Got noodles?

Ah, the world of pasta! Larry/Dad/Paco prides himself on his forays into food shopping, and his ability to track down elusive foodstuffs. I can't say he always gets it right, but it isn't for lack of trying. No doubt it's related to that hunter-gatherer instinct we women admire so much. Cough.

Back to pasta. I put ditalini on the shopping list today, to use in soup. If you aren't fluent in Italian, ditalini means "little ditals". Since "ditals" is Italian for "details", the more accurate translation would be "stuff nobody pays any attention to." I digress. Here is a picture of a mess-o-ditalini:

Dad/Larry/Grandpa suggested I congratulate him on his success at finding this type of pasta today at Cub Foods. That seemed a bit much, so I asked if he had difficulty finding it. I had suggested that Barilla might make it, which they do, but apparently Cub doesn't carry it. Dad said, "Well, you know they have five different brands of pasta at Cub!" I guess I was supposed to be shocked by the news. It seems like a guy could automatically eliminate reading the names of pasta on all the long spaghetti-type packages, and pretty much exclude pastas shaped like shells or ribbons. The good news is he'll be able to find it next time, if Da Vinci pasta is still available at Cub. For pictures and descriptions of pasta of all kinds, check out The Nibble website, where you'll also find out what "ditalini" actually means in English.