I have a personality quirk. Don’t look so shocked, I am not perfect you know.

To prove my point I have a simply classic Italian pasta dish: Strozzapreti alle Cime di Rapa e Guanciale (Strozzapetti Pasta with Broccoli Rabe & Guanciale). My version has guanciale in it. This is a staple in Italy. Of course it can be made without guanciale and with any shape pasta. But I would advise that you choose one of the denser, chewier styles such as strozzapreti, orecchiette, or gemelli. I chose this dish for this rant today because I want to talk about pasta. And I mean the noodle itself.

I like 100% durum wheat pasta with no enrichment. I am not anti-vitamin. I just don’t like these additives in my pasta. I have a reason for the strong opinion. So I hope you don’t just think I am being a picky bastard just because I can. Picky eaters are a pet peeve of mine. So you can imagine that I am a bit embarrassed to admit that almost all of the pasta I see in the stores doesn’t really suit me.

Pasta was originally a Southern Italian dish. Particularly Sicilian. Eventually the cultivation of wheat moved into other areas of the country, and pasta became a common food item all over Italy.

Northern Italian pastas are generally pastas with fresh eggs and ¨soft” wheat– soft wheat is lower in protein and gluten content. Bakers tend to like flour from soft wheat for batter-based foods like cakes and biscuits. Think cake flour. The soft wheat and egg produces pasta that has a silky texture. These pastas are often prepared as stuffed pastas (like ravioli) and in Italy they are called Pasta Fresca.

The South specializes in dried durum wheat semolina pasta. These are made without egg and are typically dried, and are called Pasta Secca. They use the “hard” high gluten durum wheat because it allows the pasta to hold its sometimes-intricate shape better. Of which there are approximately 3500 different shapes.

Orange Cauliflower. Golden Cauliflower. Cheddar Cauliflower. Do not adjust your set. Do not run from the room screaming. This is not an alien brain and I am not Orson Wells. To prove it I plan to take this oddly colored vegetable, the subject of this week's Market Matters from the Hollywood Farmers Market, and make Golden Cauliflower Soup with Curried Apple, then eat it.

Though I can promise that is not the tale of little-orange-brained-green-men and their plan to take over the earth. It is, however,  a mysterious bit of science non-fiction nonetheless. You see, this other-worldly cauliflower was discovered in a Canadian Marsh more than 30 years ago. The bright orange hue and the tell-tale shape announced to the world that a new breed of cauliflower had hybridized itself in that faraway marsh, without the aid of man. Dah Da Da, Duhhhh!

It was quickly harvested and sent to the laboratory for investigation. Cauliflower was confirmed. But the version found that day in Canada was lacking something in the flavor department so a few not so mad scientists began cross-breeding it with the more familiar, more tasty white version. Well, after decades of tinkering the orange cauliflower was born. It can range in color from a creamy yellow, through gold and all the way to outright pumpkiny! It is higher in several vitamins than white cauliflower, and is a good source of (you guessed it) beta-carotene too. The best part is it hold its golden beauty throughout all kinds of cooking.

This is number 5 in my week of international pancakes, and we are off (once again) to the largest continent on the planet. This pancake is probably the least known of all the pancakes I have presented this week, at least to my western readers. In fact compared to the similarly prepared Indian cousin Dosa, this southern Indian pancake is hardly a household staple even in India.

But I may be getting ahead of myself here. In case you don’t know Dosa are an Indian rice and dal pancake. It seems that a Dosa is often fine textured and thin like a crêpe. At least the Dosa I have eaten in restaurants.

This version is called Adai and as I said is a specialty of the southern regions of India. Just like a Dosa, Adai is made with rice and urad dal (which is nothing like the mash of spiced orange lentils you may be used to when thinking of dal, but more on that later). One difference is that the cooks in the south of India include another type of dal also called tuvar dal– which according to my research is a southern staple. As typical of southern Indian cooking, Adai is spicier and more strongly flavored with the addition of hot red chili peppers, kadi patta, and ginger.