Feel Bad Bleu

Pasta is comfort food - that's a given. In his Pasta chapter, Tom points out that one of the dishes just speaks a wet November. Well, we're in September, but are we wet!! Still pissing down here; hate this weather, just hate it.

Of course, that all changes when it comes to comfort food. Although the pasta includes a cheese I am not too sure I like too much, I decided to bite the bullet and get some of the cheese at the posh, fancy Manhattan grocery store after work. I was hoping that the dish would get me out of my cold-weather blues by introducing me to its own bleu.

115. Penne with Gorgonzola and Walnuts - *Pasta*


Gorgonzola, the final frontier. These are the eating adventures of the blogster Ilana. Her continuing mission: to explore strange new cheeses, to seek out new ingredients and new dishes, to boldly eat what most people have eaten before.

I chose the 'dolce' variety of gorgonzola because I wanted to take it a bit easy on myself. I have only really had gorgonzola in blue cheese dressing and on top of some salad a little while ago. It didn't appeal, but wasn't too bad, and it's not because it had blue veins, it was just, well, stinky. But I thought in a pasta and in a sauce it would mellow a bit.

The recipe couldn't be any easier. You first roast some walnuts in a moderate oven for about 10 minutes. Then, you boil up some penne, while you get on with the sauce. First, heat some heavy cream in a pan and add the walnuts and a few sage leaves.
Once it has simmered for about 3 minutes, you take the pan off the heat and add the gorgonzola, which has been cut into little cubes. The cheese is quite soft so melts in quite quickly, even though it is not on the heat.


Some butter is tossed through the cooked penne, and then the gorgonzola sauce is added. That's it.

Ok, the truth. I really didn't like it. :( Ok, even more truthful, I took three bites and threw out the entire thing. Waaaah. I don't even know why I feel so bad about it, but it's the same feeling I get when I admit that I hate wine.

See, I must have been asleep when everybody else around me learned to be cultural. All I know is after high school no one was drinking wine, and all of a sudden, in college, people would be having dinner parties and the thing to bring was wine. Everybody was drinking; I felt like the oddball, like what did they know that I didn't know. My disdain with most things people seem to like doesn't seem to be only in the alcohol realm. Tuna fish, smelly cheeses, dark chocolate, figs, etc. I just don't get it. Give me a chocolate cupcake over a chocolate mousse any day! Maybe I am the Petite Unsophisticate, but I really don't care anymore. I know what I like, and what I don't like. I don't like blue cheese, I DON'T LIKE BLUE CHEESE! LOL. But the one thing this blog has made me do is to at least try new things. At least I know for a fact that I don't like them.

So take your Murray's Cheese Shop and shove it. I'll meet you at the Magnolia Bakery instead. :)