These ravioli were balanced perilously on the boring-exciting divide…

Luckily, we fixed them just before they fell into that deep and dark abyss…

On a couple of occasions, it has been decided that store-bought ravioli and tortellini can make an excellent meal, with only a little bit of sprucing. My take on the sprucing this time around(which you can see pictured here)was the addition of as much basil as I could get my hands on, chopped up, a whole bunch of Parmesan cheese (or goat cheese, which I’ve pretty much decided is good on everything) and some kind of soft-ish nut, like pine nuts, walnuts, or I suppose pecans, though I’ve not yet tried that (all toasted). And be sure to use plenty of butter. I do not stand for this leaving-out-the-grease business. No sirree.

This picture (which I couldn’t rotate, though I gave it my best effort… don’t hurt your neck, please, I just could never forgive myself) and that of the ravioli are from the dinner my mom and I had with a friend of ours who happens to be a graduate of Oberlin College, and who because she knew I was going there brought along her old co-op cookbook. It holds some recipes certainly representative of another era. Helen pointed out a hamburger and cheese casserole-ish dish, which I decided not to read.