Diary 10|1|2014: Linguine And Meatballs Through Life.

[title type="h5"]Wednesday, October 1, 2014. Linguini And Meatballs.[/title] My life runs in octaves. If I have a busy day a week ago (and I did), my docket will be full today, even if nothing is planned, because I write about last Wednesday today. The Dining Diary is second only to the radio show in filling my hours. So I stay home and catch up. Meanwhile, the Marys busy themselves cleaning up the kitchen. Mary Leigh had several big cakes to build over the weekend, and that occupation leaves an unimaginable mess in its wake. After a few clearings open up on the countertop (to think that when we built it we believed it was far too big!), ML gets to work on a pot of red sauce. Mary Ann makes a batch of small meatballs. These come together with a pound of linguine to create supper tonight. We eat. They don't often let me cook. Even when they do, they require me to limit my culinary ambitions to what they want to eat. But I can't complain, because the pasta tonight is delicious. The meatballs sort of disintegrate into the sauce, making this a semi-Bolognese. I add only parmesan cheese and a little crushed red pepper, and it's thoroughly satisfying. [caption id="attachment_18411" align="alignnone" width="400"] "That's not linguine, it's spaghetti!"[/caption] Speaking of linguine: among the two or three funniest food moments in the movies occurs in "The Odd Couple," a comedy hit in 1968. Felix and Oscar (Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau), share an apartment after their wives divorce them. Felix is a fastidious gourmet. Oscar is a cigar-smoking, salami-munching slob. It boils up into an argument in the kitchen. Felix is making dinner with his usual fastidiousness, and gruff Oscar says he's making too big a deal about spaghetti. Felix: "That's not spaghetti, it's linguine!" Oscar picks up the bowl of freshly-sauced pasta and throws it against a wall, where it slides down to the floor. "It's garbage now!" he shouts. In my mercifully abbreviated career as an actor, I played Felix in a UNO classroom version of the play. Mary Ann says I was clearly typecast in that role. I first saw the movie in the Saenger Orleans. That was the upscale compartment of the famous Canal Street theater, which in 1968 was trying to stay alive by turning one theater into two. I was on a date with a girl named Robbie, who I liked rather well. (High school years.) Our original plan was to go to Pontchartrain Beach, which we found had closed for the season. So we went to the movie, where she was put off by the fact that most of the other audience members were dressed up. "They're wearing dresses and stockings!" she said with alarm. (Imagine! A movie theater with a dress code!) Then "The Odd Couple." How was I to know it was about two guys trying to handle their divorces? Or that her parents had just split up? She never went out with me again, no matter how many times I asked. "That sounds like you, all right," says Mary Ann.