Who's eating our pasta? Episode 2

For our 2nd episode, we wanted to spotlight a customer who has been buying Italian Herb Pasta from me since the beginning. Tim M. (represented by his Nintendo Mii) works next to my office in Baltimore & is always refreshingly blunt (as you can tell from his answers). He agreed to share his thoughts on why he keeps coming back for more pasta.

What types of foods do you like to eat or cook? My own cooking skills are still pretty meager, but spaghetti or other pasta dishes are pretty straightforward. I have pasta just about every Sunday - a holdover from living with my parents; Sunday was always a pasta supper of some kind - and I tend to do spaghetti sometime during the week. There are a lot of dishes I'd like to muster the energy, organization, and courage to try cooking for myself, when you get right down to it.

Tim, is it fair to say you might have first accepted pasta samples to be kind, but actually started to like it? I honestly don't remember if it was just being kind or not, but the rest of it, yes - the Italian Herb pasta won me over the first time I actually tried it.

How do you typically prepare the pasta? I've found that the Italian herb pasta goes really nicely with tomato-and-basil sauce, but I can also keep it simple with butter (well, margarine) and Parmesan cheese. Sometimes I add tuna fish as well - drain the tuna water into the pasta water before boiling, and if I'm having sauce, mix the tuna in to heat up together. You live near some great Italian Markets (who declined to sell our pasta) with imported pastas. Why choose ours? Honestly? The first Italian market that comes to mind has bad hours for me to get there on work days, and I already have a long haul for Saturday errands - I just can't get there. Buying from you in person is easier, even if it can take a while. Any thoughts about the packaging? It serves its purpose, and the "zipper" seal works really well compared to some mass-produced packaging I've seen. I don't usually think about the packaging more than that, but it *is* a nice simple design. What do you think of the texture or flavor compared to other pastas?

The flavor in the Italian herb pasta is much more noticeable - and isn't that the point of getting that particular flavor?

As for the texture , I don't think I've noticed as much, but I think Cucina Calabrese pasta is more robust on that front, if that makes sense? Keep in mind that I gravitate towards whole wheat pasta in my regular groceries - not that it's always available for the types I get there, but I don't really notice a different texture. You have a lot of different hobbies & interest that you could spend money on, so why spend this much on pasta (when you can get cheap stuff for $1/pound)? I actually do buy regular pasta (the "cheap stuff") as well; the Cucina Calabrese pasta I have on hand tends to get saved for an occasional treat. Otherwise I'd probably be getting a new package from you twice a month or so.