Due to a miscommunication in which my mother thought I was making spaghetti with pomodoro sauce and I thought I was making spaghetti with pesto sauce, I ended up sautee-ing Italian sausage with onion, garlic and cherry tomatoes and then adding the mostly inappropriate pesto sauce.

I finally figured out what kinds of pasta sauces are supposed to go with what kinds of pastas when I was sitting in Il Vesuvio restaurant a few years ago, faced with a gigantic menu and a choice of any sauce with any type of available Italian pasta. I ordered a cream sauce with shell pasta, I think, and it all clicked when the plate was set before me ... cream sauces go with stringy pastas and oily sauces tend to go with the other shapes! Pomodoros go with everything. Well, that's my theory anyhow, and it all tastes great in the end ... it's just a matter of amount of sauce clinging to pasta.