by Mark Morelli
For a brief time I lived in an apartment at 779 State Street in Portsmouth,, New Hampshire with my roommates Dan Leone, Neno Perrotta and Dom Leone.
This was my starving artist period, but I say that more as a figure of speech.
One, I wasn't an artist.
Two, I wasn't starving.
Not only was I not starving, but I had some of the most unique culinary experiences I would know.
We were broke. W e ate a lot of boxed macaroni and cheese, a dish far too bland for young men so innovative. Salt and pepper was not merely boring, but laughable, mere lipstick when what the doctor ordered was an entire makeover.
We started sprucing up the macaroni and cheese by adding slivers of pepperoni, splashes of red hot sauce, and, inspired by the idea of adding wine to tomato sauce, we tossed into the macaroni and cheese caps full of Rebel Yell bourbon.
But the thrill of adding pepperoni and hot sauce and Rebel Yell to our macaroni and cheese was short lived. This we wondered: "Some people see plain old macaroni and cheese as it is and ask why; We see things that never were added to macaroni and cheese and ask why not?"
Like the first land-walking amphibians, we stepped lightly explored virgin terrain; cupboards, refrigerator drawers, vegetable bins.
Once we began experimenting, our culinary bravery grew and we were unstoppable.
For instance: Baloney? Smell it, then throw it into the macaroni and cheese. Leftover corn. Toss it in. How about two-day-old spaghetti? The clash of starches didn’t rattle us a bit. Into the growing vat it went.
Carrots. Sausage. Kohlrabi.
Spam. Ramen noodle spice packets. Whole chicken thighs.
Croutons. Hot dogs. Oats.
Boiled eggs. Tuna. Pretzel knobs.
And that never-refrigerated meat from Hungary that -- like Lawn Darts -- could be found on the shelves at K-Mart: summer sausage!
Dom was the moral authority of these meals. I looked to him for the okay, holding up a stock of celery whose window of opportunity to be eaten was rapidly closing.
"Toss 'er in, Markie," he'd say.
The next day he found something in the refrigerator lunch meat bin. "What's this?" he asked.
I answered, "Blackened braunschweiger. Grilled goose liver. I read in a biography that Montgomery Clift used to eat it."
"Then let's give it a try," he said.
The next time I found a can of green beans.
"Open 'er up," he said. "Drain the juice, and add it to the pot. Whatya say we throw in these beets, too?"
Soon afterwards I made a proclamation. "This is no longer macaroni and cheese. This is something altogether new and altogether different." It was one of those extremely rare cases when talking with your mouth full is appropriate.
"This is Domula," I told the man who made it happen, who nodded humbly and kept on chewing.
I'm not kidding you when I say that no matter what we added to the pot of macaroni and cheese from meatballs to Wheat Chex, from yesterday's steamed mussels to slivers of radish it tasted great. I can't remember anybody not requesting a second helping (excluding, of course, the ever-present contingency of vegetarian-poets.)
Describing Domula is like describing a tongue of flame, a snowflake, even trying to describe Michael Jackson.
Domula was never the same shape twice. Never the same color twice. Never the same texture twice. Never the same taste twice.
Domula was jazz food, simply never the same twice.
One day, after we balked at adding bananas but threw in some beer nuts, Dom said there was something missing. We stared into the Domula pot. He snapped his fingers decisively, reached into a drawer and pulled out a tiny bottle of blue food coloring.
Never the same twice.
For a couple of months, Domula - not to mention the Rebel Yell - was a frequent fixture at our table.
I take credit for coming up with the name Domula, a foreshadowing of my future in marketing and advertising But the originality, the innovation, the try-anything, the connect-the-unconnected, the mixing-the-unmixable was pure Dom. A man who, after all, was both an engineer and a writer of fiction.
Now I will attempt to give you the recipe for a never-the-same-twice food. Here is how you make Domula.
You take one box of macaroni and cheese. Don't spend any more than 39-cents for it. Anything more than generic or store brand is too flashy and not in the correct spirit.
Next, add one kitchen, preferably not maintained by a neat freak, with a refrigerator stocked with leftovers and a pantry filled with jars and canned goods intact labels preferred but not required.
Now . . . connect the unconnected. Mix the unmixable. Make something new.
Take note of all the ingredients that surround you, see what is right at your fingertips. Don't look too far because it is all right there. Look close.
And working with what you've got and hardly any money, Bring to the world a brand new flavor.
Do it this way and people will be delighted and they will demand seconds.
(And thank you, Dom, for teaching us how to see blue where no one ever before imagined it.)
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