Called my friend Jerry the other evening. “What’s happenin’ ?” I asked as I stirred onions and garlic simmering in olive oil. The aromas were provocative and ripe with promise.
“Making spaghetti,” he replied.
“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 pot of water was boiling, a half pound of dry Italian spaghettini sitting nearby. I’d sent Nicolle out to the garden to pick a little fresh oregano, and a chunk of Parmegiano Reggiano rested on the 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 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, there our culinary paths intersect. I’ve never tasted Jerry’s spaghetti, but I’ll 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, better than cinnamon toast, more comforting than soup, infinitely yummier than anything made of chocolate. Strands of good semolina pasta cloaked in a mildly tart tomato sauce, what could be simpler, friendlier, more soothing and delicious?
“It’s still warm.”
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 down the street 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 salt or grated cheese and then I took the fragrant, redolent 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, insinuating itself like steam 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 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 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.
Tangled strands of memory and of spaghetti
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 legs. My hair was in a pony-tail, longer than it is now and 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 so 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 palpably recalled.
Suddenly, my mother called me, her voice a sharp tear, like 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 to play, I could come 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 emotion that I eventually understand was love. I even took my plate over to the sink and rinsed it off, 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 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.
How to eat spaghetti
If this is just a normal meal, enjoy right away, with a hearty red wine and good bread alongside. Otherwise, identify yourself in one of the following conditions and proceed accordingly. If you need a recipe for spaghetti, here it is.
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 with plastic wrap, 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 plastic wrap 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 batch, and feed the children first.