Pasta al lago

Today was the first of the medical appointments that have been driving mum into fits of anxiety. No, sorry, mum doesn’t have anxiety: she just has moments of feeling a bit tense.

With sincere thanks to all who wished us well – at times over the weekend the thought of reporting events in my characteristic aimless style was all that kept me from saying something regrettable – the appointment went off relatively smoothly.

As usual, mum had a little trouble keeping track of exactly why we were there, which actually turned out well as the MSK (musculoskeletal) expert had some suggestions about mum’s internal issues as well as about the back problem we were there to discuss..

Mum was, I think, a bit disappointed that the MSK man gave her only some exercises to do, being of the opinion that no more serious intervention is needed. (An opinion supported by the fact that he asked mum to try and touch her toes: she promptly folded forward, put her hands on her toes, and said “OK, now what?” She has seldom missed an opportunity to poke fun at my relative lack of fitness ability in comparison to her, a former aerobics instructor, but I’ll admit that today’s display did make me smirk.)

For dinner I made an old favourite of mine, pasta al lago. Please don’t rush to check your copy of Classic Italian Dishes, as you won’t find it: it’s my own creation, based on the “pasta carbonara” served at the Lake Restaurant of a former employer. This dish would have driven any Italian person to despair, but, despite its shortcomings as a true carbonara, I rather liked it. Where a proper carbonara is made with pancetta (or guanciale if you want to do it really properly), parmigiana reggiano, and eggs, cooked to a creamy sauce, this one had good British streaky bacon, cheddar cheese, peas, and eggs cooked to a scrambled consistency. It’s salty, soft, cheesy, and bacony, with pops of sweetness from the peas: I love it.

Tonight’s variant, though, had shredded ham hock in place of the fried bacon, asparagus in place of the peas, and I cooked it in the pan I used to boil the pasta rather than in a frying pan. Sadly, this turned out to be a mistake: without the crunch and char of the crispy bacon, and the scrambled cheesy eggs produced by the high heat of a frying pan, what was left was a vaguely chewy, vaguely savoury meal with no great amount of flavour. Oh well, that’s how you learn, I suppose.

So there we go, today done. The next appointment is on Wednesday, and I’m not sorry to say that mum seems to have forgotten about it for now. Enjoying the lack of panic, I’m not going to remind her. 🤷‍♂️