Garlic and Oil Pasta

People have been telling me things are simple my whole life.

"Just go introduce yourself."

"Just ask him what he meant."

"Just call the insurance company."

That last one is particularly dishonest. There is nothing simple about calling an insurance company. They ask you to listen carefully because their menu options have changed, but they never tell you what they changed them from. How am I supposed to know if they've improved?

I once spent eleven minutes trying to decide whether my problem was a billing question or an account question. It was both. Apparently, that wasn't one of the options.

People also say, "Just be yourself," which I've never understood. Who else would I be? And why does everyone get so uncomfortable when I actually do it?

Anyway.

This pasta really is simple.

My dad loved garlic. I don't mean he liked a little garlic in his food. He loved garlic. If a recipe called for two cloves, he used four. If it called for four, he figured six couldn't hurt anybody.

He was usually right.

I don't remember where I first learned to make this. It's hardly something that needs teaching. You boil spaghetti, warm some garlic in olive oil, and put them together. A little Parmesan, some black pepper, and you're eating.

That's it.

No sauce to simmer. No vegetables to chop into exactly the right size. Nothing needs to marinate overnight, and you don't have to remember to take anything out of the freezer.

There is one thing you have to watch, and that's the garlic. You want it just starting to turn golden. If you burn it, you'll know. The whole kitchen smells different, and not in a good way. I've done it. You have to start over.

I suppose that means the recipe isn't completely foolproof, but I never said it was foolproof. I said it was simple. Those are two different things.

I like to use six cloves because that's how Dad would have done it. Three is perfectly fine if you don't want quite so much garlic. Nobody's going to come around and check.

The pasta water is important, too. Just a couple tablespoons help the olive oil coat the spaghetti instead of collecting at the bottom of the bowl. I used to skip that part because it seemed unnecessary.

It isn't.

For once, somebody told me something was simple, explained exactly what to do, and it worked the way they said it would.

I wish more things were like pasta.