The Enchanted Pantry

Not to brag or anything, but I have a Miracle Pantry. My pantry is seemingly capable of generating it's own perpetual pasta supply. As dinnertime approaches and I begin digging deep into the oak recesses, pushing aside the seven-grain pilaf (too time consuming), the falafel mix (what was I thinking?) and the inexplicable chicken broth my mother bought me when I was sick once (yes, even vegetarians get sick, and when they do, they don't eat chicken), I am greeted by box upon box of noodles in all shapes and sizes. Penne, cellentani, rotini. Elbows and shells both medium and large, pinwheel pasta, bow-ties, campanelle. Spaghetti, spaghetti rigati, angel-hair, linguine, fettuccine, even adorable little orzo and giant no-boil lasagne, both flat and crinkly varieties. It's an inexhaustable cache.

The secret of my prodigous pantry is two-fold. First of all, I always buy pasta whenever I am at the store. It's cheap, easy to cook, and doesn't spoil. Children find it very edible. Second, my husband and I have an unspoken understanding that when I say that all we have for dinner is pasta, he is to suggest that he "go out and grab us something a little more interesting". Yes, when I play the pasta card, what I am actually saying is that we are going to have take-out from that nice Japanese restaurant up the road, or perhaps an impromptu trip to the Indian buffet, admittedly a bit pricier than spaghetti. My husband gleefully plays along. You see, my preschool-age child enjoys all these other foods as well (we don't know about the baby yet, but since I'm breastfeeding, I hope he will at least be used to the flavors), and eating pasta is actually lower down on our preferences even than Poverty Stew (our way of cleaning out the fridge). Thus, pasta goes largely uneaten in our house, and the pantry is actually producing high quality restaurant meals.