Perciatelli

Boing! This is what I heard in my head, clear as a bell, as I dished up a tangle of springy, unwieldy Perciatelli. And I giggled. Yes, out loud. If you are not familiar with Perciatelli, it is just like spaghetti but tubular and with a bit more life to it. It has a mind of its own, kind of like trying to dish up a bowl of those foam tubes from the swimming pool, or maybe Klingon Gagh, but in a good way.

Certainly, the reason I was making Perciatelli with butter and parmesan was that I had been sick earlier in the week, and had arrived at the buttered noodle stage of things. And maybe, just maybe the reason my brain was saying Boing! in such a cheerful manner also had to do with a bit of lingering fever making me giddy.

But if you read the Ramona Quimby books as a child, you’ll be able to follow the trail my brain was on, fever or no. If you didn’t: In Ramona the Pest, earnest, naughty little Ramona longed to pull her kindergarten classmate Susan’s boing-boing curls and see them spring back up (Boing!). Oh, the temptation!

As an aside: when I was in first grade, before I had actually read any of the Ramona books, I had a friend named Arnella who lived across the street who had boing-boing curls, too. Her mother put her long blonde hair up in pink foam curlers every night, resulting in long, tubular curls. It’s just as well that I didn’t think to pull them.

Okay, back to the noodles. If Perciatelli isn’t already in your repertoire, I encourage you to give it a try. It may not be ideal for a first date, with its propensity to whip around a bit, but it has a really nice springy bite due to the hollow middles, and holds a sauce delightfully, particularly a nice red sauce.

Thanks for coming along on this little tour of my brain!