Muscled-up pasta watchers

When Mr. Pantries and I go to thrift shops, we usually go on our own separate adventures and compare loot once we're done. On a recent trip, though, he bounded up to me with a book and asked, "What's the concept for this cover?"

Apparently, the concept is "muscular guys stare at piles of fresh pasta." Why that was the concept of choice, I'm not sure. Maybe they're expecting the pasta to become sentient and they have to guard it so it doesn't become criminal pasta, trying to steal all the anchovies and olives from grocery stores.... I don't know! In any case, the cover got our attention, so I guess it worked. We were so amused that I obviously had to get this book.

That means for this Valentine's day the muscular hunks from The Joy of Pasta (Simac's Cuisine Collection, 1982) will give us some romantic pastas.

I don't automatically think of pasta when I think of romance. I think of chocolate. Well, The Joy of Pasta has ways of combining the two.

No, that's not hot dog medallions on kelp.

It's Cocoa Tagliatelle with Würstel Sausage Sauce. (And yes, you can substitute hot dogs for the sausages if you must... Just as long as you are willing to eat them over cocoa tagliatelle with some paprika and cream.)

If you're not so excited about pasta made dog shit brown with cocoa powder, you could always go the chocolate sauce route:

If you thought I meant a cloyingly sweet dessert pasta with that chocolate sauce, you were mistaken. It's spaghetti with a cream, Parmesan, and bitter chocolate sauce... although the cognac might make it dessert-ish? Can't quite wrap my mind around that one, to be honest.

If you want an honest-to-god dessert pasta, though, this book has some of those, too.

You can stuff ravioli with marmalade and deep-fry them, for a slightly-fancier take on state-fair food.

Or if you want to go all-out on buying Simac Cuisine products and also make more traditional pasta, there's this:

Note the extremely subtle product placement. I almost didn't realize that Simac made juicers in addition to the pasta machines....

And that juicer and pasta maker combo will allow you to end a meal with Bucatini with Orange Sauce, a concoction of cognac, orange peel, butter, and Romano cheese over a big bed of pasta with orange slices instead of meatballs. It gives you a possibly pretty-messy ending to a romantic dinner, but maybe you'll lose interest and go off to have an early dessert before this makes an appearance....

Well, I'm off to see what my pasta is doing. I've got no muscular Marios guarding it, so it could eyeing my chocolate for all I know, and I want to keep them separate!