semi-gobbled

The baked ziti (rigatoni) was a hit, with everybody helping themselves to seconds.  Only a single small rectangle of the original baking-pan-ful of pasta remains.  One of us will be taking that piece home; it probably won't be me.  (UPDATE:  my Korean coworker got the leftovers.)  I actually have another whole one-pound bag of rigatoni at home, plus a bunch of extra sauce.  I could make this dish again if I wanted, but I'd have to buy more mozzarella and Parmigiano.  Cheese, especially foreign cheese, is super-expensive in Korea, so I'm not eager to drain my wallet further right now.  At the same time, I don't want to buy the cheap-shit "pizza cheese" on sale at my local grocery:  I'd like to do this dish justice.

I still think the sausage was okay, but a bit boring.  The tomato sauce made up for it, though:  it included a tomato purée (passata di pomodoro), fresh ground garlic, fresh basil, a whole onion, a whole carrot, salt, pepper, ricotta, white wine (courtesy of my company, which doles out wine during Chuseok), heavy cream, milk, fish sauce (just a glug), button mushrooms, and the aforementioned boring sausage.  It all came together quite well, and while it started out as something marinara-ish, it morphed into something closer to a ragù.  I didn't care; it worked.

It was only after I had finished my first plate of the pasta that I realized I'd forgotten to take a picture of the meal.  Sorry for the dirty plate in the above pic, but that's the best I could muster.  It was a good lunch; the pasta received plenty of compliments, and some lucky soul will take home the last little piece that remains (see above update—ed.).