Lou Hughesele

NoodiMag Volume 12

Welcome to NoodiMag, the container for all my noodling on noodles, pastas, and all related topics.

Pasta Shapes Consumed: Macaroni; Miniature Shells; Fusilli Corti Bucati; Tortellini

Total Pasta Shapes To Date: 40

In honor of Yom Kippur, which will have just ended when this arrives in subscribers’ inboxes, this week I’m offering you the recipe for a new pasta dish I invented while fasting several years ago. 

Fasting is a spiritual technology meant to aid one in connecting to their body, mind, and soul in a way beyond the ordinary. The Yom Kippur fast is one part in a set of practices on the day of and throughout the High Holidays that reawaken one to their own life and aliveness through grappling with mortality and missteps. 

Yom Kippur is the most intense part of this grappling with mortality, and, in my opinion, the real purpose lies in the moment it’s over. As anyone who has regularly religiously fasted and prayed all day knows, a sunset has never been so glorious, a meal with friends and loved ones so delicious, a return to the work of day-to-day life such a relief. My opinion that this is the actual point is backed up by the teaching that one is meant to immediately start building their sukkah after breaking the Yom Kippur fast, to return to co-creation of the world, and begin the spiritual work of being outside a lot for Sukkot, reconnecting with the body, mind, and soul in yet another way beyond the ordinary. 

Crucially, one is not permitted to fast if the process of that fast will not produce the intended reconnection between the body, mind, and soul, and their aliveness. If one is sick in any way, it’s simply not allowed. Many will say that if one has already been through intense self-denial in other ways, the fast is not advised. 

This year, I have not fasted. My ongoing flareup of my chronic illness forbids me from fasting at this time. I will have attempted to interact with my aliveness in some other way. At the time of writing, I do not know how. Maybe by making the aforementioned pasta dish I invented on a different Yom Kippur. 

Perhaps I should continue to go on about things that are not the pasta dish I’ve promised to teach you how to make, such that when we finally get to it you feel a taste of the joy and relief one feels at the end of Yom Kippur, even though some of you may have just experienced that.

Come to think of it, that’s also how one feels when they finally get to the recipe part of a recipe post on a blog, though not as intensely. You’re truly never so excited to see a bunch of measurements as you are when you finally reach the recipe after scrolling through all that pesky blogging!! Psh, who wants to read somebody’s detailed thoughts and feelings about food and life?!!

Several years ago, recipe developers I follow online started explaining why they do this. Turns out, they are also annoyed about it! They also would like to just give you the recipe! They just want to develop recipes! Many of them do not want to also be bloggers! 

They do this because of search engine optimization (SEO). You see, on top of the beautiful work they do for us because they want to, they also have to be experts in how search engines return results, and how to get the link to their recipe in front of you so you’ll click on it and they’ll get their measly pay. They have to not only be bloggers, but be bloggers writing in such a way as to trick the computer. They write these blog posts using every keyword they can possibly think of so that their recipe is more likely to be a search result. More and more, they’ve been up against websites who are able to pay extra to move SEO in their favor artificially. Now, they’re up against AI overviews and AI generated search results. And, just like everything else, it’s become next to impossible to be a recipe developer without also being a short-form video writer, star, producer, director, editor… It’s a case of an informational material not being able to just be what it is. These lovely people are forced into more and more labor without seeing more and more compensation.

It is my view as an information professional that there was an iteration of SEO that was genuinely helpful, a window of time when quality keywords got you quality search results. We are no longer living in that era. While many people will tell you that we need information professionals less now because search engines and AI are so powerful, you should not believe them. The only thing they’re powerful at is making more money for technofascists.

It shouldn’t be this hard. These are really smart, dedicated people trying to make a living offering a service largely free to us. Just read their little blogs. Some of them genuinely do have really useful tips and interesting facts about why and how flavors and techniques work. Buy their cookbooks when they come out. Donate to their tip jars occasionally, if they have them. Share links to recipes with your friends. Give them web traffic and give them money!! 

While I’m here on my soap box about this, I’ll follow my own advice and link the recipe developers I’ve been following the longest. They are consummate professionals. Not like me!

Rebecca at the Practical Kitchen is one of the best to do it, in my opinion. She has such deep technical knowledge, and is able to translate it for a general audience. I’m really excited for her first cookbook! She’s been focused on her small batch breads for the cookbook lately, and in the past she had great recommendations for accommodating ADHD in the kitchen and has always been in the fight against diet culture.

Ruby Tandoh has leaned into food and culture writing about why we eat the way we do and building more positive relationships with food and eating. She’s also fighting diet culture, as well as challenging racism and classism in food culture. She’s got a couple of cookbooks with this focus as well. (I have Cook as You Are in my collection.) I first learned of her when she was on the Great British Baking Show and talked shit about Paul Hollywood.

I linked Carolina Gelen in the last issue, and I’ll do it again. She joins the other two in her mission to make delicious food accessible and affordable and pleasurable. She’s got a cookbook, too! A lot of her recipes come from her Transylvanian and Jewish upbringing. I make her deconstructed cabbage roll stew for Passover. She did start working for New York Times Cooking, so my crush on her has waned. I will still recommend her independent work, though.

I love reading food writing. I’ve subscribed to so many different cooking and food culture newsletters over the years, and bought so many cookbooks. The last couple of issues where I’ve linked out to people better at this than me were just the beginning! Don’t forget, the secret goal of NoodiMag is lifting other people up. 

Anyways, all of this was to say, one time several Yom Kippurs ago, I connected with my body, mind, and spirit in such a way that I invented a really funny pasta dish that I broke my fast with and confirmed was a stroke of genius. I was co-creating the world soooo good with this break fast and being alive was joyous. 

Here’s the recipe. Please remember that I am NOT a professional recipe developer! And I came up with this recipe while communing with G-d!! Just follow your heart and soul for the details!

Ingredients: 

18 Conchiglioni (jumbo shells)

18 Totino’s Cheese Pizza Rolls OR 36 Morningstar Farms Vegetarian Pepperoni Pizza Bites (please, make these vegetarian! or don’t tell me if you use real meat pepperoni!!) (first store I visited for ingredients only had pepperoni and combination flavor, which felt antisemitic?)

1/2 jar of red sauce

1/2 pound mozzarella cheese

Other Italian cheeses if you want to get extra fancy with it

Instructions:

Put water on to boil. Enough for all your pasta. Salt it. 

Preheat the oven to 425. 

When the oven is heated up, cook the pizza rolls or pizza bites in the oven according to the package but only until they’re almost done. (Or I guess you could do this in the microwave? Or air fryer? I forget these are options. Do it however, just don’t cook them all the way!) Let cool a little, so you can handle them.

When the water reaches a rolling boil, add the pasta. Cook it only until it’s almost al dente, but not quite. Run them under cold water, so you can handle them. 

Coat the bottom and sides of the baking dish with sauce.

Take your shells. Spoon a little red sauce in there, sprinkle some cheese in, and stuff in one pizza roll or two pizza bites into each. Line the baking dish with the stuffed shells until it’s full. (Any pasta or rolls that didn’t fit can be eaten normally.)

Spoon more red sauce over the shells, and generously top with cheese. 

Bake until the cheese is melty and bubbly.

Enjoy your stuffed pizza dumpling stuffed shells. 

Thanks for reading! Maybe next time will be better.