draliman on life

Here’s what my lovely friends in the village got me for my birthday.

There were even instructions on what to do! My first problem was, in fact, the instructions. Everything is measured in cups! Has anyone ever heard of such a thing? What size cup? Teacup? Coffee mug? How can you have a “cup” of grated cheese? Surely you get a different amount depending on how finely you grate it? A “cup” of basil? It’s leaves!

Fortunately, Google had the answer. It converted stuff to ounces. Ounces! What? Further Googling converted it to grammes. Phew, this is hard work and I haven’t even started cooking yet.

So I chopped everything up and pounded away in my new mortar and pestle. And it did, to my surprise, become a paste.

Next, into a bowl, add the cheese and olive oil and mix. Yes, I added way too much cheese. Somewhere between “cups”, “ounces” and “grammes” something went a bit awry.

Now to cook the pasta. It’s been years since I cooked pasta. I assumed it would shrink when cooked like everything else. It didn’t. So I ended up with far too much.

And boy was it tasty 🙂