hooker's delight

ever since amy introduced me to puttanesca, this vegetarian and easily vegan pasta dish has been a favourite of mine. recently, two of the food blogs i enjoy have featured it: first, stacey offered her recipe: a combination of olive oil, anchovies, capers, garlic, black olives, and canned tomatoes over linguine or penne. then, not to be outdone, lori lynn posted her tweaks on stacey's take: she adds basil and red chili pepper flakes in the early stage and tops the pasta-and-sauce combo with a scoop of ricotta cheese, rather than parm.

while i'm trying to break out of my bizarre loyalty to original recipes, i really do love that amy's puttanesca also includes green olives, golden raisins, and toasted pine nuts. the bigger issue, however, is the whole anchovy fiasco.

first off, isn't it a little weird that these fishies *dissolve* when you cook them?! secondly, anchovies have a reputation: from sleepover friends to the babysitters club (though apparently kristy liked them!) to friends to the teenage mutant ninja turtles, so much of pop culture has told me they're gross. but, hey, come to think of it, mr. beastly was wrong about brussel sprouts - there *are* ways to make them so super tasty! - so maybe there's room for benefit of the doubt when it comes to wee salty fishes, too.

so, despite all that the strategic brainwashing and my aforementioned devotion to (my) traditions, i'm tentatively confident (is that contradictory?) that adding anchovies will be ok. afterall, as a kid i loved sardines. and there was also some kind of fish paste that we just spread on slices of bread? so this is prolly worth a try. maybe rather than making "lady of the night" pasta for lunch today, i'll wait until i can get to the grocery store and dig up some fishy friends.

do you like anchovies?