Pasta for Daniel

At long last, we have a recipe for pasta that Daniel will eat.

He claimed to like pasta. He always tried it. He spoke of restaurant pasta he'd enjoyed (but couldn't describe it even far enough for me to make out wether it was alfredo or tomato sauce). But come to my apartment, and the variuos experiments (Rachel Ray, Saving Dinner, Better Homes and Gardens...), and no luck. He would try it. Sometimes even eat some for leftovers. But he was not happy. Maybe even kind of grossed out. "Tastes like white people food." This was true of the "Great Greek Pasta" with chicken and greek seasonings--he loves Greek food--from the "Saving Dinner" cookbook. This was true of the meat sauce we tried two weeks ago. He chose the recipe, and even the meat (lamb). "Tastes like tomatoes." I tasted the lamb, and the Italian parsley, in every bite, but Daniel only tasted tomatoes. He doesn't much care for tomatoes. Also true of the fresh tomato-heavy sauce from Better Homes and Gardens ("No flavor." This was before I figured out he didn't like tomatoes much.) and the Pasta Primavera recipe from the back of another box of pasta in Publix. The first time he liked it, but the second time, "It tastes different."

On to the succeess. My brother taught me how to make Naked Pasta. We grew up eating some pasta naked. It was usually served with Ragu heated in a saucepan. (Though my parents make good pasta with meat sauce--can't remember the name.) So we experimented a bit and found that we liked it just as much without the sauce. Thus he tried Naked Pasta. I think the recipe can be found somewhere on this blog. I tired Naked Pasta for Daniel. "White people food." I tried it again a little later, to the same answer. Then recently, I went much bolder with the add-ins. Much more crushed red pepper, more black pepper, fewer herbs, and added it all after draining the pasta instead of before. (I had wanted the dried herbs to soak up some of the water.) So the successful recipe was some dried oregano, garlic powder, fresh ground black pepper, a pinch of sea salt, generous layers of red pepper flakes. This last time I also used some of that leftover fresh Italian parsley. Success! I can say that, because he ate it once and asked for it again a couple of weeks later, and liked it again.