Burt Ross: Italy, Part II: Pasta

By Burt Ross

Nine days in Italy, and I will never be the same. If I don’t see pasta again the rest of my life, that’s fine with me. I ate pasta every lunch and dinner, and since lunch practically ran into dinner, I was eating pasta all day long. My only relief was that pasta wasn’t served for breakfast or for dessert.

I felt like I was being fattened up just like the mean witch fattened up those poor children in “Hansel and Gretel.” It seemed like I was on an all-carb diet. I don’t know what the world record is for gaining weight in a short time, but I might well have broken it.

I didn’t know there were that many varieties of pasta, but trust me when I tell you that I ate each and every kind of pasta known to mankind. The amazing thing about all of this gorging was that I always had room for dessert.

There is absolutely nothing like topping off a plate full of pasta with some gelato or, even better yet, tiramisu. The photo attached to this column shows me quite happily gorging on some tiramisu. I ate so many carbs that I could actually feel my arteries hardening.

Upon returning home, I dreaded that fateful meeting with my scale. I delayed it for a day or two, but finally, bit my tongue, and stepped onto the scale. I sucked in my stomach, but it protruded so far that I barely could read the verdict. My digital scale alternated the following messages: “Get off of me,” and “Are you kidding?”

You will be happy to know that I have gone on a crash diet, so I can at least fit into my very stretchable sweatpants. Carbs and I are finished, at least for now. As for pasta, never again in this lifetime.

The post Burt Ross: Italy, Part II: Pasta appeared first on The Malibu Times .