Pasta with a woman who smells naturally of roses

Dear City Gay,

Here is my first recipe/meal from the country. When I have a hankering for pasta, or when I'm at an Italian restaurant, I often go for the fettuccine alfredo. I know it is less than healthy, but I can't help loving the richness and creaminess of a good alfredo.

I've stolen my recipe from a Barnes and Noble cookbook that contains recipes that only require four ingredients. In my fast-paced country gay life, I don't have time for a lot of ingredients in recipes, but I also want to be able to do more than open up a jar of alfredo sauce when I make pasta. With the few ingredients in the recipe (heavy cream, butter, parmesan cheese, and pasta), I can make a fast dinner without needing to rely on fast food.


The sauce is quite easy. One only needs to melt 1/4 cup of butter then add one cup of heavy cream. When the cream and butter comes to a boil, reduce and simmer for five minutes stirring constantly. This is where I learned how tricky it can be to stir boiling milk and take pictures at the same time. (You are lucky, City Gay, to have Gus be your hand model in pictures!)


After simmering for five minutes, stir in 2/3 cup of parmesan cheese, add salt and pepper to taste, and turn off the heat. In the meantime, of course, you by now have boiling water and can add your pasta. I used non-dried fettuccine to make the cooking go faster, but you do whatever you want. I did have a problem here. I started boiling water too soon, and by the time I got to it, the water had boiled down. However, I pulled through, and the pasta was done in only five minutes.

One could stop there, drain the pasta, and mix in the sauce and serve. I decided to add a bit of shrimp to shake it up a bit. Again to save time, I bought pre-cooked shrimp, and tossed it with a bit of lemon juice and wine while warming it up before adding it to the alfredo sauce. To plate the dish, simply toss the pasta and sauce together and then serve with grated parmesan cheese.


Part of the reason for cooking alfredo tonight was to try a bottle of wine I bought while wandering through Oregon wine country last week. I stopped at the Montazi vineyard where I tried several wines, but the one that I bought was the Maysara Roseena, an Oregon rose wine. I don't often go for pink wines, even though they are du jour, but I couldn't resist the cold, fruity, crispness. According to the label, roseena is an "ancient Persian term for 'a woman who smells naturally of roses.'" I don't know much about how women smell, and usually women who smell like roses are old, but I thought this pink wine would be a nice complement to a shrimp alfredo sauce.


The fettuccine was creamy and rich, and the extra parmesan added an earthy flavor that made me want to gnaw on chunks of parmesan cheese. The wine's sweetness helped tone down the richness of the pasta, and after two servings of pasta, and two glasses of wine, I feel like I could probably bathe in both.

One downside to this recipe is that it is kind of a pain to make when the house is hot. Standing over the stove for 15 minutes doesn't sound like much, but I was pouring sweat, which I hope didn't make it into the sauce.

(Brad stole the camera for a self portrait.)

So, City Gay, if you feel like having a pasta that is fat enough to clog your arteries immediately, go with the homemade alfredo. And, in your search for good wines, I found it's good to not snub the pinks. Pink wines help create la vie en rose.