Burgess Meredith and Homemade Pasta

I came home after one of the worst afternoons of my life and all I wanted was comfort food: a heaping bowl of pasta. I love the Italian restaurant on the bottom floor of my building, but the fun of it is the waiters that know you, the chalkboard specials and the $17 bottle of wine. Takeout is just overpriced Barilla in a lukewarm red sauce.

So I decided to make my own pasta. I found a recipe on Epicurious-- just 2 eggs, a cup white flour and a quarter cup of wheat flower, blended, kneaded, left to sit, and then rolled thin.

On my walk home earlier, I had decided that I needed to decompress, so I stopped by Walgreens to see if they had any movies, which they did. About 500 obscure kung fu titles, total anachronisms like "The Three Ninjas" (early nineties kids-grownup-ass flick) and blaxploitation favorites. Amazingly, between the crap, I found a double-feature: "Grumpy Old Men" and "Grumpier Old Men" on one DVD.

I don't have a pasta machine, but with a can of carnation evaporated milk, I rolled out my dough. "This is going to be a disaster," I thought, as I shot the can off the counter for the 5th time, my pasta looking like the gingerbread man's air mattress.

Somehow I pounded the dough out, with the full force of my body weight and nine or ten different implements-- forks and spoons, a pickle jar.

And "Grumpy Old Men" and the sequel both totally killed me, mainly the work of Burgess Meredith, who plays Jack Lemmon's crazy old 95-year old, chain-smoking, lecherous dad. They play outtakes during the credits, and it's worth buying the movie for the outtakes alone-- Meredith riffing all the filthiest lines is amazing, e.g.:

Lady: You've been to Hawaii? Which Island?
Meredith: Youwannalickapeepee.

And my pasta? Somehow, awesome. Although my wrists hurt.

Anyway, my own jagged idiot pasta and the best on-screen pervert of all time: I think I turned this crappy day around.