#3 Fettuccine alfredo

Chances are if you asked either Eric or me what our favorite home-cooked meal was; fettuccine alfredo would be your answer. My mother has her own recipe and it was one of the only meals she could make that we would all eat. Yes, I know this was mostly my fault, I’m the picky one, but I do love her fettuccine alfredo.

It should come as no surprise then, that once we moved out, we both wanted to learn the recipe to make this meal on our own. The recipe is not difficult. I confess I can’t remember whether I’m supposed to use the egg whites only or the yolks only so I’ve just started using whole eggs. It still tastes good. Sometimes when I make it, it comes out better than other times, but I’ve never actually not been able to make it.

The same cannot be said for Eric.

Eric’s problems with this meal started with the implements needed to prepare it. He thought he was really clever when he told us he’d gotten a big plastic spoon and a drill to make holes in it so the water would run out.

The residents of Eric’s apartment building in San Diego never knew how close they came to annihilation when he attempted to boil oil in which to cook the pasta.

Upon his next attempt, Eric successfully used water to cook the fettuccine, but complained that the completed meal was too bland. When my mother asked how much cheese he’d used, his answer was “Oh, cheese. I think I left that in the car…”

Years later when Eric met a girl he really wanted to impress, he decided to make her dinner. You guessed it, fettuccine alfredo. He called me from the supermarket and asked what he needed to buy. I gave him the ingredient list and then he asked me where in the supermarket he could find those items. I started to tell him to look for the fettuccine in the pasta aisle, but he interrupted me. He wanted aisle numbers.

I never heard how the fettuccine tasted, but he must have done something right, because he and Katie stayed together. Of course she also stayed with him through all of his Doritos inspired meals….but that’s a topic for another post.

Eric was a true renaissance man; a poet, a scuba diver, a mountain climber, an equestrian, a religious scholar, a photographer and more.

But a chef? Not so much.