Pasta madness

During the World Cup final yesterday I made pasta. I've gotten good at assembling the dough on the board by hand (really the best way to get the right "feel" for the dough), then letting the stand mixer do the kneading.

I made regular "white" pasta.
I made red wine pasta that came out too brown.
I made tomato-paste pasta that came out a lovely orange.
I made pesto "pantesco" pasta. (Link for pesto recipe).
I made squid-ink pasta.

I then tried to combine them, and I really couldn't come up with a neat way to do it. Ultimately, I made three small rectangles of lightly rolled out dough from white, orange, and black, then rolled them together a little and sent them through the sheet-press. I ended up with tri-colored pasta which I have cut, put into a bag, and shall eat tomorrow, but it's not pretty. It'd make a great halloween pasta dish though.

For dinner last night at lee_os's apartment, I made ravioli of the pantesco dough, and stuffed them with a little more of the pesto and some mozarella (because we had some in the house). I made a sauce of capers, onion, sherry, and hot giardini (and oil), and some basil and tarragon from the garden. Garnished the plates with parmigiano, more of the giardini, and more of the pesto. Tasty stuff.

9/11 changed everything.

So Zindane, the great French player, son of Algerian immigrants, a man who has stood up against racism and generally been a positive force both on the pitch and off, headbutted an Italian player in the waning minutes of the world cup final. As a result, he was sent off and was unable to take penalty kick's at the end. No one can say whether it would have made a difference, but ZZ certainly was a great PK taker. Moreover, it no doubt affected morale.

So what could the Italian player have said that goaded ZZ into such an outrageous and uncharacteristic act?

Perhaps he was called ... a terrorist. But the Italian player has denied it. It will be interesting to hear what comes of the investigation.