Joseph Zitt

I had thought that my friends were kidding when they mentioned squid ink pasta. Had I ever wondered whether squid ink would be edible, I would probably have guessed that it wasn’t. Apparently it is. (Whether it would be kosher is a different question. And I don’t think it would be vegan friendly. I don’t have the slightest clue whether it would be halal.)

But there it was, sitting in a package on the shelf of the odd store in which we were killing time. The dried pasta, perfectly black, was sealed in an airtight plastic bag, which was topped by a golden ribbon that held to it a beige card that proclaimed in large print “Squid Ink Tagliatelle Pasta” and “Product of Greece.” Smaller print, on that card and another one that was inside the bag, gave more details about the pasta and the water mill on the island of Lesvos where it was made.

I looked at the bag for a moment then put in back and wandered on. A few minutes later, though, I trotted back to the shelf and took the package down again. “This is going to be the core of tomorrow’s dinner,” I said. “I’ll just have to come up with some bright colors to put on it.” I bought it (250g of pasta for $3.99 — expensive compared to mundane pasta, but worth the extra cost) as well as a beautiful $1.99 wooden spatula.

I cook dinner for my household on most Thursday nights. It’s just something that I’ve found myself doing, and it’s become a tradition. At first, the daughter of one of my roommates would join us, but as she’s moved to higher grades in school, her schedule has shifted, and she’s around on other nights, when I’m usually working. Another friend in the building, who has her own apartment, has been joining us on many weeks, often bringing a supplemental dish. And we sometimes invite other folks.

The challenge in cooking today was to come up with bright foods to complement the pasta. Had I not been at the very end of my paycheck, I would have gone for some seafood to go with it. But appropriate shopping led me to the Monterey Market, where I usually find bountiful produce at great prices.

I headed immediately for the outdoor vegetable area, where I got one green pepper, one yellow, and one red. I then got two large mushrooms — I forget the name, but the stems were bright white and about an inch wide, just right for slicing.

I seem to always end up doing something with eggplant, and today was no exception. At first, I was tempted by the globe eggplants that had just come in, but there was a deal on the smaller eggplants (again, about an inch wide). There were four different varieties, all the same price, so I got one of each.

I also got one raw beet, one grapefruit, and a large bunch of kale. (Despite the song, a huge mass of kale isn’t like grazing in the grass.)

I did make one mistake in shopping: there was a sign for a good price on water chestnuts. I hadn’t ever seen water chestnuts, other than sliced in a can, and recalled that they were tubers, so I got one of the root-like things below the sign, which turned out to be raw ginger.

All told, it came pretty close to my goal of putting together a sumptuous meal for four people for ten dollars. The ginger was the most expensive item by far, costing $3.33 for a third of a pound; I can consider that a pantry expense, though, since it will last a long time. Dropping that and adding in the pasta, I ended up spending about 11 dollars.

Preparation took about two hours, as usual. The first step was dicing the peppers into bits about a centimeter on a side. I then diced the beet into bits the same size, then sliced first the mushrooms then the eggplants into discs, also about a centimeter deep.

Preparing to slice the remaining items, I took a nibble of what I thought was the water chestnut and learned that it was, indeed, ginger. Rethinking things slightly, I heated olive oil in a roommate’s wok, diced a small amount of ginger and two cloves of garlic, and let them simmer in the oil. I then removed the ginger and garlic and stir-fried first the peppers and then the mushrooms.

Lining two oven pans with cooking parchment (making sure this time not to use the one that doesn’t fit in our oven), I sprayed the parchment with olive oil, arrayed the beets on one and the eggplants on the other, and put them in a 350 degree oven for about an hour.

Closer to serving time, I cut up and steamed the kale, then, at the end, cooked the pasta.

All the elements went out to the dining room table, along with the segmented grapefruit, and a bowl of fresh figs, picked yesterday in a friend’s backyard.

As often happens, we were a bit unclear until dinner time approached as to how many people would be there. I had prepared enough for five or six people. With only three people actually there, we ate quite heartily, and had one or two servings of leftovers.

The photo at the start of this post is of my plate, as I arrayed it and then photographed it with the camera in my cell phone. I went for the color contrasts, as I first intended, putting the peppers on the pasta and mushrooms on the kale. Looking at the picture, I see the beets mostly ended up under the eggplants, rather than beside them. And I put the grapefruit segments along one side for another splash of color.

So that was dinner. Who knows what next week will bring. As usual, I’ll probably just follow the inspirations of what’s good at the market… unless something as odd as the squid ink pasta catches my eye.