Monday

Discovery of the day: Nine bucks a pound?!?

Yes, I paid $9/lb for pasta. Actually it was a few months ago. We were at Pike Place Market and someone had a stall selling this stuff. I saw the whole wheat orzo and lost all self-control. I'd been looking for ww orzo for over a year so I only slightly blanched when I saw the price.

I finally cooked it up this weekend, and you know what? It was OK. But probably not $9/lb worth of OK.

Now generally I am a big fan of whole wheat pasta. I love the ww angel hair I buy at the store, even more so than regular spaghetti. But for some reason the texture in the ww orzo just didn't do it for me.

To be fair, a good part of it may have been unreasonable expectations on my part. My ex makes a risotto-like dish using regular orzo (orzotto!) that I was quite fond of and was hoping to duplicate. If I had thought for 30 seconds, I would have realized that ww orzo was not going to produce similar results.

I think the remaining half pound will be used in soups this fall. And if I want orzotto, I'll just have to make it in the traditional manner, with the butt-ton of parmesan cheese. Because it will be so worth it.