Sun trine Pluto

I really like pasta (there IS a point to this) but never make it because of the cooking time, gallons of water, mess, and a natal north node in Cancer. I've seen those glass tube cooking things advertised on late night TV where you put the pasta in, pour boiling water on top and screw on a lid for ten minutes or so, but have never been tempted to buy (natal Saturn in the Second).

Imagine my delighted surprise (!) when I fell across an article in the Times last week describing a way to cook pasta by sauteeing it like a risotto, slowly adding water or stock until all the liquid is absorbed and the spaghetti/macaroni/linguine/whatever is all plumped up and cooked. No bringing massive quantities of water of water to a boil, no boiling over of starchy water messing up the stove, no trying to pick up great big pots of boiling water when you only have one oven mitt, no splashing boiling water over yourself when you try to drain the pasta in a colander - just easily cooked pasta as al dente as you would like because you can test it as you go along. Admittedly, you have to stand there at the stove and stir it every now and again, but I've never been one not to be willing to make sacrifices for a good cause.

And what better day to attempt the method for the first time than when my creative self was in perfect harmony with the transformative powers of the Universe, your friend and mine, Pluto the Dwarf Planet?  I was pushing a grocery cart aimlessly around Gristede's an hour before the aspect perfected wondering what to have for dinner when I remembered the Times article, and five minutes later I was swiping my card at the checkout counter for a packet of linguine, a bottle of clam juice and a jar of Progresso White Clam Sauce.

Five minutes after that I was standing at the stove in the kitchen breaking strands of linguine into three pieces and dropping them into a sizzling mixture of butter and olive oil in a heavy-bottomed Le Creuset pot. I went from the essence of the article, so to speak, and made most of it up as I went along. If I had followed the recipe I probably wouldn't have had brown crispy bits of linguine, but they turned out in the end to be quite tasty once they'd absorbed all the clam juice diluted with an equal amount of water. In 15 minutes I had a big fat pot of linguine and clam sauce and 10 minutes after that I'd eaten most of it. Thank you, Dwarf Planet. I have to go watch 'House' now.