Though perhaps a little late in life, and unhelpfully complicated by life’s realities, if I could choose someone to be when I grow up, without a doubt I’d be Inspector Montalbano. Aside from pleasantly relatable traits, such as his warranted, weary grouchiness and exaggerated hand gestures, Montalbano is a man who pays food the respect that it deserves.

It’s time to go back to basics, and it doesn’t get much simpler than flour, water, and onions. This week we’re tapping into our roots with the perfectly imperfect Calabrese fileja. Although we make all kinds of pasta these days, and tend to use egg doughs more often than not, a lot of the pasta that we made and ate growing up was just flour and water. In fact, most of the food that we enjoyed was really cucina povera, imported to Australia relatively unchanged from how it was cooked by generations before us back in Italy. For me, something about that connection always makes these dishes a little special.