Digging into a bit of pasta for dinner
it dawned on me that pasta and whiskers
have a lot in common.
Many of the tricks used for cooking pasta seem
to map to a good shave prep.
First hot water softens whiskers and
pasta. It is correctly softened at the
point that the cooking water almost reaches
the center. To much time and the
pasta gets too mushy, too much time
and the skin gets fragile and mushy.
Thick pasta takes longer to cook correctly
than thin pasta.
Lather like sauce all you need is a little
bit. Lather like sauce needs to be tossed
on the pasta to add flavor color and keep
it from getting dry and gummy. There is
also nothing wrong with a big ladle of sauce
across the top of the serving platter. Partly
for show and partly to "do it right".
Oil... never add oil to the boiling water and
drop the pasta through it. The oil keeps
the water from doing its magic. Like
face lathering dressing the pasta can take
extra water to keep the sauce from getting
too tight as the pasta soaks up its last
bit of water (and flavor) from the sauce and
sets the sauce.
Finishing oil... after dressing the pasta a drizzle
of fine olive oil can add flavor and mouth feel.
This is in part what the uberlater folk do ... since
many have soaked their face and whiskers
in the shower this works well. Uberlather
is like mayonnaise on a pasta salad dressing.
For my shave Mitchell's Wool Fat and some of
the hyper fated shave soaps do this well.
Pesto, cream and cheese sauces are like pre-shave
oils in my mind. Some days smooth and luscious,
other days sickie and gummy, a lot depends on
the cook and the pasta.
And there is the issue of melted cheese on
the plate. That gummy stuff that has to be
scraped off is like the gummy feel that bad
shave prep gives me. It keeps the razor
from gliding. A good shave lather is like
a good pasta sauce. It wants to be wiped
up with a light wipe (of a good crusty bread
or a light swipe of the razor).
happy shaving
happy eating....
