbling. Simple enough… I was feeling jubilant and mighty proud of my self until I poured the sauce over the pasta. Then it dawned on me… I had way too much pasta and not nearly enough sauce. It looked worse than the anemic spaghetti that was served in the school canteen way back during my elementary years. Oh God... I failed!!!

How could I be so conceited as to think that I could do something like this???

I wonder if Beauty would like pasta mixed with some dog food???

Is Jollibee still open???

I was wallowing in despair and started looking around for something to eat for dinner. Then it occurred to me, hey maybe this is just a set back, a challenge. Nobody said life would be easy, nor did anybody ever say that choosing the path less traveled would a walk in the park! I knew that the path of least resistance (having food delivered) was looking very attractive at this time but that’s not what I wanted…. I wanted pasta for dinner or die trying!

Ok maybe I won’t go that far but I wanted to know for my self that I did everything I could do, and that even if I failed that I did my best and I would have no regrets and simply consider it a learning experience. Damn! I’ve been reading one too many self help books…

I found a pack of ham, which my mom left for me since it was easy to cook and there were two packs of tomato sauce in the cupboards.

Hmmm, maybe I could experiment… This could actually work…

I found some garlic and some onions and threw them into the pan. I sliced up all the ham and threw them in as well. I also found a can of mushrooms and thought, what the hell it could work. I didn’t know what I was doing but I decided to go with my instincts. I finally poured in the tomato sauce and brought it to a boil.

I said a little prayer before I poured the whole thing over the pasta. I stirred with a spoon and it started to look like a fairly decent pasta. I transferred everything to two large containers I apparently had enough to feed maybe 5 people.

I tasted it and it wasn’t bad at all… I wouldn’t dare say great but it was good enough to eat and maybe leave some for my Mom, Tita, brother, and sister in law to taste the following day.

I grated the cheese over the whole thing and it melted perfectly over the damned thing! God it’s beautiful!!!



After almost 3 ½ hours since I started this little project, I was ready to eat. I was jubilant! It was like reaching the summit of a level 3 mountain or something like the feeling I had when we had our check out dive. I was walking on sunshine and it felt something like the first time I saw a whale shark swim towards me…

I am my Mother’s son after all…

I thanked God for this little miracle and I even considered going to hear mass the following day (Easter) to give thanks.

I had to tell someone! I thought about texting my friends but it would have sounded silly and they might think I was out of my mind. I went online instead and frantically typed away as I told Mella the whole story of how I cooked my very first pasta meal in between big spoons full of my pasta.



There it is, the story of me cooking pasta…

I learned a few things:

Canned spaghetti meat sauce is no good and practically has no meat in it.

1 pound of penne rigate is a lot of pasta…

Hot oil bouncing off a frying pan causes pain and one should wear a shirt for protection while cooking.

Read the instructions carefully…

Finally… When things go wrong or don’t work out the way you planned, don’t despair and give up so easily… Try harder and keep at it… It may not work out as you would like it, but who knows maybe what you get in the end would be just as good.