'W-all dente': Getting your wall art for free

Sun, 06/29/2008 10:56 AM  |  Headlines

I have about a gazillion wall stories that I've been assiduously collecting over the decades. If you'd like to see my extended collection some other time, do let me know. But for now, one wall story and I'm done.

Or rather, the spaghetti is. You know, of course, how to check if your spaghetti is done al dente?

Just toss some at the nearest wall.

If it sticks, it's perfect; if it slithers down like an eel on steroids, it needs more doing; if it wraps itself tightly around your neck, you need an exorcist, and don't forget to hang some garlic out by the front door to confuse the vampires.

So, way back when I was in my "please pass the parmigiano and everything else" phase, it was pasta whenever I had friends over for dinner, and for three good reasons: First: everybody loves pasta; Second: It's the easiest thing to make; and third: If you prepare it right, you also get some free wall-art.

The last point evolved slowly; beginning with a public al-dente test one evening, before leading to a full-fledged tradition that typically consumes a whole pot of this-is-for-the-wall pasta at least once a month.

It all began one Friday evening after work, when some friends stopped by for a drink and stayed on for dinner. I was checking to see if the pasta was done, when one of them walked into the kitchen and loudly asked why I was flinging the dinner at the wall, and if I was doing it, he wanted to do it too.

Suddenly, everybody was in the kitchen, the noise woke the neighbors' dogs, who began barking their heads off, and steaming hot spaghetti was flailing through the air leaving contrails, slapping into faces and splatting onto everything in sight.

Dinner, of course, was by then incidental. But we had established a pasta-flinging tradition which continued for several years, albeit with a minor adjustment.

Since my kitchen is minuscule, the wall behind the dining table became the designated "W-all Dente".

As time went by, the tradition popularized, and since dinners were rarely served before midnight, several guests were inclined to doze off while still in a vertical position.

Those having imbibed enough 85-proof alcohol to render their pasta-throwing techniques wildly inspirational, would set upon the hapless mass of steaming spaghetti and toss it at the designated wall with gay abandon and even-greater gusto.

Tossing styles varied, with everyone intent on perfecting their personal flick-of-the-wrist technique.

This resulted in intricate slither-trails, overdone strands melded to the wall at the point of contact and ends curling in disdain as they dried.

Dinnertime regulars would closely inspect the wall to see if their latest pasta throw was still up, complete with their signatures, or had been replaced by newer, more artistic tosses signed by other artists.

While it's all jolly good fun while it's actually happening, I must say pasta art is at its best when it's fresh. It is absolutely not the sort of thing you want to wake up to on a Saturday morning and contemplate for any length of time. Besides which, dried-on-the-wall pasta is difficult to remove, and sometimes annexes bits of plaster and wall when you try and rip it off -- I should know.

By now, the 'W-all Dente' was looking positively leprous, despite all my attempts to patch it up with putty and giving it a lick of fresh paint once every few months.

And then, the disaster of the dried-on spaghetti Neapolitan.

This was not planned, mind you, but pasta artists in full stride do not take kindly to cries of "NO sauce!"

One night, an entire plateful of pasta -- sauce, parmigiano and all -- found itself tossed at the wall. I assure you that may sound a whole lot funnier now than it did at the time. Abject apologies from the inebriated pasta-thrower in question, coupled with his inept attempts at a clean-up, provoked me into throwing several pods of garlic at him in quick succession.

By the next morning, it had become clear the universe was trying to tell me something.

I was fresh out of al dente wall space. The lease on the house was up in two weeks and the landlord, an ogre, was demanding a rent increase I couldn't afford. The previous night's spaghetti was still leering at me from the wall, with bits of tomato adhering to it, looking like I don't even want to SAY what... and in the mean time, the neighbors had deposited a pile of doggie poo at my gate. Maybe it was time to move house?

Al dente literally means "to the tooth". Some interpret that as "not hard, not soft". In other words, you can bite into the pasta and have it bite you back, rather than bite into it and have it collapse against your palate in a mushy mess.

-- Priya Tuli

Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved.