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STL Today

Pasta Fare
 

BY JUDITH EVANS
POST-DISPATCH FOOD EDITOR
12/14/2005
 

Pasta Fare cooks up carryout pasta, soups, sandwiches and cookies, but its main creation is jobs for autistic adults.

As an enterprise of the Illinois Center for Autism, Pasta Fare employs 21 people with autism. Along with staffers from the center, they make much of the food from scratch, including the pasta.

The takeout fare is packed in plastic containers and kept in refrigerated cases. In addition, a restaurant is open for lunch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekdays.

On a visit last week, I picked up a serving of vegetable lasagna ($4.49), an Italian sausage sandwich ($4.25), half a pound of tortellini salad ($5.79 per pound), chicken Parmesan with a side of spaghetti ($5.25) and a dozen lemon cookies ($2.49) for the office.

Everything but the cookies was packed in plastic containers. After ringing up my order, the worker stacked them neatly in a brown paper bag, then put the white box of cookies on top.

I headed west on Interstate 64 and returned to work, and we soon were enjoying lunch.

But first, the hot items each needed a few minutes of warming. The black plastic that forms the bottoms of the containers can withstand the microwave, but the clear plastic tops will shrivel and warp, so the food needs to be covered with paper towels or plastic wrap before it is zapped.

The food was hearty and filling. The sausage in the sandwich was well-spiced and topped with sauteed onion and green pepper. A small cup of homemade tomato sauce came alongside.

The tortellini salad was enhanced with lavish amounts of red onion, bell peppers and black olives, with just the right amount of dressing.

The tomato sauce also topped the chicken and spaghetti, which was green from the spinach used as an ingredient.

The lasagna noodles were layered with loads of chopped carrots, broccoli, zucchini and cauliflower.

The big, round cookies were topped with a thick coat of lemon icing. When I offered them to my co-workers, the cookies were gone in a snap.

Pasta Fare can be a bit tricky to see from the road because it's on the corner of a strip mall partly hidden by a carwash. The carryout shop is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays. Pasta Fare will close for the holidays from Dec. 25 through Jan. 1.

The Illinois Center for Autism is a not-for-profit, privately funded agency.

 

 

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