In general, I think us normal people assume that a lot of celebrities aren’t used to doing things for themselves. From drivers, to household staff, to stylists, there are a lot of people you can pay to make your life easier. On the most recent episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians, the main drama was whether they should have chefs at the house on Christmas morning. But even knowing everything I know, I’ve always operated under the assumption that even the most out-of-touch celebs have like, the bare minimum of life skills needed to make it on their own.
But that assumption was put to the test on Tuesday, when I read GQ’s new profile of Robert Pattinson. From the title, “Robert Pattinson: A Dispatch From Isolation”, you’d think R-Patz is quarantining on the moon or something, but he’s actually chillin with his girlfriend in London. Specifically, he’s staying in an apartment paid for by production on The Batman, which he was in the middle of filming when the whole world shut down. He’s also still eating food provided by production, though Zach Baron writes, “the other day he got nervous, that they might just stop or forget” to deliver the food.
Wait, what? The apartment makes sense, but does Robert Pattinson not know how to go to a grocery store? Or how to work the Postmates app? We’ve been doing this whole quarantine sh*t for two months now, so I’m a little concerned if Robert Pattinson really hasn’t gotten his own food even once.
But given what he says about food later in the profile, maybe this isn’t far from the truth. In the interview, Pattinson tells Baron, “Yesterday I was just googling, I was going on YouTube to see how to microwave pasta.” Reader, when I tell you this stopped me dead in my tracks. I just… Thankfully, Baron said what we were all thinking: “That’s not a thing.”
You’d think that’s exactly what R-Patz would’ve found upon a quick Google search, but apparently he was determined to try instant spaghetti. “Put it in a bowl and microwave it. That is how to microwave pasta.” Who knew! He continued, “And also it really, really isn’t a thing. It’s really actually quite revolting. But I mean, who would have thought that it actually makes it taste disgusting?”
Me. I would have thought that. And you know who else? All of us. I’m no star chef—the only thing that gets me interested in cooking is Twitter drama—but even I know damn well that you cannot make pasta in the microwave. (If you could, I would have been doing this for years now.) Personally, I’m upset that the GQ profile doesn’t include a photo of Robert’s microwaved monstrosity, because I’m not even sure what that would look like. Did he just microwave dry pasta? Was there sauce? Obviously, it would be bad no matter what, but I really need more details. Maybe Robert should hang out with Charli from Vanderpump Rules, who insists she had never tried pasta until a recent trip to Olive Garden. *shudders*
But if you thought all that was strange, then buckle the f*ck up, because the microwaved pasta comes up again later in the profile. Pattinson tells Baron about a business idea he has: a fast-food restaurant that serves a handheld version of pasta. If you’re having a hard time picturing that, same. But R-Patz has it all figured out. He even had a meeting about it last year with a major LA restauranteur, but things didn’t pan out. He calls his food creation “Piccolini Cuscino” or “Little Pillow,” and he attempted to cook one for Baron over Zoom, as a way of hopefully sparking interest in his business. Yeah… sh*t is about to get weird.
First, it’s important to note that R-Patz went to the store for the ingredients. So he *does* know how to buy groceries for himself. Glad we cleared that up. So, how do you make this “little pillow”? As Pattinson says, “Obviously, first things first, you gotta microwave the pasta.” Obviously. Yup, we’re still doing that. After putting dry penne and water in the microwave for eight minutes, he makes a bed of foil, and covers it with sugar and then sliced cheese. (Don’t ask about the sugar, I don’t know either.) Oh, and he forgets that there were supposed to be breadcrumbs under there, so he substitutes the bread crumbs for Corn Flakes. Then he adds some sauce (“Like a tomato sauce?” Baron asks. “Just any sauce,” Pattinson replies), and after that, the microwaved pasta goes on top. Then, it gets topped off with the top half of a bun, which Pattinson burns the initials PC into with a lighter, melting part of his latex glove in the process. From there, you wrap up the foil and put it all in the oven.
Honestly, I have no idea what I just described, and neither does Robert Pattinson, clearly. Aside from forgetting or messing up multiple steps, he asks Baron if you can put foil in an oven. Baron tells him yes, but NOT the microwave, but Pattinson doesn’t seem to know the difference. Of course, his nice rental kitchen has multiple appliances to choose from, and he doesn’t know what any of them do. He ends up choosing something that he claims is an oven, but Baron really thinks is a microwave, and here’s what happens:
“Proudly he is walking back toward the counter that his phone is on when, behind him, a lightning bolt erupts from the oven/microwave, and Pattinson ducks like someone outside has opened fire. He’s giggling and crouching as the oven throws off stray flickers of light and sound.” He is one weird dude.
That whole pasta debacle left me speechless, and I really hope he doesn’t try to make any more culinary creations, for his own safety. But I’m not sure his regular quarantine meal schedule sounds much better. He tells GQ that he’s on a meal plan for The Batman right now, so what he eats is pretty limited. “I’ll have oatmeal with, like, vanilla protein powder on it. And I will barely even mix it up. It’s extraordinarily easy. Like, I eat out of cans and stuff. I’ll literally put Tabasco inside a tuna can and just eat it out of the can.”
Lord, give me the strength not to throw up right now. First of all, not mixing the protein powder into the oatmeal is psychotic. Like, you already have a spoon right there, just stir it around! But the Tabasco-in-a-tuna-can situation is f*cking revolting. I’m not a canned tuna person in the first place (it always makes me think of Jessica Simpson), and this just put me over the edge. I’m not saying my quarantine meal situation has been ideal, but at least I haven’t been eating out of a can.
I know we’re all doing our best to make it through this quarantine in one piece, but please, for the love of god, take the time to boil water if you’re eating pasta. I’m not going to judge anyone for not learning a second language or becoming a yoga expert during this time, but not trying microwaved pasta is an extremely low bar for self-care. Oh, and I hope this goes without saying, but DON’T put foil in the microwave.
Images: Denis Makarenko / Shutterstock.com
With social distancing guidelines and shelter in place laws in effect at least through the end of the month, it’s time to start taking this seriously and not leaving your house unless it’s absolutely necessary. Part of that means not going to the grocery store for one loaf of bread or because you ran out of LaCroix, and instead, learning to get creative with the items you already have in your kitchen.
When the instructions for social distancing and self-isolation came from Governor Newsom here in California, one thing I didn’t have to worry about was being able to eat from my pantry. It’s not that I’m a canned food fan. In fact, I much prefer the type of foods that live in the refrigerator: fresh vegetables, juicy fruits and select organic proteins. It’s more that I’m a fundamentally lazy person. Yes, I may have written a 500-hundred page cookbook, BUT if given the choice to go into my car and drive in L.A. traffic to go to the supermarket, where I then have to find parking before grocery shopping, versus sit on my couch and watch an episode of Silicon Valley until I fall into an hour-long slumber, I choose the latter. I really love a good nap.
So, because I am lazy, at times, I find myself hungry without fresh food in the house. I don’t like ordering in, and so it is in these moments that I get the most creative in my kitchen. Fueled by hunger for a proper meal, I play with the ingredients I find buried in my pantry, a skill that’s become especially useful now that we are supposed to be limiting trips to the supermarket.
Since everyone is making pasta like never before, I thought I’d start off with a simple sauce recipe that even the laziest of us can accomplish.
Recommendation: Read through recipes outside the kitchen, like on the couch or even when you’re in bed. Get a feel for how each one works. That way if you’re missing some ingredients, you can come up with alternatives before you find yourself in the throes of cooking. For example, if you read through this recipe thinking “I don’t have red pepper flakes for the sauce,” take an inventory of your pantry to see what else you might have—maybe you’ve got some cayenne sitting around. Or maybe you’ll think, “I have a jalapeño I can chop up.” The point is to not go running out for spices or other ingredients, and figure out how to make do with what you’ve got. And by the way, if you have none of those heat-adding touches on hand, just make it without the spiciness (it will still taste fine, I promise). The purpose is to use these recipes as a template for you to get creative in your pantry, which is a lesson that will serve you well past the end of quarantining.
So without further ado, let’s make a simple tomato and basil sauce from the ingredients that have probably been sitting in your pantry for months.
Simple Tomato and Basil Sauce
I like canned tomatoes for certain sauces, because they’re just as good in the winter as they are in the summer—unlike fresh tomatoes, which are only good in summer—and they lend themselves to a richer sauce, with very little work.
This sauce doesn’t have many ingredients. It’s the opposite of Emeril Lagasse’s “BAM, BAM BAM!” explosions of flavor. This sauce is about harmony, about letting the garlic and whole basil leaves gently infuse their flavors into the tomatoes. The carrots add sweetness to the tomatoes naturally, without sugar, and lend a mildly earthy flavor.
Ingredients
⭐︎ 1 (28-ounce) can whole peeled tomatoes
⭐︎ ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
⭐︎ 3 large garlic cloves
⭐︎ ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
⭐︎ 1 to 2 carrots, cut into matchstick pieces
⭐︎ 1 to 1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt
⭐︎ 10 to 15 fresh basil leaves, left on stems
Makes: 2 cups sauce for a box or a box and half of pasta
- Place a medium heavy pan over a medium flame for a couple minutes.
- Add the tomatoes and their juices to a food processor or blender and pulse into a thick pulp. You can also squeeze the tomatoes by hand, but be careful of the splattering!
- Add the olive oil to the hot pan, followed by the garlic, red pepper flakes, and carrots. Watch as the bubbles emanate from garlic; that is the garlic infusing its flavor into the oil. Don’t let the garlic burn or even brown—you want it to stay translucent.
- After several minutes, add the tomato purée. You will see olive oil coming up on the sides of the tomatoes; this is ok, the olive oil helps to transform the flavor of the tomatoes.
- Add a good sprinkling of salt, about 1 teaspoon, and a large handful of basil leaves. Stir occasionally. It will be done when it is no longer watery and the sauce has thickened, 20 to 25 minutes,
- Taste for salt and add more if necessary. If you aren’t sure if there is enough salt, there isn’t. Add more.
- Remove the carrots and use them as a side dish for another meal (see Variation). It’s up to you if you want to remove the garlic and basil leaves or keep them in for a rustic feel.
Variation: If you’d like a sweeter, more nutritious sauce, remove the garlic and basil and puree the tomato sauce with about half of the carrots in a blender or food processor. It will be delicious (and a good way to hide vegetables from your kids).
Enjoy with a box and a half of your favorite pasta (now you finally know how much to make).
In 2010, back in her hometown of Los Angeles, Elana founded the Meal and a Spiel cooking school out of her parents’ kitchen, and now travels the country teaching people how to make phenomenal food, easily.
Elana holds a B.A. from Brown University and a M.A. from Middlebury College in Florence, both in Italian Studies. She has written and performed stand-up comedy to Los Angeles audiences, spent 4 years teaching high school World History and has led experiential culinary vacations throughout the boot of Italy.
Her ultimate dream is to live in a world where everyone shares love with one another through cooking.
It’s time we all admit it: James Kennedy and Lala Kent are now the backbone of Vanderpump Rules. As fun as it is to sympathize with Jax’s back problems and early bedtimes, we tune in to VPR to see hot people get drunk and embarrass themselves. This year, really only James and Lala are serving that up—and their messy twentysomething dynamics don’t stop there. Bouncing off their infamous pasta feud, James and Lala spent the first half of last night’s episode trying to get Raquel to dump him casually dry-humping, then screaming at each other, then having a heart-to-heart in which James confessed his ongoing love for Lala. (Again, that last bit would’ve been more shocking if they hadn’t been rolling around under the same blanket all night.) So, what does this confession really mean? And what can we expect from these star-crossed lovers two former besties? We’re breaking down their entire friendship to see what conclusions we can draw.
The Early Years
Lala joins VPR in season 4, and leaves midway through season 5, in 2016. (She leaves largely because of rumors about her married boyfriend, Randall.) James ends his garbage-fire of a relationship with Kristen in season 4, and goes out with Lala pretty much immediately after. Their “relationship” is cut short when he continues to bang his way through SUR, moving on to Lauren the hostess. Since according to this Instagram, James and Raquel have been together for two years, he meets her shortly thereafter. While their romance is cut short, Lala and James form a beautiful friendship, presumably based on their mutual love for fitting into child-sized clothing and expressing their love for rappers who would probably have preferred to be excluded from the narrative.
The Fight
If you didn’t watch “it’s not about the pasta,” just do it now (or read our recap). The gist of the fight is James calling Lala’s boyfriend “fat,” which is apparently a huge trigger for her. He also suggests that he pays for all her shit (seems accurate), and that’s why she’s with him. Lala flies into a rage, and cuts all ties with James in a now-deleted tweet. James makes some half-hearted attempts to clear the air, all of which are about as pathetic as this re-tweet of an article where Lala say she’s done with him, punctuated by a lone “:(.”
— James Kennedy (@itsjameskennedy) January 23, 2018
The Reunion
Of course, this is VPR, where feuds have the lifespan of fruit flies. On February 3, James posted this Instagram, with “@lalakent glad to have my mate back” in the caption. And as early as January 28, Lala posted this Instagram of the two of them (while refusing to tag him and zooming in on her own face, in true petty style). And she takes full advantage of the pasta-feuled attention, posting Instagrams on on Jan. 30 and Jan. 31 referencing the feud and even making a “pasta challenge” for her fans. So, there’s a fairly strong argument for this feud not being all that big a deal to begin with. These two seem pretty firmly baked into each others’ lives—case in point, Lala’s known James since she was 18. And, FWIW, she named her lip gloss shades “Randy,” “The Affair,” “Mistress,” and “James”. You can draw your own conclusions.
What’s Happening Now
While they briefly bounced back in early February, James’ continued alcoholism disrespect seems to be too much for Lala. On Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen last night, Lala admitted that James adds “nothing” to her life. (It didn’t help that they’d just watched a preview in which James says “If I had been that billionaire successful DJ, she would have definitely come along for the ride.” (The ride presumably being his penis). In the episode itself, she laid out the dynamics at work with shocking maturity. She states that “James thinks he’s losing ” but that their relationships don’t “mean we’re losing each other as friends.” Yes, this would hold a lot more weight if she hadn’t just behaved inappropriately with James all night, humiliating Raquel. And yes, I’d care more about that behavior if Raquel could summon up a personality that doesn’t resemble steamed cauliflower.
But Lala is fundamentally correct. As two hot young reality stars, they should be able to have a slightly inappropriate friendship and significant others too. What James is getting wrong is assuming there’s an underlying “will they or won’t they” to his and Lala’s storyline. Whoever she dates, he thinks he owns her in the end, and they’re just detours from the Kennedy path. But Lala likes him for the attention, and for their eerie physical similarities ability to take hot Instas together. As soon as he starts embarrassing her by treating her like his property, she’s out.
Ultimately, Lala’s going to have to do what we all do with that guy friend who’s clearly into you. Stop whining to him about your relationship, touch him as if you’re related, and be clear that it’s not happening. Given the social media silence on both ends since this episode, I’m hoping that’s what she’s doing. I’m sure James licking his wounds about this will be ugly, but hey—ugly just means good TV.
After Corinne’s revelation that “no one can make cheese pasta like Raquelle/Raquel,” and the subsequent release of her much anticipated cheese pasta recipe here, we decided we needed to revamp it.
I mean, I’m sure shredded cheddar and cooked white pasta taste, um, great, but we have fancy palates meant for Champagne, oysters, and vodka.
Because we love you and want you to have a fancy and non-nutritious dinner during The Bachelor tonight, here’s our fancy version of Raquel’s famous cheese pasta.
Ingredients
- ½ lb. pasta of your choice – we used farfalle
- 4 tbsp. unsalted butter
- 1 egg yolk
- ¾ cup evaporated milk
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 5 oz. white cheddar cheese (we used a farmhouse cheddar because we’re fancy), shredded
- 5 oz. gruyere cheese, shredded (if you can’t find a block of gruyere, use Swiss)
Cook your fucking pasta which, like, we shouldn’t have to give you a play-by-play on how to do unless apparently you’re Corinne. Drain that shit and set the pasta aside. Grab the same pot you just cooked the pasta in and melt the butter over medium heat.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolk, evaporated milk, salt, and pepper. Reduce the heat under your pot to low and pour in the milk and egg mixture. Stir that shit, then add in all of your cheese—stirring continuously until the mixture is smooth.
Add in your drained pasta and stir. Spoon into a bowl and top with extra black pepper if you like.
This goes great with subpar TV shows and a nice full-bodied red.
On this week’s episode of Nick Viall dry humping sluts in different locations, one of said sluts revealed her nanny makes dope cheese pasta. Don’t try to unpack that sentence BTW. It is what it is.
Suspend your criticism of Corinne having a nanny for, like, two seconds, because I would give like, so much to have a nanny around to do all my shit. Jeals.
Anyway, aparently when Corinne’s nanny isn’t whipping up a healthy lunch of only cucumber slices, she makes amazing cheese pasta. It it macaroni and cheese? Is it fettucine alfredo? Is it some kind of amazing special velveeta-based cheese sauce over tortellini? Thanks to the good people at Delish, we have an answer.
Are you ready for this?
- Boil pasta for 10 minutes (add some salt to water).
- Strain out all water.
- Add pasta back to pot, keeping it on low heat.
- Add a lot of shredded cheese.
- Mix until all the cheese melts.
- That’s fucking it.
I’m literally so disappointed. We have all made this fucking recipe while enduring a major cheese craving while blackout like a million times. Either that or you don’t have any Kraft mac and cheese so you attempt to be culinary and make your own and it kind of sucks but you’re starving and probz drunk so you don’t care.
I guess it’s kind of expected knowing poor nanny Raquel’s specialty is chopping up raw vegetables and hand-feeding them to a dumpster fire in a blonde wig.
#FreeRaquel
The new year is well under way and I bet—like, I’d literally bet $1 million on it—that you’ve already broken at least one of your New Year’s resolutions. You’ve probably been grumpy and had a bun in your hair on your way to work since you got back, and I highly doubt you’ve seen the inside of the gym more than once in the past 11 days. Plus, like, we all know you haven’t cooked a meal since before December started. But no worries betch, I feel you. I’m here to make you feel a tiny bit better about what a failure you are. Here’s how to keep a new year’s resolution like a betch.
Instead of resolving to go to the gym every day…Resolve to walk home from work three times a week (weather permitting). This way you get some exercise and it’s fucking cheaper than the $100 a month Equinox charges you. Going to the gym is great, but when you set a goal and are too lazy to actually go do it, you feel shitty about yourself and end up binge drinking wine/eating everything in sight, claiming that you’ll be better tomorrow. You won’t. Just accept that this is who you are.
Instead of resolving to stop drinking…Resolve to only drink on the weekends. You have a full-time job/are a full-time student and as stressful as doing work is, alcohol has a shit ton of calories that you literally just don’t need. However, it’s unreasonable to think that at this young age you’re going to stop drinking altogether. Unwind on the weekends like you’re supposed to and your tolerance will go down, you’ll need less to feel drunk, and the amount of calories you’re consuming won’t be as steep. You can stop drinking when you’re dead.
Instead of resolving to eat clean…Resolve to stop eating pasta more than once a week. Carbs, as amazing as they are, are fucking terrible for you. But, again, you’re young; just stop boiling pasta every night for dinner because it’s easy and buy a fucking bag of lettuce every once in awhile. You can cave when you’re PMSing but only then because honestly, there are other things to eat in your cabinet whether you’d like to admit that or not. Just like, watch out for expiration dates because we know you haven’t looked in your pantry since you moved in and your mom took you to Trader Joe’s to stock up on healthy options.
In conclusion, stop resolving to change every single thing about yourself and just accept that you hate the elliptical and you love vodka sodas and carbs. Just like, stop loving these things every single day and you’ll automatically be better than you are. May the rest of 2017 be in your favor.
