Fun with Food: linguine picks

About 2 weeks ago I went to a dinner party at my sister's house. The guests/participants were all members of a group (I was just auditing) that gets together regularly to hang out and eat good food. The rules of the get-togethers are that no spouses or significant others are invited, the hosting duties rotate, and if you are a guest—i.e., not the host—then you are not allowed to help clean up (love that one).

The dinners are always collaborative, with everyone bringing a dish and/or wine. I asked them if they planned ahead who was bringing what and they said no, they just let chance dictate, but that somehow it always worked out. Which, in fact, it absolutely did that night: prune-stuffed pork loin, rich scalloped potatoes and jerk-spiced vegetables.

But before the meal we had appetizers, which brings me to the point of this post. One of the club members—Joyce Levowitz Maffezzoli (who said that since this is a food blog I could refer to her as Juice Liverwurst Mostaccioli)—brought bocconcini but she had forgotten to bring the toothpicks. My sister had no toothpicks, but she did have linguine, so Joyce improvised. Genius.