Spreading aloha, one meal at a time...

I owe the pasta pictured above entirely to the kindness of "strangers." Gia-Gina mailed Pasta D'Acciughe "Belena" anchovy paste all the way from Italy, and then Alice coached me through a simple recipe using it. Aren't food bloggers are a friendly and supportive bunch? No, better than that, they can be downright generous.

Of course I couldn't leave simplicity of Alice's recipe well enough alone when I prepared this for a little dinner party. My deviation added parsley and cherry tomatoes, more for color than anything else. I wanted this dish to look as good as it smelled! Other dishes for our party included a root salad with carrot, fennel and celery, lemon chicken, foccacia bread topped with balsamic glazed red onions and to finish, a lemon blueberry pie.

Just as we sat down to eat, four acquaintances dropped by unannounced. They were in the mood for a movie, but when they saw the spread, they made the only sensible choice they could--they sat down to join us. `Ohana style, we squeezed in more chairs and everyone ate their fill, laughing and talking the whole time. It was like the loaves and fishes-- I barely cooked for seven, yet easily fed eleven guests with food to spare.

It was only the next morning that I realized the meal had unfolded with perfect symmetry. The inspiration and key ingredient had come to me freely, and in turn we shared them freely. Spreading aloha, one meal at a time, and for a few moments everyone was content and satisfied. Mā'ona.