My All Carb Diet

Although pasta may be considered a staple dish in many parts of the world, the diversification of pastas I eat tends to correlate with how I have grown and developed from being a kid solely addicted to comfort food. Since childhood, pasta has always been my “go-to” meal. The variety of noodles, sauces, cheeses, and flavors always makes eating pasta exciting yet comfortable. As a kid, I refused to eat anything but Kraft macaroni and cheese for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And although it was boxed macaroni, it was never dull and never unsatisfying. Just like any young, picky eater, I was not yet into pastas mixed with fancy wine sauces and topped with strange meats, so macaroni was a simple dish my mom didn’t mind making because it was quick and easy. However, as I grew older, I slowly but surely began to mix and match pastas and would doc them up to be more flavorful and different over time.

            In middle school, I became addicted to watching the food channel. Watching shows like Emeril, Paula’s Home Cooking, and Barefoot Contessa made me excited to work my magic in the kitchen, preparing pasta dishes similar to those I saw on TV. I would use our newly purchased Magic Bullet to mix up garlic and spices for homemade sauces to impress my parents with. Most got thrown in the garbage, but once I made a pesto-based sauce we still use in my family today. This experimental time in my life reflected on the pastas I would attempt to make. Instead of eating only macaroni, I began to eat spaghetti, fettuccini, and ravioli, all simple, well-liked pastas with slightly more variety than Kraft specialties from Costco.

            High school was a time when I attempted to remove myself from my bubble and eat foreign, more sophisticated pasta dishes. My friends and I would go out to different restaurants around Cherry Creek, downtown, or obscure areas and try new things. I began to eat Thai pasta dishes, Italian, Middle Eastern, Moroccan, any type of thing I hadn’t tried before. As I became more mature personally, intellectually, physically, and emotionally, I become less self-centered towards the end of high school and realized other options in my life, which would explain my desire to journey to new places and try new cuisines. However, all dishes were continuously pasta. I remember trying seafood infused pasta at a restaurant on Pearl Street. It was bowtie pasta mixed in a creamy vodka sauce, topped with crab, shrimp, and a side of scallops. I also became interested in pasta stuffed with different meats and vegetables, all different from one another but equally delicious.

            In college, pasta has become a symbol of my health, my family, and myself. Every Thursday night, my core group of friends and I go down to Noodles and Company and wind down from a week of school and prepare ourselves for the hectic, rowdy weekend. I order the Whole Grain Tuscan Linguini, trying to choose a healthier option because I have come to realize the freshman 15 is not a myth. It is my staple Thursday night meal; a linguini mixed with creamy wine sauce, broccoli, red peppers, and onions.

            In college, every other weekend I go home to visit my family. For lunch or dinner we always eat my favorite pesto tortellini as a side dish and polenta as the main course. Ever since my grandmother, my mother, and I were kids, our parents would make us polenta, a typical Italian dish brought into our family by my great grandmother. The pesto pasta has been my favorite since middle school and eating it at home resembles comfort and nostalgia as I take a break away from the busy college life. Although polenta has never been my favorite, it reminds my mother of her childhood, so I always eat the cornmeal, gravy, chicken combo without complaint, except now I ditch the chicken since I am a vegetarian.

            Over my lifetime, my all carb diet has provided me with a means of growth, experience, and connection to certain parts of my life. Being young, my variety was small and my life was basic and easy. Over time however, I have began to broaden my horizons and become a more expressive eater. What I eat now resembles both my present life and my past. Pasta has always been a comfort food for me, and eating it both at home and at school forms a bridge between the two. In college, life has also gotten more complex, exciting, and stressful, but being able to eat pasta any where and everywhere keeps me balanced and reminds me of how far I’ve came since eating Kraft macaroni and cheese from the box.