I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti Page 18
“Have you eaten?” he asked when I got back to him. “I have lunch for you if you haven’t.” No man has ever “had lunch for me.” He sounded like my mother, and that wasn’t bad, but I wanted to get on the road. I turned down his offer, and Lachlan upped the ante with a significantly less maternal request:
“Come over and take a shower with me.”
Lachlan got his way—however, with my car parked at a meter fed with only enough change to buy us thirty minutes, we had to move fast. We succeeded in making both love and pasta within the time limit. Lachlan prepared a sauce of tomatoes and eggplant for a picnic on the beach. We got out of bed and scrambled to prepare rigatoni and make it out of the house before the meter ran out, but Lachlan was visibly collapsing under the pressure. He dropped a plate that shattered all over the kitchen floor, and while he was sweeping up the shards of glass, he remembered that he hadn’t fed the dog and the pasta still had to be packed up. “Can you do this? Can you do this for me?” he said, handing me a plastic container and a ladle. Lachlan did not yet know that I could outmother him any day of the week.
We made it to the car with a minute to spare, so we spent it at the deli buying M&M’s, Twizzlers, and Coca-Cola for the trip. My kilt had a sweet tooth. He wanted Häagen-Dazs ice cream, too, but they didn’t have sticky toffee pudding, his preferred flavor, so we didn’t get any.
At last we were off, racing past the grand Brooklyn Museum and gloriously faded apartment buildings of Eastern Parkway, blasting AC/DC’s album Back in Black, with Lachlan shouting some lyrics from the car window: “Honey, whattaya do for money?”
I know what music to play for my boyfriends, and I know what to feed them; the third thing I pride myself on is an unfailing sense of direction. I rarely get lost. I can feel my way to just about anywhere, and when I miss the road, I find my way back to the right one quickly. Not so on this trip. I ended up on the Northern Parkway when I should have been on the Southern, and the little connecting roads I count on to take me from one to the other were nowhere to be found. I don’t adhere to my gender in that oft-cited difference between men and women—I hateasking for directions and refuse to do it. But as I noticed the sun making its way west ahead of us, I broke down and called Ginia, who grew up near Jones Beach and could put us on the right path. To get on it, I made some hairpin turns that scared the bejesus out of Lachlan. I tried to reassure him that he was safe with me. “I’m a great driver, really! I can’t believe I’m lost, I don’t know why this is happening.” Lachlan, feisty from sugar, ribbed me relentlessly in Italian.
Translated from the original Italian:
“When I saw you at that street corner, you looked like a nice, responsible woman. You were carrying bags of groceries, so I assumed you were married, possibly with a couple of kids. You gave me a card that read ‘Vice President,’ so I thought you were a sensible career women. But what are you!? You sleep until eleven, go to work at noon, you don’t know how to drive, and you don’t know where you’re going!”
He was right about that last part. I hadn’t a clue where I was going.
What I did know was that minutes later I was sitting beside the ocean with delectable Lachlan. I had brought along a bottle of Chianti I had been saving for a special occasion—carefully packed in ice so that it would maintain cellar temperature—but I had to drink it by myself. Turned out Lachlan had some health issues that restricted his alcohol intake—a problem with his “bile tube” a few years back, which led to a lengthy hospitalization in Rome, a consultation with one of the pope’s physicians, and the discovery of an arrhythmia that he now took a daily pill to regulate. While I sipped, Lachlan sparked up his pot, an indulgence that apparently didn’t affect his “bile tube” function.
As you can imagine, I’m a bit of a snob when it comes to pasta, so I didn’t have much faith in what Lachlan could churn out in his borrowed kitchen. My prejudice was misguided; his rigatoni with eggplant was scrumptious, so much so that I have since duplicated the dish many times, and I can’t say I do it any better than he did.
Lachlan’s Rigatoni with Eggplant
Delicious hot or cold.
3 tablespoons olive oil, plus a bit extra if needed
½ medium yellow onion, chopped
Pinch hot red pepper flakes
I large eggplant, cut into ½-inch cubes
2 teaspoons salt
1 large (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes
¼ cup red wine
1 tablespoon sugar (eggplant is acidic!)
1 pound rigatoni
1 cup basil leaves, torn
Freshly grated parmigiano
Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat; add onion and red pepper and sauté until the onion is almost translucent. Add the eggplant and 1 teaspoon salt and cook for 20 minutes, allowing the vegetables to get a little brown. Then add the tomatoes, wine, sugar, and remaining salt and cook for 50 to 60 minutes, until the eggplant is very soft.
Cook the rigatoni according to the directions for pasta here. When the pasta is drained, add it to the skillet with the eggplant if it fits; otherwise return it to the pasta pot and add a few ladlefuls of sauce, a dash of olive oil, and the torn basil leaves.
Ladle into bowls garnished with a dollop of extra sauce and a few basil leaves. Serve with grated parmigiano.
Serves 4 as a main course, 6 as a first.
Lachlan wanted to know me. As we reclined on the beach, he grilled me on my childhood and past relationships, things I wasn’t ready to talk about with a man I liked so much but knew so briefly. “Could you at least fill me in up to age sixteen?” he pleaded. Since his attentions were half-consumed with the smoke of a ship he thought he saw far off near the horizon line, I told him about the trip my family took to Italy on a ship called the Raffaello well before my twelfth birthday. Lachlan’s parents had sailed to the United States on the Queen Elizabeth II and were coming back next year on the Queen Mary. He talked about their travels abroad and a less exotic trip the family recently made to Liverpool for his brother’s wedding. That event relieved Lachlan of some of the parental pressure on him to settle down, especially now that his sibling had produced an heir. The ship Lachlan was tracing turned out to be nothing more than a shadow. The focus on this trivial disappointment was enough to push us on our way to the show.
We traversed a Scotland-size parking lot to get to the theater. Lachlan, now stoned, was amazed by its enormity and that of the bottom of a middle-aged man in pink Dockers whom he called a blancmange. We felt positively youthful as we followed him along with a throng of potbellied fifty-somethings making their way to the show. His comments had me in tears, even the ones directed at me for thinking we could sell our extra ticket to one of these people.
“Giulia, I don’t think ‘Dan fans’ show up at a concert looking to buy a ticket. ‘Dan fans’ are a little more organized than that!” he teased.
Jones Beach Theater is both giant food court and arena. Lachlan’s munchies were calling once again for Häagen-Dazs ice cream, but there was only Carvel. I got a sundae of vanilla with hot fudge, which Lachlan, while remarking on its poor quality, ate most of. Meanwhile, Michael McDonald of Doobie Brothers fame was doing his opening act, banging on keyboards and singing “What a Fool Believes.” We could see him on the giant screen as we waited in line for coffee at the Starbucks stand. Lachlan decided that McDonald looked like Kenny Rogers, so for the rest of the night we referred to him as Ken, yelping out his new name when he came back out on the stage with “the Dan” to sing backup vocals on “Peg.”
Lachlan was amazed that I was able to find the car, now all alone in an empty graph of white lines by the time we got to it. We didn’t get lost on the way home, either; all the signs pointed to New York, and we followed them. “I’m still amazed when I see signs for New York, I can’t believe I’m here,” Lachlan said, squeezing my hand. I couldn’t believe it, either.
The next week, Lachlan came to stay with me for the remainder of his trip and I took t
he rest of the summer off from work. I called my mother to tell her she wouldn’t be seeing me for a while; I had fallen in love with a Scotsman, a Scotsman who loved Italy and spoke fluent Italian, and could I keep the car? Up till then, the only vacation I had in mind was a few days off, during which I wouldn’t go much farther than Prospect Park. I couldn’t afford to travel, having just spent a bundle on my apartment and things to fill it with. Lachlan fell into my lap, a scoti ex machinawho made my world as exotic as Dundee (to me; I’ve never seen it) and cozy as a rented cottage on the Outer Hebrides by way of Capri.
He and his rucksack showed up at my apartment on a sticky, hot Monday afternoon after an arduous journey from Williamsburg, where my soul mate made a lunch of spaghetti Bolognese for his roommate, Steve, then said good-bye to him and their sublet. I worked that day, my last until after Labor Day, and rushed home to meet Lachlan, who got off at the wrong subway stop, ended up on the opposite end of Prospect Park, and arrived at my door sweaty and exhausted from the long trek. I tried to soothe him with music, playing an album by a new heavy rock band called Wolfmother that Kit had recommended. Lachlan dubbed the effort “inauthentic” and asked instead if I had his favorite Led Zeppelin album, Physical Graffiti. I owned every Led Zeppelin album except Physical Graffiti, but Led Zeppelin II or Houses of the Holy would not suffice. He wanted to hear Physical Graffiti, and I wanted to provide it for him. I assumed a click or two on iTunes would have “Custard Pie” coming out of my speakers in no time, but such simplicity was not to be: iTunes did not carry the Zeppelin catalog (a problem that has since been rectified). I pondered how I could fulfill his musical request and provide a palatable dinner. The undertaking left no time for a trip to the store, so I settled on bucatini amatriciana, a dish whose ingredients (onions, pancetta, canned tomatoes, bucatini) I always have on hand. Fortunately, Lachlan was not a man opposed to eating two pastas in one day.
The Physical Graffiti problem was a more stubborn one. I clicked on LimeWire, a free file-sharing program Kit had put onto my computer that I had never used. I believe in paying for my music, but this bad business decision on the part of Plant and Page left me no choice. LimeWire wouldn’t open, having died from neglect. I put up a pot of water to boil for pasta, then began to follow the steps to resuscitate it. This took longer than I remembered it taking for Kit, and soon enough the water was boiling. Amatriciana is a simple sauce that can be made while the pasta is cooking, but it gets a heck of a lot more complicated if you try to make it while downloading mp3 file-sharing technology onto your laptop.
Bucatini Amatriciana with MP3 File-Sharing Technology
1 iBook G4
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 slices pancetta
1 small onion
1 Visa card
1 (16-ounce) can choppped tomatoes
Salt
½ pound bucatini
¼ cup freshly grated pecorino
Fill a large pot with water and place over high heat.
Attempt to open LimeWire from the icon on your desktop. Fail.
The Scotsman in the apartment, who is useless with computers but, as we know, is capable of helping with pasta, will retreat to the bathroom for a shower.
Go to the LimeWire Web site and follow the steps to download the software onto iBook G4. This will take much longer than you think. Water is now boiling, and you haven’t done a thing for the sauce. Leave installation running, go to kitchen, and start sauce.
Heat olive oil in skillet over medium heat; chop pancetta, add it to oil, and let it get a little crispy. Meanwhile, chop the onion and then add it to the pancetta.
Return to desk to check on the installation. Discover that installation of free software is not happening; you will have to upgrade to LimeWire Pro. Retrieve Visa card and type account number in appropriate box; learn what “security code” is.
Run back to kitchen, where pancetta and onions should be a little more browned than you needed them to be. Tell yourself that caramelization is a good thing; add half the tomatoes and their juices, let them thicken a bit, and return to desk.
Adding the credit card numbers worked! You are ready to download songs.
Scotsman is finished with shower, drying himself, and calling out his requests. He will have his heart set on “Custard Pie.” Search for “Custard Pie” and click to download song, then run back to the kitchen.
Add the rest of the tomatoes to the skillet. Add salt to the boiling water, then the bucatini; give the pot a stir and go back to the computer.
You will find a notice telling you the song cannot be downloaded, as it “needs more sources.” Deliver news to Scotsman, now emerging from bathroom. See how he feels about “In My Time of Dying,” find that it won’t do, attempt “Custard Pie” again, fail. Go on to other songs from Physical Grafitti—find “The Rover,” “Kashmir,” “Ten Years Gone,” “Bron-Yr-Aur,” and download all without a hitch.
By now, you have forgotten the boiling pasta. Run to the kitchen to taste it; it will be overcooked. You will be ashamed for having failed at everything. Drain immediately, add to sauce. Remove from heat, sprinkle with pecorino.
Serves 2, unsatisfyingly.
I was shaken by the fact that the first thing I ever cooked for Lachlan was a sorry example of my abilities. Overcooked pasta is the cardinal sin of Italian cookery—sfatta, my mother calls it in what may be her own Sicilian dialect—my knowledge of Italian translates the word to something like “mismade.” I pouted over the meal, knowing I could do so much better. Lachlan faulted himself for getting in the shower right at the crucial moment. This would be the only time he took responsibility for a limp noodle.
“Do you want me to make coffee?” I asked Lachlan when we awoke the next morning.
“Only if you want me to be eternally grateful,” was his reply.
Imagine that sentence, spoken in a mild Scottish accent, and maybe you can understand why I loved him as much as I did.
The meals got better. Once free from that time-suck known as the office, I could devote my days to planning them. I shopped in the morning while Lachlan “inserted a few cherries” into his novel before giving it to me to read. I was in heaven, exploring my new neighborhood in the quiet daytime hours, checking out the food markets, determining where the good cheese was to be found, who had the best meat and who the better bread. I returned with all manner of delicious things for us to eat when Lachlan was ready to break for lunch. I knew he would enjoy my discoveries just as much as I.
I returned to find him writing and laughing away to himself.
“Helloooo,” he shouted when I walked in the door.
I went to the kitchen to assemble an array of lovely things for us to have for lunch. I couldn’t stop smiling as I made him a tuna salad that was a lunchtime staple back in the Shelter Island days.
Summerhouse Tuna Salad
(Adapted from Ginia Bellafante)
1 6-ounce can tuna, packed in olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped red onion
1 summer tomato, seeded and chopped
1 teaspoon capers
1½ teaspoons olive oil
¼ teaspoon salt
Few grindings pepper
1 tablespoon chopped parsley (and/or basil if you have it)
Open tuna and drain the excess oil, put it in a bowl, and add the chopped onion, tomato, capers, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Mix it all up and garnish with the chopped parsley.
Serve with fresh bread.
Serves 2; easily doubled.
I served it with bread that was still warm when I bought it, slices of soppressata—laid out in neat strips on a whimsical plate decorated with a childish drawing of a squirrel— olives, and fresh mozzarella. I presented our feast on a tray I had bought the previous day at the Brooklyn Museum—all the better to serve him with.
My apartment was so sunny, we may as well have been outside. Lachlan drank water, and I had a glass of red wine, slightly chilled for our indoor picnic.
“Buon appetito,” Lachlan said before digging in.
“Buon appetito,” I said back to him, beaming.
We said that to each other before every meal, even when we were no longer beaming.
While we ate, Lachlan continued with the big questions:
“Do you have any regrets?”
“Do you have everything you want?”
“Where do you see yourself in ten years?”
“Do you ever want to get married?”
“Do you think about having children?”
I didn’t know what to tell him. Did I have everything I wanted? Everything except a husband. Where did I see myself ten years from now? I saw myself married—same place I saw myself ten years ago—clearly my vision is blurry. Did I think about having children? Not often, but I would entertain the idea for Lachlan. How much to divulge became a philosophical question for me. What knowledge of my past relationships was Lachlan entitled to? I couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t implicate me as unlovable.
I wasn’t eager to bring past disappointments into a new relationship that seemed full of possibility. We were getting on well together, we agreed on everything from music to pasta shapes to ice-cream flavors. Everything, that is, except for air- conditioning—Lachlan reviled it, dubbing the machine “the noisy fridge.” He composed a little protest song set to the tune of Kansas’s “Point of Know Return.” In the middle of the night, he woke me up singing: “Your motherrrrr, she says it’s freeeeezing.” I nearly wet the bed I was laughing so hard, but I didn’t give in. There is only so far that I will bend to the European sensibility.
Although I embrace the comforts of the New World, I’m old-fashioned when it comes to cooking. I wouldn’t let Lachlan do any, even though he was more than capable. Instead I relegated him to menial tasks, like chopping an onion or garlic, which he happened to do beautifully; I can’t claim knife skills so refined. He didn’t put up a fight, he was mellowed by the pot he’d smoke while keeping me company in the kitchen—always closing the shutters so the neighbors wouldn’t see. We’d listen to music; I’d even let him play his. That electronica stuff was growing on me, especially Zero 7, whose song “Destiny” I considered our song, though I wouldn’t admit anything so precious to Lachlan.