Catering to the Masses

Lately, Garfield the cat and I have a lot in common.  No, I’m not suction cupped to a car window.  It’s that we’re both obsessed with lasagna.  I mean, it’s understandable why I am. What’s not to love about layers of pasta, sauce and cheese?  I’ll tell you what’s not to love—the price!!   I’m being a hypocrite here, I charge a lot of money for my lasagnas, HOWEVER, I have no choice because my ingredients are all fresh and I don’t purchase them at wholesale prices.  If I didn’t charge what I charge then I wouldn’t make a profit.  I love making lasagnas BUT not for free!

Recently, my husband and I went to a nice restaurant that we go to maybe once a year.  There’s one pasta dish that I always order there and I went in craving it.  However, the waiter rattled off specials and one of them was lasagna Bolognese.   Normally, I would have shot off a barrage of questions, “Is there a béchamel sauce?  If so, is it thick?”  “Are the noodles homemade or fresh?”  But I was so hungry so I ordered the lasagna without asking my usual questions or even the price!

The lasagna shows up in a bowl.  It was a decent sized piece; a layer of noodle, a layer of Bolognese and so on.  No ricotta, no gooey mozzarella, no béchamel.  It was pretty much pasta Bolognese going by the alias, lasagna.  And it was lukewarm.  When I was finished eating it, the waiter came over and asked how I liked it.  I said it was, “fine.”  What?  I’m not going to lie.  And then I asked if the noodles were fresh.  Nope, they were not.

We got the check and my husband gasped.  The blood drained from my face and I quietly asked how much the lasagna cost.  He looked up and it felt like he was speaking in slow motion, “Twenty-five dollars.”  I gasped again, this time my blood was boiling and not draining.  “Twenty-five dollars for a lukewarm piece of lasagna with hard noodles?  Twenty-five dollars for essentially pasta Bolognese?!”  He nodded.  “Well, we are not coming here again!  I can’t believe my lasagna obsession has gotten this bad!”

Needless to say, I’ve been off the ‘sagna since that night.   I’m now seeking a support group.