Friday Food. November. Leftover Pasta.

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Leftover Rotelli, also known by my son as that thing you do with pasta. This “thing I do with pasta” changes depending on the food that goes with it. This was just thrown together and it was good enough to take a picture and try to recreate the recipe.

I apologize for the lack of real measurements. You kind of have to feel this one, but you’ll be able to adjust as you go along. I have confidence in you.

  • In a wok, heat 1-2 TB sesame oil. Add nutmeg, orange peel, garlic powder and teriyaki sauce.
  • Add the noodles.
  • Then more teriyaki sauce, more garlic powder.
  • Add 1/2 to a whole bag of frozen mixed vegetables. Let them unfreeze in the noodles and warm up a bit, then add about 1/3 cup of hoisin sauce (our new favorite condiment) and 1/4 stick of unsalted butter.
  • Mix over a medium heat.
  • Cover until hot, mixing occasionally and checking the temperature for how you prefer it.

Everything is already cooked so it’s up to you to decide when it’s done.
You’ll know when it is.

Leftover Rotelli, Asian style.
(c)2022

Kurt Vonnegut – 100

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Remembering Kurt Vonnegut on what would be his 100th birthday. Below, I share a letter he sent in 2006 to five students and their teacher at Xavier High School in New York City.

Dear Xavier High School, and Ms. Lockwood, and Messrs Perin, McFeely, Batten, Maurer and Congiusta:

I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a really old geezer (84) in his sunset years. I don’t make public appearances any more because I now resemble nothing so much as an iguana.

What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.

Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend you’re Count Dracula.

Here’s an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don’t do it: Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don’t tell anybody what you’re doing. Don’t show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?

Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash recepticals [sic]. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow.

God bless you all!

Kurt Vonnegut