altoids please

brocoli

fennel

asparagus

snow peas

Y'know, you're going to give Boomerang a run for her money as A2K's very best thread title person.


First of all, I want to see how you do the linguini, so I can run around salivating.

What to serve, well, since I don't do pastas as 'primi', but as the main dish, I'd serve a light and refreshing salad when the pasta is cleared, with, say, butter lettuce and some mild dressing - good olive oil, probably red wine vinegar, but the vinegar could be played with. Personally, I wouldn't do balsamic right then.

Before the pasta lands piping hot in piping hot dishes at the table, I'd have plenty of apperitivi, like marinated sweet red peppers, perhaps the now in season wonderful green beans steamed al dente and dressed as you wish - I usually think towards garlic and a bit of chile pepper, but depends on what's with the shrimp. If you live near a source of good marinated fresh anchovies, serve them if your guests are brave, then.. perhaps some broccoli, etc., with bagna cauda.




mmmm, getting hungry now.

And after the salad, mmm. Homemade sorbet or gelato...

Oh, yes, fennel good. Same with 'sparagus.

Snow peas, thinking I'd put them in the salad...

What's a salad?

I have a bias here. I don't serve my pastas with anything. They are king of the table at the time. They are hot and people had better be seated and ready to lift forks.

I never even saw a salad until I was about twenty, and went with a friend to what I then thought was a wonderful place, called Piece O'Pizza, in west LA.
Who knows, I might still like that salad, but might not.

I grew up with a) peas b) corn and except for potatoes pushed aside other veggies. I've either been on a growth curve or downhill slide, but I've changed.

ready for pie
The broccoli, fennel, peas, asparagus, all sound good, but not exactly made me jump. I usually start with a ceaser salad, homemade dressing(ossobuco-there's your anchovy), and serve chedder garlic biscuits. ...but that's it. Once I tried a breaded chicken with the pasta. Maybe the shrimp pasta should be the side dish.
Sidenote: Everytime I make this dish, like others, the outcome depends on whats available in my pantry and refridgerator. Todays linguine sauce pan was deglazed with a pinot grigio, and the citrus I had were two old lemons. Garlic and shallots. I dusted the snow off the parsley. Thank you everybody for your input.

I'm just jonesing. No good snow peas on the prairie.

Our veggies run toward stuff gets grown near. Almost makes me miss Cali.......almost.

In italy, not that I know so much, but there has been an age old routine of apperitivi (previously raved on about), then a primo, which is many times a pasta, which you should not fill up on because the 'secondo' is yet to arrive - your meat dish, or fish dish, unless both are on the track, in which case, g'help you... anyway, WITH the secondo (secundo?) come the verdure, veggie side dishes, and then, after all that, the salad.

That is not our usual way in the US but was the basis of my seeming odd arrangement, with the salad as light refresher. But we were the same, Alex, in making what showed up first pungent...

How this is all punched out, re heat and spice can vary...