A recent haul from Caputo's

There are many reasons I like Roger. We often agree about books and movies and music. He was once the state Monopoly champion of Rhode Island. He knows all the best puppy videos on YouTube, and though he is my boss, often shows them to me while I’m on the clock. But I think that the reason I like him most of all is that he is the one who told me about Caputo’s.

The topic came up because we were talking about making pasta. Roger, a bit of a foodie, makes his own noodles from time to time, and though they are tasty, it’s a time-consuming enterprise. “Really,” he said, “for four bucks, why wouldn’t you just buy it at that little Italian place on Court Street?” He meant Caputo’s, and he sent me the address. Regular readers of this blog will already know that I believe there’s value in knowing the long way of doing something; making something from scratch is a pleasure in itself. But even I have my limits. The secret to fresh pasta is this: you buy it at Caputo’s.

Caputo’s has an unassuming storefront in Carroll Gardens. It is one of those places that looks old, in a good way, as though maybe it staked its claim when Brooklyn was still a forest and the neighborhood simply grew up around it. In addition to the refrigerator cases of fresh pasta and sauces and soups, there is an olive bar, a cheese case, bins of glistening homemade mozzarella, shelves of dry pasta and bread and tiny jarred wonders, and freezers of pizza dough and cannoli filling and always, always, more pasta. It is all heaven-help-me groan-worthy. My Caputo’s shopping trips end only because of the limits of my wallet and my refrigerator. I have always said that if I could choose only one cuisine to eat for the rest of my life, it would be Indian or Mexican, but now I need to add a caveat that I would choose Italian, provided that all of the ingredients came from Caputo’s.

But the food, glorious though it be, is not the only attraction. I like the experience of shopping there because an employee has to help you, grabbing and weighing and packaging various items as you request them and assembling them into a little shopping feast on the counter in front of you. I am not the sort of person who likes the attention of salesmen. Even coffee baristas often seem pushy enough to make me want to flee the premises. But Caputo’s is different. Everyone is so faultlessly polite, so loathe to sell me anything that I don’t want, that it almost makes me long for the days of old-fashioned bartering and flirting between customers and shopkeepers. Shopping there always makes me feel (and, yes, it’s embarrassing to say this, but I’m going to do it anyway) like a lady, in a Victorian kind of way.

I’m just guessing here, but this probably is not the reason Roger likes Caputo’s. When I asked him for a Caputo’s-worthy quote, he said that the store “proves that both white bread and white people aren’t all bad.” And I have to say that I agree; Caputo’s honors the very best of their roots rather than simply capitalizing upon them. I dare you to try anything in the place and not like it. And if you really don’t…well, don’t bother telling me about it. You’re not the kind of person with whom a lady associates.