Kitchen: How To Eat Spaghetti
When all else fails, spaghetti can save the day, help you get your strength back, or simply delight you, as it has for my entire life. I look back on a few special moments.
Called my friend Jerry the other evening.
"What's happenin' ?" I asked as I stirred onions and garlic that were simmering in olive oil. The smell was wonderful, provocative, and ripe with promise.
"Making spaghetti," he reply.
"The normal kind," I asked, "with onions and garlic and tomatoes?"
"That's the one," Jerry said, as I opened a can of Muir Glen organic crushed tomatoes and emptied it into the skillet.
A big pot of water was boiling on the stove and a half pound of dry Italian spaghettini – De Cecco, the brand I prefer, recently renamed it “thin spaghetti” for the American market – was sitting nearby. I'd sent Nicolle out to the garden to pick a little fresh oregano, and a chunk of Parmegiano-Reggiano rested on a cutting board.
Jerry and I are different kinds of cooks. I've had dinner at his house that has included a salad with twice as many miniature marshmallows in it than anything else. When he and his wife Patty have eaten here, I've sensed that he's been . . . well, polite, we'll say, when I've served up some of my creations, and he lost it entirely with one dessert. He still sometimes introduces me to friends saying, "Hey, this is Michele, she had us to dinner and gave us vinegar ice cream for dessert." He laughs, and I keep quiet about marshmallows.
But over pots of spaghetti in our respective kitchens our culinary paths intersect. I've never tasted Jerry's spaghetti, but I bet it's not all that different from mine. Who can argue with b'scetti, as kids of many generations have called it. It is, for me anyway, the ultimate comfort food, as good as cinnamon toast, more comforting than soup, infinitely yummier than anything made with chocolate. Strands of good semolina pasta cloaked in a mildly tart tomato sauce, what could be simpler, friendlier, more soothing and delicious?
I have eaten spaghetti at pivotal moments in my life and have sought solace in the simple preparation it requires. A few hours before I graduated from high school, we received word that my best friend's fiancé had been killed in Vietnam. His family lived just down the street from me, and during the few hours between rehearsal and ceremony, I went home and chopped onions, peeled garlic, opened cans, cooked noodles. I seasoned everything perfectly so that no one would have to reach for the salt, a bowl of grated cheese, nothing at all, and then I took the fragrant mixture in my arms and walked down the street with it. "Oh, it's still warm," Tommy's stricken mom said, and I could see the small comfort it gave her, the hard porcelain bowl warm and real in her hands, the fragrance escaping from the sides of the foil, the steam insinuating itself into the corners of her mind, evoking a visceral response in spite of all that suddenly stood between her and the simple pleasures of life.
I have eaten spaghetti everywhere, at all times, and from as early as I can remember. I have eaten it at 4:00 a.m. in the hopes that it might prevent a hangover (it helps). I have eaten it with my fingers, cold, right out of the refrigerator, doused with a lot of Tabasco sauce and extra salt. I have eaten it in some of San Francisco's most expensive Italian restaurants, even though I knew I could have it at home the next day. I ate it in elementary school, from a wide-mouthed thermos when my mother finally caved in to my refusal to eat her sandwiches. There have been times when I couldn't have it, like a long summer spent in India, when I ached with longing for the comfort it and nothing else provides.
A bite of spaghetti, or simply the sight of it, can trigger tangled strands of memory, spaghetti dinners on Halloween when my mother knew it was the one thing she could get me to eat; the time I first saw the Pacific Ocean on a school field trip and my mother had hot spaghetti waiting for me when I got home; countless occasions in front of every refrigerator I've ever had; dinner one late spring day when food of any kind was the furthest thing from my mind: Wayne, the love of my young life, had come over with Greg and we were playing kick ball on the large asphalt court on the corner. I wore a white sleeveless blouse, and cropped pants that stopped just below my knees. They had vertical stripes in white and a soft, warm brown, and as I take another mouthful of juicy noodles, I can feel the polished cotton, crisp and clean and wrinkled at the knees, as it brushed against my calves. My hair was in a pony-tail, tied up high off my neck with a scarf.
Wayne was flirting with me - the first time I remember anyone doing such a thing - making comments to Greg that I didn't understand, but that had to do with affection and girl friends and whatever sexual posturing is possible at the ripe age of 11. With him, given his two older brothers – strikingly handsome boys, all of them – a considerable amount was possible, and he teased me gently and skillfully. I was shy but he was bold, and I thrived under the attention of these two beams of male energy, though Greg was there purely as a foil, an excuse, a lightning rod grounding the sparks between me and this beautiful bronze Hawaiian boy. I have no finer recollection of childhood, no memory more exuberant, nothing more lushly, more palbably recalled.
Suddenly, my mother called me, her voice a sharp tear, the sound a sheet makes when it is ripped into strips for bandages, in the fabric of our day. I had to eat dinner immediately, and although she would not allow me extra time outside, I could go back out if I ate quickly enough, she told me. I was by nature a slow and dreamy eater and it was one of my mother's great fears that I would not get enough nourishment. This day, though, I ate every bit of the plateful of noodles and rich, red sauce and drank all of my milk, full of anticipation of returning to Wayne, full of a never-before-experienced rush of lightness and emotion. I even took my plate to the sink and rinsed it, obedient in my distracted revery. I ate alone, as I usually did, my mother lying on the couch in the other room.
I sprang from the kitchen chair towards the door and as I reached out to touch it, she said, "Where are you going?"
"To play kick ball with Wayne and Greg," I responded incredulously, knowing that she knew, wondering what she was up to now.
"You're not going anywhere," she replied. "It's nearly dark."
"You promised," I pleaded, but it was no use.
"It's dark. You're staying in," she said, her mind's sun setting a good hour before real time, and I knew that was the end of that.
As I waited in my room for Wayne and Greg to call, sunlight streamed in through my windows and I heard the laughter and squeals of other kids who lived nearby.
"You can't come out ," they said, disbelieving and scornful, though not of me. "Your mother," Wayne said, for the first of many times. We talked on the phone for hours, and when I finally came out of my room, long after my mother had gone to bed, I stood in the ghostly light of the refrigerator and gathered up a few gooey strands of spaghetti with my fingers. I tilted my head back, closed my eyes, held my hand high above my head and slowly lowered the spaghetti into my mouth. I stood there a long time, eating slow mouthful after slow mouthful, and thinking of other things, mostly of Wayne's face so clearly before me, like it is now. Evocative stuff, spaghetti.
Spaghetti with Red Sauce Serves 6 to 8
There's something arbitrary, unnecessary, about a recipe for spaghetti. Don't use mine to supplant your own. But if, for whatever reason, you've never made spaghetti, this is not a bad way to start. Practice now and you’ll be prepared for the next crisis of the heart. The wine in the ingredients list is not necessary, by the way, but it does add a pleasant depth of flavor, welcome if the tomatoes you're using are not the best.
Olive oil 1 small yellow onion, cut into small dice Several cloves of garlic, minced Kosher salt 2 28-ounce cans of crushed tomatoes 3 tablespoons of tomato paste, optional 3/4 cup of red wine, optional 1 teaspoon dried oregano or 1 tablespoon fresh oregano, minced Handful of Italian parsley, chopped Black pepper in a mill Sugar, as needed 1 pound imported dry spaghettini (aka thin spaghetti), spaghetti, or bucatini Chunk of hard cheese, such as Dry Jack or Parmigiano-Reggiano Tabasco Sauce
Heat some olive oil in a heavy skillet. Add the onion and sauté it over medium heat until it is transparent, about 7 to 8 minutes. Add the garlic and sauté for about 2 minutes. Season with salt. Add the tomatoes, stir the mixture, and add the tomato paste if you want the sauce a little thicker. Add the red wine if you want, add the oregano and parsley and let the sauce cook over low heat for about 30 minutes. Taste the sauce, correct for salt and add several turns of black pepper.
If the tomatoes are particularly acidic, add a teaspoon or two of sugar to balance the flavors.
Cook the pasta in plenty of rapidly boiling, salted water. When it is just done, drain it and place it on a large serving platter. Spoon some of the sauce onto the spaghetti, toss it well, and then pour the rest of the sauce over it.
Grate some of the cheese, sprinkle it over the spaghetti and enjoy right away, with good bread and a hearty red wine. Identify which of the following conditions apply to you, and proceed accordingly.
How To Eat Spaghetti
Broken Heart: You won't be able to eat much at dinner anyway. Do your best, and then put your plate of half eaten spaghetti, covered, into the refrigerator. If you are capable of reading, take a mystery novel with you when you retire to the couch, under a well-loved quilt. Fall asleep, wake up in the middle of the night, and finish your spaghetti. Do not remove the plate from the refrigerator. Simply remove the cover and eat with your fingers. Go to bed now, not back to the couch, and have good dreams.
In Love, Mutual, Unconsummated: You've barely touched your dinner. Put the spaghetti you didn't eat in a bowl, cover it, and refrigerate it. Have your best friend take you to your local bar or pub, where you should drink just slightly too much. Savor your current state, and when you get home, force yourself to eat some of the spaghetti. When you get up in the morning, douse what's left of the spaghetti with plenty of Tabasco Sauce and finish it off. Daydream until the phone rings, write a love letter, have a little more cold spaghetti.
In Love, Consummated: At some point, you will need to regain your strength. There's nothing like remembering that you have a whole batch of spaghetti in the fridge, in a big bowl with the sauce already mixed in. Spread a towel on the bed and put the bowl on top. Eat with your fingers, passing the Tabasco Sauce between you.
Love, Unrequited: When your friends tell you that you have to eat something, listen to them. Try spaghetti, especially if someone will make it for you. If no one will, find someone to cook it for. The distraction will do you good.
Death in the Family: If no one brings a pot of homemade spaghetti, make some, a double or a triple match, and feed the children first.
Beautifully written.
Tangled strands of memory…I just love your use of the language.
To this day, my favorite comfort food.