shane’s posterous

Torturellini: n. Food based on tortellini, but so spicy it burns your mouth.

Here's the story: Ann had some leftover cheese tortellini that she wisely planned to warm up for the kids' lunch. The kids, who normally are decent eaters, didn't express over the top enthusiasm for the menu. But once Ann had added a left over jar of spaghetti sauce, covered the whole thing with mozzarella, put it under the broiler to get bubbly, and it's lovely aroma began to fill the kitchen, five little hearts took notice. Now it was all, "I'll have it." "Smells great." "Is it ready yet." You know the drill.
 
So Ann pulled it out and gave Alia the first serving. She piled a fork full and popped it in her mouth. As soon as the fork undocked from her face, she began to yell, squeal, dance about, cry, and through a mouthful of tortellini scream, "It's spicy! AAAHHhhhhh! It's burning my mouth." Bit's of pasta flicked and dribbled from her scorched tongue.
 
After unsuccessfully trying to convince Alia to settle down because there was no way the tortellini could be spicy, Ann began to investigate. Turned out that the spaghetti sauce was in fact chili paste, left over from a dinner weeks ago in which the main dish was sufficiently seasoned by a single teaspoon! The pasta was tentatively sampled by the other kids who quickly reached consensus that it was inedible.
 
Hearing this account upon my return home from work, I redubbed the food Torturelini, diluted the spiciness wtih a big can of certified spaghetti sauce and finished it for my lunch of the next two days.