Congratulations Pasta Master!

Many aspire to the rank of pasta master, and many fail. But today you’re going to attain it.

Your day will begin with you and another one of your master’s students, Greg Arroyo, a second generation Mexican immigrant with a natural penchant for cooking, being singled out for the Duel of Pasta Masters.

The other students will be chattering before the announcement comes, but once they hear just what’s going down they’ll all fall silent. You and Greg will stand and bow at one another and the Pasta Master will list the rules which, by now, you’ll all know by heart.

“Each of you will be given one kind of pasta and four ingredients. You’ll be forced to make an incredible sauce with those four ingredients. And salt. For Salt is the Foundation of All Great Pasta.”

“And we are the Builders,” your class will chant in response. The Pasta Master will nod in approval and then he’ll ring his giant and totally culturally I nappropriate gong and the contest will begin.

You and Greg will discover that your ingredients are sour cream, whole black peppercorns, pepperocinni and tomatoes, an easy mix. You’ll both set about creating vegetarian cream sauces with a strong tomato spice to them. But you and Greg will come from different schools of thought.

See, Greg’s Mexican upbringing will have edified him in the use of salt. He’ll believe that it is something to be applied liberally and constantly, something that draws out the inner beauty of any food.

But you’ll have travelled extensively, especially in China, where brine is considered acceptable. This exposure to the excesses of salting and spicing things will have given you a less is more approach which will focus on drawing out the natural flavors of ingredients emerge without salt’s sometimes vicious encouragement.

In this case, where sour cream must inevitably form the base of the sauce, that’ll give you an edge over Greg. He’ll salt the living shit out of his sauce. So much that it’ll overpower the sour cream and give the whole mixture a bitter overtone. The pepperocini will languish, and the tomato will add color more than anything else.

But your sauce will pop with the zest of the tomato and the cream, and the pepperocini will give it some kick. It’ll augment the creaminess of the sauce and the combined consistencies of the various ingredients will make it a rich, textured experience where Greg’s sauce will be a blasé mish mash of the various base elements.

And the Pasta Master will know it. He’ll beam at you affectionately and shake his head at Greg, disappointed. Greg will nod grimly in response and pick up his chef’s knife from the table, using it to open his stomach and then stab himself in the throat repeatedly. The students will all look onward silently, fearing that such a fate may befall them one day. But they knew the price when they signed up to become pasta masters, and none of them would hesitate to open their veins if they were told to do so.

Such is your way, your oath, your risk. For truly great pasta cannot exist without risk. And you, newly declared Pasta Master, know this better than most.

Congratulations Pasta Master!