Green Spaghetti in Greenpoint
GRILLED CHEESE, PLEASE! is a series that explores dinnertime by looking at an eclectic group of families. A home-cooked meal? Great! Take-out? No problem! Pull up a chair and join us as we discuss everything from favorite food memories to never-fail dinner options.
Meet Llubav, a designer, and her kids: Mikus, 5, and River, 3. They live in Greenpoint with Llubav’s husband, Chris, a city investigator who was training for the NYC Marathon when we stopped by for dinner.
1. What’s for dinner?
Green spaghetti! My kids love it because it’s what the Incredible Hulk eats (*wink)! My mother used to make this for me when I was growing up and now I make a slightly healthier version. The sauce is raw spinach, basil, kale, and garlic pureed with salt, pepper, olive oil, feta cheese, and a bit of cream cheese. The spaghetti is made of brown rice.
2. What’s the usual routine?
We eat dinner together as a family every night. Chris normally gets home around 5:45 or 6 and if he’s (literally) running late, I’ll feed the kids before he gets home and then we’ll eat dinner together. Usually while I’m cooking the kids will watch Wild Kratts and then we say our prayers and then eat.
3. Do you guys ever go order take out or go out to eat?
Sometimes, but not very often. We like to cook at home. If we don’t, we’ll go get pizza at Paulie Gee’s or Mexican food at Vamos al Tequila. Since Chris is an investigator, he’s very good at finding the best thing on the menu.
4. Do you always cook or does Chris cook too?
Chris cooks sometimes. He makes great chili and he makes pita pockets, which the kids love.
5. Do the kids like to cook?
River makes pancakes every Sunday from scratch with her Dad!
6. Where do you shop for food?
We go to the farmers market at McCarren Park every Saturday and usually do a big shop at Fairway every other week—we get all our fish from there. Otherwise I go to the Garden down the street all of the time.
7. Mikus, what’s your favorite food?
Pita pockets!
8. What do you put on them?
Well I don’t put stuff on them; I put stuff in them! Chicken or beef or whatever. And cucumbers, tomatoes, dressing, and grated yellow cheese. And I love my mom’s rice bowls.
9. And River, what’s your favorite food?
Spaghetti with green sauce!
10. Llubav, did you grow up eating with your family?
Yes! I was born in Peru and lived in Mexico City for a couple of years when I was about ten and then my family moved to Virginia in 1986. I have two sisters and my mother was a housekeeper and would wake up at 5:30 a.m. and leave our lunches for us and for my dad, too. He worked the night shifts, so when she would come home for dinner, he was already off to work.
11. What was your favorite thing to eat as a child?
My mother is half Chinese and made lots of Peruvian-Chinese food, which I love. Things like Peruvian fried wontons with beef and raisins inside. My family is from a small fishing port on the coast of Peru so seafood has always been my favorite. If I could eat ceviche all day I would. You find ceviche in Peru the way you find tacos in Mexico or pharmacies in Greenpoint.
P.S. Speaking of ceviche, we were lucky enough to be invited over to watch Llubav make her signature dish and even luckier to be able to eat it.
