Pomodoro April 3, 2008

A dreadful thing happened to me today.  Let me tell it to you.

I was fancying some fresh tomatoey pasta, so I popped out to a very nice local restaurant that I know, with a penne pomodoro in mind. Why did I not just buy some tomatoes from the market and skin and blend and cook them?  Because a) I couldn’t be bothered, and b) it’s not as nice as when you get it in a restaurant.

So.  The waiter comes to take my order, and I notice there isn’t a pomodoro on the menu.  So I ask him, is it possible to have just a pasta pomodoro.  He says yes.  Something about cherry tomatoes.  Fair enough, I thought.  I don’t personally care what tomatoes it is, as long as it’s a pomodoro pasta sauce.

So.  Some little while later, he returns to the table and puts down a plate of pasta.  I looked at it in horror.  My little heart didn’t know what to do.  Because there wasn’t any sauce on it to speak of, only loads of cherry tomatoes all over the shop.  As Colin would say, it might as well have been pasta a la dog shit as far as I’m concerned.

I tried to think what to do.  I tried to wonder if I could force myself.  But if I’m paying for food, I want to at least enjoy it, and that would have been totally out of the question.  My next thought was to pay him to take it away, and leave, asap.  I actually felt quite upset.  I wanted to cry.

But d’you know what I did?  I don’t know where my courage came from, but I said to him, “um, the thing is, what I was wanting was a pomodoro, a sauce, you know?”  Well, he wasn’t especially happy, let me tell you.  But he took it away, and to my great relief and eternal gratitude, came back with a proper penne pomodoro.  ‘Twas delish.