Priest Stranglers and Rooster Crests: The Quirky World of Pasta

 Let's Check Out The 28 Pastas And Six Pasta Sauces You Have Available...How Do We Best Select From Those?

Pasta enthusiasts rejoice! Greg and Shirley Mueller take us behind the scenes of their remarkable pasta collection at Olive Oil Divine, showcasing a world of shapes, flavors, and textures waiting to be explored.

What began as a modest selection of ten pasta varieties has evolved into an impressive array of nearly 30 different options. From the innovative "nest pastas" that serve as perfect individual portions to playful shapes like radiatori (resembling tiny radiators) and prestigallo (named after rooster crests), each pasta offers a unique eating experience. But there's science behind these whimsical shapes – as Greg explains, the ridges and crevices in shaped pasta hold sauce significantly better than traditional string varieties, resulting in more flavorful bites.

The conversation dives into specialty flavors that will tantalize your taste buds: Chesapeake Bay seasoned linguine infused with Old Bay, spicy garlic fusilli, and mushroom fettuccine, all made without GMOs or preservatives. Complementing these pastas are small-batch sauces ranging from classic tomato basil to their best-selling creamy vodka and adventurous Calabrian chili varieties. Shirley highlights how these premium ingredients maintain their vibrant colors and authentic flavors throughout cooking, unlike artificial alternatives.

Most fascinating are the cultural stories woven throughout – like the centuries-old tale behind "Strazapreti" pasta, which translates to "priest strangler." These heritage connections remind us that pasta isn't merely food; it's a culinary tradition with deep historical roots. Whether you're looking to elevate weeknight dinners or explore Italian cuisine more authentically, this episode offers invaluable insights for creating the perfect pasta experience. Ready to transform your pasta night? Visit Olive Oil Divine online or in-store to discover these treasures for yourself!

To learn more about Olive Oil Divine visit:
https://oliveoildivine.com/
Olive Oil Divine
2517 N. Roan Street
Johnson City, TN 37601
423-707-7087

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the Olive Oil Divine podcast, your go-to
source for culinary inspiration.
Join Greg and Shirley Muller,owners of Olive Oil Divine, as
they share tips, stories andinsights to make you a kitchen
hero.
From authentic extra virginolive oils to rich-aged Italian
balsamic vinegars, We've goteverything you need to elevate

(00:27):
your cooking.
Live divine.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
From hand selected premium pastas to rich,
authentic sauces.
Olive oil divine offers anincredible variety, but how do
you choose the perfect pairing?
Let's explore flavors, texturesand top tips for creating the
ultimate pasta experience.
Welcome back everyone.
Skip Monty, co-host slashproducer, back in the studio
with owners of Olive Oil Divine,mr Greg and Ms Shirley Muller.

(01:01):
Guys, welcome back to the show.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
Skip Brothers, good to see you.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
All right, all right.
I like that kind of excitement.
So, speaking of excitement,shirley, I hope you're doing
well.

Speaker 4 (01:14):
Doing fine.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
All right, very good, very good.
Well, I know in past episodeswe've talked about this enormous
selection of pastas and pastasauces that you have.
I think you told me you had 28different types of pasta, so
let's check them out.
Tell us about all yourdifferent flavors of pasta and
pasta sauce, and how do weselect from those?

Speaker 3 (01:37):
Skip, who doesn't love pasta?
Let me tell you what.
When we opened up our business10 years ago, we had these kind
of pastas Rainbow pasta, buttersquash, linguine, roasted garlic
, parsley I know these are nicestring, got some angel hair,
nice string, straight, typicaleveryday pastas.
And we have gosh 10 of these Ithink about like that but

(02:00):
different flavors, everythingfrom basil and garlic spaghetti
to fettuccine, roasted red bellfettuccine, and those really did
great.
But you know we learned thatpeople really love pasta, so
much me that we just we weremissing the boat.
So this year we have expandedfrom almost three times what we

(02:23):
had before.
So now we got cool littlethings like nest pasta.
Have you ever heard of a nestpasta that comes in little nests
?
These are, these are littleindividual servings and each one
of these will serve about twopeople.
You know, maybe maybe oneperson if it's me, but you know
it would be two Shirley's.
For me you know, but these nestpastas.
This is a tagliatelle aglio evolo and this is angel hair.

(02:45):
You ever seen little?
I don't know if you can see onthe camera there or not, but my
goodness, tagliolini.
Of course we got fettuccine andpappardelle pastas.
These are all the nest pastas.
So these are awesome.
These are awesome.
These are good for everyday,like spaghetti or fettuccine,
you know, without some Alfredosauce.
But who doesn't like to playwith their food?

(03:08):
Why not play with some shells?
There's some shell pasta here,or some organic prestigallo?
You know what that means?
Rooster little rooster crow.
You know the little thing onthe top of their head?
Oh wow, didn't you play with itlike that when you were a kid?
How about tomato basilradiatory?

(03:30):
You know why they call it that?
Yum no, because it looks like aradiator.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Really no, kidding, no kidding.
Well, I'm curious with the I'msorry, the nest pasta.
When you cook it, does it stayin a nest like that?

Speaker 3 (03:47):
Or that's just how it's delivered.
It does, it separates andbecomes a nice, nice, creamy
clump of noodles.
But you know what happens.
You know, when you get thesenest pastas or these string
pastas, what are you alwaysdoing At least I did as a kid
You're slurping it up and you'resucking that last noodle in and
it flips everywhere and youdon't get a whole lot of sauce
on them.
But you know what?
Things like this radiatory,those little crevices.

(04:09):
They hold the sauce much better.
So you get a saucier pasta, andhere's, here's another one,
here's an organic radio tori.
So we got all kinds of flavors.
Oh, one of my favorites is, uh,spicy garlic facility.
Yeah, there's the garlic lovers.
And then and then, oh, spindle,can't see, see, there, that

(04:33):
looks like a spindle doesndoesn't it?
It does.
These are really cool.
Then, of course, you got theones who don't like to play with
their food, like I do, and playwith radiators and crow's nest.
They just want flavors.
So then we've got this littlenice line here Roasted garlic
and basil linguine.
These are the moresophisticated type pastas that

(04:54):
people love.
The odd flavors, mushroom,fettuccine.
Nice fettuccine there.
Oh, one of my favorites.
Who didn't grow up liking theOld Bay seasoning?
Right?
Chesapeake Bay seasonedlinguine Made with Old Bay and
it's flavorful, oh nice, youdon't need any pasta sauce with

(05:14):
this.
And it's flavorful, oh nice,you don't need any pasta sauce
with this.
But you know, any of these youcould put with a nice marinara
sauce or an Alfredo sauce.
Gosh, I think I used.
I believe I used the rainbowfettuccine when me and Paula did
our pasta at her house a couplemonths ago.
That was the pistachio pasta.

(05:36):
You can find that on ourwebsite.
It's delicious.
And it used a balsamic, yeah,pistachios with ground, a little
bit of ground meat.
And go to the website.
It's on the website.
It's a beautiful recipe.
You can even watch me and Paulamake it for real.
Oh, wow, but it was deliciousand it used the balsamic lemon,
balsamic vinegar as part of theflavoring sauce.

(05:58):
We made our own sauce.
It was kind of like an Alfredosauce, but it was a creamy sauce
, delicious, but anyway.
Who doesn't want to play withpastas?
But of course all these pastashave got to have something to go
over top of them, so I'm goingto let Shirley play with the
toppings.

Speaker 4 (06:13):
Oh yeah, well, not only did we bring in new pastas,
we also brought in some pastasauces.

Speaker 2 (06:19):
Nice.

Speaker 4 (06:20):
Yes, we have a tomato basil pasta sauce and this will
go with any of those pastas.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
Love some tomato basil.

Speaker 4 (06:29):
We have a creamy vodka pasta sauce Best seller.
Oh, this is really good.
We also have a roasted red bellpepper with artichokes in it
for all of you artichoke fansout there and skip.

Speaker 3 (06:44):
You know what's cool about these sauces that she's
showing you is they're, they're,um, they're good, they're good
ingredients, they're.
They're a small batch made.
She's got several more to show,but while she's showing them, I
just wanted to let that.
Let you know that that, and thepastas themselves are also
non-GMO.
There's no preservatives in ourpastas.
We try to find nice, organic,healthy foods to offer.

Speaker 4 (07:05):
And then we also have a roasted red bell pepper with
ricotta in it.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
Oh, my goodness.

Speaker 4 (07:11):
Oh, this is real good .

Speaker 2 (07:13):
You're killing me.

Speaker 4 (07:15):
And then we have a Calabron Chili Vodka Pasta Sauce
.
Wow, now we also on top of thesauces and the pastas.
You could always get ourspaghetti seasoning to go on top
of that to add a little bitmore flavor.
Even our Tuscany bread dippingwould be very good over that.

Speaker 3 (07:34):
Skip.
You know what's cool about that?
You can put that spaghettiseasoning that she's got right
there on a piece of cardboardand it makes it taste like
spaghetti.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
Does it really?
What's in that it?

Speaker 3 (07:41):
does it does.
I don't remember theingredients offhand, but if you
want something to taste likespaghetti or enhance that flavor
, there's your go-to right there.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
Try it on cardboard.

Speaker 4 (07:51):
And another thing that we have in our store is an
olive wood spaghetti spoon.

Speaker 2 (07:57):
Nice.

Speaker 4 (07:59):
We carry a lot of olive wood also, and those are
made from the trees that are nolonger producing, so you can
also pick up a spaghetti spoon.
We have a pizza sauce that ismade with olive oil too.
One of the pasta sauces that wehave that we're currently out
of that we carry is the Tuscansun-dried tomato pasta sauce.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (08:27):
That is a very popular sauce.

Speaker 2 (08:29):
And you said you're sold out.

Speaker 4 (08:31):
We're out of it right now.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
Oh wow, we'll have some though.

Speaker 3 (08:34):
We'll have some more.
Must be very popular.
Yeah, pasta, you want pasta forlunch?
We got it right here 28 flavors28 flavors?

Speaker 2 (08:44):
well, interesting.
I was going to ask how the theshape of the pasta helps with,
or does it affect, the flavor?
But I guess it was interestingthat you said that that one type
of pasta holds the sauce better.
So it does change the flavordepending on the shape, I guess.

Speaker 4 (09:03):
You know, let's skip a couple of these pastas that
have unique names.
Greg researched to where thename originated from, so you'll
have to let him tell you aboutthat.

Speaker 3 (09:16):
Yeah, there's organic Straza Preti.
Right here Straza Preti isItalian for priest strangler.
There's a history to this.
You can go online and find out.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
Priest strangler, is that what you said?

Speaker 3 (09:34):
Yes, it goes back centuries ago.
It's an old story that happenedover in Italy.
You can go to our website andfind this and we talk about that
on our website.
But, yeah, there's some neatnames to some of these pastas
the Radiatore Like I told you,the Radiatore is shaped like a
radiator.
Here's a radiator.
In front of me, you've got theGranite Crestigallo, which is

(09:56):
the rooster crest.
So yeah, it's fun and delicious.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
Fun and delicious.
Well, Shirley, did you havesomething else you had to add?

Speaker 4 (10:06):
No, I'm fine, no, okay.

Speaker 3 (10:08):
I'm sure I'll still cook and have some pasta for
breakfast.

Speaker 2 (10:10):
Oh, I do too, man, I do too.
You guys are killing me everyepisode, especially when you're
in the kitchen.
I love pasta and I love pastasauce.
I think, pasta is a weaknessfor everybody.
It is Speaking of.
Everybody loves pasta.
How long can you store thatpasta?

(10:32):
If you pick that up at OliveOil Divine, how long would that
be good in your cabinet?

Speaker 3 (10:37):
oh gosh, they'd last longer than they.
I mean, you would eat themfaster than you.
You would keep them in yourcabinet very good, you know
pastas.
Pastas don't have any liquid inthem, so they're they have a
very long shelf life, yeah Ithink at least a couple years,
several years, yeah awesome,good to know, but, like you said
, it's not going to last thatlong.

Speaker 4 (10:55):
It's not going to last.
And I will say this too Skip,when you cook the pastas, even
the ones that are that like thered, like this one that has
sun-dried tomato basil in it, itactually has sun-dried tomato
basil in it and it does not loseits color.
Yep it stays true to the color.
Every one that we've had that,uh, butternut squash.

Speaker 3 (11:16):
Real flavor, nothing artificial, no artificial colors
in these foods.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
Wow, wow.

Speaker 3 (11:21):
We're making America healthy already.
We started a long time ago.

Speaker 2 (11:25):
That's right, you're, you're ahead of the game.
Well, the tomato basil I got totry, so that that is definitely
on my shopping list the nexttime I can see you guys, because
I love some tomato basilAbsolutely.
Well, guys, I really want tothank you for guiding us through
the world of a pile of pastasand sauces that you guys have.

(11:46):
It's an amazing selection.
If you like pasta, guys, go tothe Olive Oil store, go to Olive
Oil Divine and check them outbecause it just looks delicious.
So we'll have to try that andGreg Shirley, looking forward to
our next episode as we continueto explore the flavors that
make every meal extraordinarySame here, Skip.

Speaker 4 (12:07):
Same here, Skip Come in any time.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
All right, thanks so much.

Speaker 4 (12:10):
Uh-huh.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
Thanks for tuning in to the olive oil divine podcast.
Don't forget to visit us onlineat oliveoildivinecom for our
exceptional olive oils, agedbalsamic vinegars and more.
If you're local, stop by ourstore and discover how we can
make you a kitchen hero.
Until next time, live divine.