A Box of Pasta Boxes
Lexi was busy in the center of the townhouse’s small kitchen watching the pot of water boiling on top of their induction cooktop. A chicken was already turning golden-brown as it baked inside the oven. The air was scented with spices: garlic, rosemary, and lemon zest.
She traced the edge of the countertop with a damp cloth, removing a tiny smudge that only she could see. It was a way she could stay busy as she waited in the center of cookbooks and timers. Molly and Jack were due at seven. She glanced at her watch. It was five-thirteen. She was still on schedule.
Lexi moved quickly to the kitchen’s pantry and opened the doors. Everything was organized precisely. Jars of grains had been decanted into uniform glass containers with crisp labels printed on front of each. The spices were arranged on a tiered rack in alphabetical order. Her eyes darted up and down looking for the long bag of artisanal fusilli she got in Little Italy, perfect for her homemade basil pesto.
Where was it?
It wasn’t anywhere in the pantry!
Molly had already texted earlier that day saying that she was looking forward to her signature pasta salad. Without it, the entire dinner would be entirely ruined.
“Chris!” she shouted, perhaps a bit too loudly.
“Hey honey, everything smells great in here,” he said cheerfully, unaware of the crisis. He leaned over and kissed her cheek.
“Did you use the fusilli? The one we got from that Italian market?”
“That corkscrew pasta? No. Did you look in the pantry? Maybe behind the ferro?”
“Yes, I obviously checked behind the ferro,” she growled. The damp cloth was being twisted into a tight knot, creating a small puddle on the floor that she didn’t notice. “I can’t believe it. Maybe I forgot it on the shopping list. But I can’t leave now. I need to finish prepping for dinner.”
“Honey, calm down,” Chris placed his hands on her shoulders, a move that always pushed away her anxiety. “I’ll go get it.”
“Little Italy is on the other side of town.”
“There’s a new grocery store on Charles Street. I’ll take the scooter there and back. It’ll be quick.”
“Okay, thank you,” she gasped out. “It’s artisanal bronze-cut fusilli. It’s made by DiCicco. In a blue and yellow bag. Can you picture it?”
“Yeah. Blue and yellow bag. Corkscrews. Got it. You can relax now. I’m on the job,” he gave her a quick squeeze and left the house.
Chris returned half an hour later with a big grin on his face and a box in his hand. It was not the blue and yellow bag of fusilli that Lexi had expected. This was a brown box roughly the size of a shoe box with a simple text logo printed directly on the cardboard.
“Chris, that is not what I asked for,” Lexi started, holding back her feelings.
“This is FormaPasta. It’s even better. Apparently it’s all over the news. This box is the pasta. There’s no waste.”
“The box? What does that mean? Chris, I don’t have time for experiments.”
“The box is basically a giant sheet of lasagna, made of compressed durum wheat. That text is a beet-based ink. Inside are all the smaller shapes. You can just drop this in boiling water. The whole thing unfolds and cooks. You don’t need to throw anything out. Isn’t that cool?”
Lexi pictured that box dissolving into a thick starch, spreading its vegetable ink throughout the water. The fusilli would look sickly and ugly. This was a gimmick, a disaster. Her dinner would be ruined.
“I asked for one simple thing and you brought me this?!” she asked incredulously. “I just needed fusilli from a bag, not some sort of edible wheat brick.”
She aggressively tossed the damp cloth into the sink. “I can’t deal with this. There’s the chicken and the mashed potatoes to do. The dessert needs to be prepped. The table isn’t even set yet. If you think your wheat box is so cool, then you’ll be in charge.”
Chris suddenly felt defensive, but also curious. When he looked up the box on his phone, he had suddenly become a big believer. There was so much waste in the food industry and that was something he believed could be solved by clever engineering. He did think it was cool, and so agreed to be in charge of it.
The pasta brick was heavier than cardboard but smoother, feeling like a well-polished stone. He turned to the stovetop, where a pot of water was on low heat, waiting for him. He turned the knob and a minute later the surface was bubbling. He grabbed a glass jar of coarse sea salt and shook a generous amount into the pot. The water hissed and roiled, accepting his offering.
Next he lowered the box slowly into the water. There was a slight displacement of the water as it sank straight to the bottom.
It took several long minutes before anything changed. Chris watched the boiling pot anxiously, wondering if anything would happen. If it didn’t, if he couldn’t cook the pasta, Lexi would be pissed at him for the next month.
He suddenly saw the crisp straight angles start to slump. The inky logo started to blur and then bleed away into the churning water. The steam began to smell like fresh basil.
Chris watched as the process continued to unfold. The box’s lid separated, curling gently as it sunk deeper into the pot. The walls grew soft and peeled away. The familiar corkscrew pasta shapes tumbled around in the water, slowly rising towards the surface as they grew softer in the water.
Now that he knew the box had unfolded as expected, he felt a bit better about his experimental purchase. He grabbed a wooden spoon and started stirring the spot. He stabbed the spoon against the bigger pieces to break them apart.
After about ten minutes, he dug his spoon into the pot and withdrew a smaller piece of the fusilli. He blew over it and took a bite. It had a firm bite with a good starchy flavor. Next he reached in and grabbed a piece of the former box wall and tasted that. There was a thick taste which reminded him of hand-cut pappardelle. It tasted so good he fought against himself to eat a second piece.
The pasta was ready. He turned off the heat and moved the heavy pot over to sink. As he poured the contents into a large colander, steam and the smell of basil filled the room. He looked down at the rustic mix of pasta draining, intermixed with small flat pieces of pasta. There were still a few speckles of green from the ink.
“Lexi, can you come over here?” he called out with pride in his voice.
When she finished placing forks on top of napkins, she came over while wiping her hands on a fresh towel. She looked down at the pasta drying in the colander and her nose wrinkled as she took a deep breath.
“Okay,” she conceded. “This is a bit better than wallpaper paste. But I think we’ll still need to see what Molly and Jack think.”
The door chimed and Lexi looked up nervously. “They’re here. They’re early,” she said.
“I’ll get the door,” Chris volunteered.
He crossed the house to the door and opened it to see Molly and Jack standing on the porch with a bottle of wine. A gust of cool air followed behind as they entered.
“We brought a nice Riesling from the Finger Lakes,” Molly said as she handed over the bottle.
“That’s my favorite kind,” Chris replied cordially.
“Something smells delightful, Lexi,” Jack said as he stepped into the kitchen. “My mouth is already watering.”
“It’s just a simple roast chicken,” Lexi demurred. “It should be done. Go ahead and sit down.”
Chris uncorked the wine and poured it out. The conversation flowed just as well. They talked about the new algae scrubbers installed in Baltimore’s harbor and delivery drones coming to the city. It was a comfortable conversation around their dark oak table.
Lexi brought the chicken to the table, golden-brown on a bed of roasted rosemary sprigs. She then returned to the kitchen to grab the side dishes. A bowl of buttered mashed potatoes and then a larger bowl of pasta salad were placed down on either side of the chicken. The pasta was placed next to Jack, implicitly separating herself from it. She had mixed in her green pesto, but she was still not sure it would be accepted.
“I’ve been looking forward to this all week,” Molly said took a spoonful and put it on her plate. She stabbed one of the corkscrews with her fork and chewed. Chris watched closely, waiting for her opinion.
After swallowing one, she put her fork down.
“Lexi, this is so different from the last time I had it. It’s incredible. What did you change?”
“She’s right,” he said, covering the chewed up food in his mouth with a napkin. “The texture is a lot better, and it holds more of the sauce.”
Lexi was curious now. She grabbed her own fork and took a hesitant bite. The pesto was how she always made it, with hints of nuttiness, basil, and lemon. Jack was right though, the broken down pieces of the box had a softer texture that contrasted nicely with the firm chewiness of the fusilli. Together they really enhanced the hints of flavor in her pesto.
“Where did you find this stuff?” Molly asked, grabbing a second serving.
Chris caught Lexi’s eye for a moment before he leaned forward with excitement. He told the whole story, of his last-minute trip to the store, the discovery of his zero-waste pasta, and Lexi’s reaction. Molly and Jack were captivated, asking follow-up questions to learn more.
A rich chocolate torte was served for dessert, along with the last drops of the Riesling. Molly and Jack were grateful for the fantastic meal and offered to host the next time. As they left, Chris and Lexi carried the plates back into the kitchen.
She took the pasta bowl from him, now empty. Their hands brushed together and she gave him a warm smile. “You were right about that pasta,” she acknowledged.
He stacked the plates back in the cabinet with a smile on his own face. It wasn’t that he won the argument. He wasn’t the kind of person to keep a scoreboard. He smiled because he had deepened his trust with her because of his last-minute decision, not despite it.
This story was inspired by a new kind of pasta which can fold itself up in order to reduce packaging waste.