I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti Read online

  I had recently sworn off drugs for good after what amounted to a “lost weekend” spent at a genteel house in East Hampton with a group of Brits who were friends of a friend from Spy. Amid the cabbage rose–patterned chintz, we ate too many mushrooms, overly eager for the effects to begin. From there I descended into an existential hell, culminating in a bad melodramatic speech on the meaninglessness of it all. I was lost in a dark wood that no amount of puffy sofas could rescue me from. Had someone recorded my monologue, it could have served as an effective primary source for drug-prevention seminars.

  But this peculiar circumstance of being on a date with a guy who actually wanted to impress me rather than the other way around, one who peppered his conversation with a plethora of opiate references, was making me want some. Ready to move the evening along, I asked Kit if he had any back at his apartment. Alas, all he had to offer was snuff—powdered tobacco you snort like cocaine. It was an anachronism, part of some sort of American aristocrat persona Kit had adopted to balance out his prairie roots. I pretended that I had always wanted to try snuff. On the way over to Kit’s apartment, we picked up some Pringles potato chips (my choice, a childhood taste that lingered) and Coca-Cola for dinner.

  I have yet to see another apartment quite as grim as Kit’s. It featured a tiny windowless room that was bathroom, kitchen, living room, and home office all in one. Off to the left was a bigger room with a window that appeared to look out onto something other than bricks but was off-limits because it was crammed full of stuff that belonged to the guy Kit was subletting from. There was a minuscule bedroom, not much larger than the size of a twin bed, with a window that looked out onto an air shaft where pigeons gathered and squawked.

  Kit had done his best to cheer up the place. The walls were lined with appealingly haphazard decor—a boomerang, a tear sheet of an ad from the 1920s depicting an older man and a younger one on bikes: “Father and son on a chummy run.” I tried the snuff, and later that night I tried some other things I hadn’t tried before.

  “My pillow smells like your perfume,” read the hand- delivered note that arrived the next day. No more romantic words have been written to me before or since. I wondered if there might be something off about Kit. He seemed truly smitten with me, and that kind of thing just didn’t happen. I can count on my breasts the number of times I have missed a meal, but for several days after that date I ate next to nothing. Picking at a salad on an emergency date-analysis lunch with my roommate, Jen, the next day, I tried to describe Kit. By this time I was in full self-sabotage mode, and it had completely colored my memory of his physical attributes. I found the gooniest- looking guy in the vicinity of the restaurant and pointed to him. “He looks like that,” I said.

  “No, he doesn’t!” Jen, knowing me well, retorted.

  “Okay, maybe not so bad, but something like that.”

  If my own eyes were not to be trusted, I could have been clued in by other events that there was something unforgettable about Kit. Apparently, every woman he had ever known remained hung up on him. When I first started staying at his place, nary a night went by when there wasn’t a call from his college girlfriend. (Turned out they were still dating as far as she was concerned, but that’s a story for her book.) Even an old high school flame from North Dakota rang in the middle of the night on a weekly basis.

  In spite of my anxieties, we became a couple. Kit, for his part, did nothing to exacerbate them. He left no doubt that he was serious about me. He always called when he said he would. He carried my bag if it was heavy whenever we walked anywhere. He was delighted to take the hourlong train ride to my mother’s house in Bay Ridge, even to spend just an hour, if that’s where I happened to be on a Saturday evening. In the beginning, the only problems were mine. This introduction to love and sex was frightening to me, so I invented problems to give substance to fears I couldn’t understand. For the first month I convinced myself I was pregnant, even though I was hypervigilant about birth control and the chances of this were slim. Then I decided Kit was gay when I lost track of him and his friend Matt at a party. I didn’t even have the sense to keep my worries to myself. I brought them all to Kit, who put up with my neuroses like a saint.

  Another new world, one less wrought with conflict, was opening to me at this time. That one existed in the kitchen of my new apartment, where a stove and oven of my own brought out a previously unacknowledged desire to cook. The kitchen to which I had recently bade farewell was strictly my mother’s domain, filled on Sunday mornings with the perfume of meat frying for the traditional Sunday ragù. As a child I would have a just cooked, perfectly seasoned meatball for breakfast—with bright green parsley peeking out of juicy meat, it tasted even better than the one I’d have that evening in the finished sauce. On weeknights, she might make a lamb stew with baby artichokes and fava beans; baked lemon sole covered in fresh bread crumbs; or—plainer, but no less delicious—roast beef with gravy and mashed potatoes.

  My mother, Janet, was first-generation Italian-American born in Brooklyn; my father, Nicola, came from the south of Italy to the States to establish a medical practice. They settled in Brooklyn and had five children: three girls and two boys, of whom I am the youngest. Despite clichés about the emotional Italian sensibility, my parents did not fling around the hugs and the I-love-yous. On the other hand, when they were angry with us, we knew it. Dad worked hard and Mom fed us well; those were the main avenues in which we could discern their love and commitment to our well-being. When my father wasn’t seeing patients until late in the evening, elaborate three-course dinners were the rule. At our round kitchen table, topped with a brightly patterned fabric tablecloth and matching napkins, we always began with a pasta dish, followed by meat or fish and a vegetable. My mother is Sicilian, which to her means a meal is not complete until you have “something sweet.” She is dogged in her pursuit of the best desserts and will drive any distance if she hears there’s a good bakery hidden somewhere in the tristate area. If she wasn’t just back from one such expedition, she’d whip something up: a coconut custard pie, a chocolate bundt cake, or moist ricotta fritters covered in powdered sugar.

  Having a home to me has always meant food in the refrigerator. My roommate, Jen, and I were on the same page about that. Jen, who is Jewish and grew up in Westchester, loves to eat as much as I do (in fact, I wouldn’t be friends with anyone who doesn’t), and she can testify to my mother’s talents. She still rhapsodizes about the many weekends she spent at my house when we were in college and my father was still alive and my mother cooked phenomenal meals. If we missed dinner because we had been out for a night of drinking or dancing at some Manhattan club, we knew we could count on a cache of leftovers waiting in the refrigerator when we returned. I knew of no other family who ate the way ours did. One night we arrived to find my brother Nick and his friend John already well into the raid.

  “What are you having?” I asked them, a little worried that there would be nothing left for us.

  “I’m having the swordfish, and Nick’s having the chocolate cheesecake,” said John, his voice filled with wonderment. He felt he’d discovered gold—I knew it was just what you might find at our house on any given night.

  The first evening in our new apartment, after settling our things, Jen and I went out and shopped for groceries at the overpriced “gourmet” store up the street. When we returned, I dropped a bag containing a bottle of extra-virgin olive oil we could scarcely afford. The glass shattered and the oil spilled all over the kitchen floor. Jen grabbed a mop; I called my mother immediately because I knew she would sympathize with this tragedy. It was the first of many calls I would be making to my mother to announce a culinary mishap. Over the years, I have sought her advice on substituting self-rising flour for all- purpose flour (the remedy is on the package); I’ve asked her how to save homemade gnocchi I removed from the water too soon (they can’t be saved) and what to do if the roast needs another hour and my guests have already been sitting around for an hour eating
olives and cheese (just keep pouring drinks). My mother would also be receiving more than a few calls about my romantic failures, but she has fewer clear answers to these.

  If my mother did not impart to me an understanding of how to play games when it comes to love, she at least sent me into the world with a clear knowledge of how to make a simple tomato sauce. The foods I had seen her prepare countless times were those I made for Kit in the early days of our relationship. Penne with tomato sauce and basil was a typical first course for a Melucci weeknight supper; my mother would always hide a few slices of fried eggplant at the bottom of each bowl as a tasty surprise. The pasta would be followed by breaded veal or chicken cutlets sautéed in olive oil and butter, accompanied by lemon wedges; there was always a salad of romaine lettuce garnished with slices of red onion and chunks of orange. This was the first meal I made on my own. I shared it with Kit.

  Fried Eggplant

  1 eggplant (preferably the small Italian kind, if you can find them)

  2 tablespoons olive oil

  Salt

  Slice the eggplant into rounds about ¼ inch thick.

  Heat the olive oil in a skillet, add as many slices of eggplant as will fit comfortably in the pan, and cook until lightly browned on both sides. You may need to add more olive oil if the pan gets dry, since eggplant absorbs a lot of oil.

  Remove slices to a plate lined with two paper towels. Sprinkle with salt.

  Yield: Enough for 2 and then some.

  Simple Tomato Sauce and Pasta for Two

  1 cup whole plum tomatoes (they must be whole plum tomatoes, and they must be from Italy, though I will confess that sometimes, when I feel lazy, I buy the ones that are already chopped; don’t tell my mother)

  1 tablespoon olive oil, plus a little more for finishing

  1 clove garlic, minced (or 2 tablespoons finely chopped onion)

  Pinch of hot red pepper flakes (optional here and in all subsequent recipes; I happen to like using them whenever possible)

  Basil leaves

  1 teaspoon sugar

  ¼ cup red wine

  ½ teaspoon salt

  ½ pound penne, or pasta of your choice

  Freshly grated parmigiano, pecorino, or any grating cheese to sprinkle on top

  Run the tomatoes through a food mill or puree them with an immersion blender (I do the latter), chop them, or just break them up with your hands. Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat, then add the garlic (or onions) along with the red pepper flakes and 1 whole basil leaf. Lower heat (you do not want your base to brown) and sauté until the garlic is lightly golden (or the onions are translucent), 2 to 3 minutes. Add the tomatoes and raise the heat back to medium; when the sauce begins to simmer, add the sugar, wine, and salt. After about 5 minutes, check to see if it needs more salt; if it tastes acidic, add another pinch or two of sugar. Reduce the heat to low and taste after about 15 minutes. When all the flavors are nicely blended, it’s done.

  Place a large, covered pot filled with water over high heat. When the water has reached a vigorous boil, add a generous dose of salt (salty water is essential to flavorful pasta; it should have the aroma of the Mediterranean). Add the pasta and let the water return to a boil (covering the pot for those few early moments helps; just remember to remove the cover as soon as the water is boiling again), then give the pot a few good stirs. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until the pasta is still firm to the bite but no longer chalky (anywhere from 8 to 12 minutes depending on the pasta shape you’re using). You should taste it after about 8 minutes to see where it is. You can’t time pasta; you can know it’s done only by tasting it.

  When the pasta is cooked, drain it and put it back in the pot you cooked it in. Then add a ladleful of the sauce, a tiny splash of olive oil, and a few basil leaves torn with your hands. Line two bowls with a few slices of the fried eggplant (you could add whatever is left to a sandwich, maybe with cutlets, if there are any left, for tomorrow’s lunch), then add the pasta and garnish the top of each dish with a spoonful of sauce and a few more pieces of basil. Pass the grated cheese at the table.

  Yield: 2 servings.

  Breaded Cutlets

  2 eggs, lightly beaten, seasoned with ¼ teaspoon salt

  ¾ cup bread crumbs, seasoned with ¼ teaspoon salt, freshly ground pepper, and 1 tablespoon chopped parsley

  1 pound thin veal cutlets (or chicken, depending on your mood, politics, or pocketbook)

  2 tablespoons olive oil

  1 tablespoon butter

  1 lemon

  Put the eggs in a wide-rimmed bowl and spread the seasoned bread crumbs on a plate. Coat the meat in the eggs and then the bread crumbs. In a skillet, heat the oil and butter at medium-high and fry the cutlets until they are cooked through and browned on both sides (about 4 minutes on each side, depending on thickness). You’ll probably need to do this in two batches; refresh the fat in the pan if necessary. Remove the cutlets to a plate lined with two paper towels until ready to serve. Present them with lemon slices to squeeze on top.

  Yield: 2 servings.

  Romaine Salad with Oranges and Red Onion

  1 head romaine lettuce

  ½ small red onion, thinly sliced and cut into 1-inch strips

  2 navel oranges

  1 tablespoon olive oil

  Splash of red wine vinegar

  Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

  Wash and dry a head of romaine lettuce and cut the leaves crosswise into 1-inch pieces. Put them in a bowl with room enough for tossing and add the onion. Remove the stem ends of the oranges, then take off the skins with a paring knife. Cut into slices ¼ inch thick and then cut the slices into quarters, removing any seeds and startlingly obvious white pith. Dress and toss the salad with olive oil, red wine vinegar, a little salt, and freshly ground pepper.

  Yield: 4 servings.

  We ate sitting on the floor, our dishes perched on a square ottoman that came from my family’s house. We were saving up for a table, but, priorities ever in place, we dropped $3 on a bottle of Concha y Toro, purchased at our local liquor store, where the clerk and his merchandise stood behind bulletproof glass and you pointed out what you wanted. The Concha y Toro was positioned front and center, and good thing—you wouldn’t want to be forced to do too many elaborate hand gestures to obtain a $3 bottle of wine. It tasted good enough to our undeveloped palates, a fine pairing for that uncomplicated food.

  Kit used to say we had a “charmed life” because, though we could barely afford the rent on our apartments, our jobs exposed us to a kind of glamour that belied our checking accounts. One evening, we attended a book party at the home of a famous television newsman. In his luxurious apartment high over Central Park, we sipped champagne and nibbled canapés presented on silver trays. There was smoked salmon on toast points, asparagus wrapped in prosciutto, Gruyère dumplings, and tempura shrimp, but as always happens at these sophisticated fetes, there wasn’t quite enough of it. Two hours later we were on the subway, still hungry, with $5 between us to buy dinner. We picked up a box of spaghetti at the corner store and counted on there being some butter in Kit’s refrigerator. Better yet, we found four strips of bacon and three eggs—all the makings of a simple carbonara. I got to work at Kit’s tiny stove, and the pasta turned out to be a hearty antidote to those precious little snacks. We even had some left over for the next day—and a dollar left until payday, still a week away.

  Spaghetti Carbonara

  3 slices bacon, cut into ½-inch pieces

  12 ounces dry spaghetti

  3 eggs

  ¼ cup freshly grated pecorino, plus a little more for passing

  ¼ cup freshly grated parmigiano, plus a little more for passing

  Salt

  Freshly ground pepper

  Fry the bacon until it is almost crispy, then drain on a plate lined with paper towels.

  Cook the pasta according to the directions here. Meanwhile, in a large heatproof bowl or serving dish, lightly beat the eggs
and add the cheeses.

  When the pasta is cooked, drain it in a colander and add it to the bowl with the eggs in cheese. Toss the pasta with the egg mixture, letting the eggs cook on the hot pasta (they may not be completely cooked; I like the creaminess of the not-fully-cooked egg, but if you don’t like that idea, throw it all in a skillet over low heat and let it cook a little), then add the bacon. Taste and add salt, if needed, and a few grindings of pepper.

  Divide the pasta into warmed bowls.

  Serves 2, with leftovers.

  I was elated every time I made something that turned out well; it seemed to happen so frequently that I was elated a lot! I was discovering a talent I hadn’t known I possessed. Kit enjoyed what I made, but he couldn’t relate to my excitement. My boyfriend, a man of infinite curiosities, did not count food among them. He could wake up one morning needing to know everything there was to know about Sergei Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes; the next day it might be the Merz collages of Kurt Schwitters. I got secondhand enrichment from his ever changing obsessions but was truly disheartened when he told me that, like his father before him, he wished he could just take a pill for nourishment and be done with it. The news brought home a deep divide between us. I lived to eat. Kit preferred to take in the majority of his calories through alcohol.

  I got my first inkling of the problem when I arrived at his apartment early one evening to find him already most of the way through an oil can of Foster’s Lager, with another on deck. This seemed like an awful lot of beer, but I didn’t say anything—I just tucked away the information, where it popped out from time to time for me to worry about.

  Kit got his dream job at Rolling Stone magazine right around the time I got laid off from Spy—he pulled himself away from his own going-away party to rush over to my apartment with ice cream to cheer me up. Though I didn’t do much at Spy, I was proud to have a spot on the magazine’s masthead. I had worked my way up from receptionist (or “publishing assistant”) to photo researcher and then public relations assistant, and although it was fun to call up gossip columns and place items about whatever celebrity the magazine was lambasting that month, what I really wanted to be was an editor. But at twenty-four I believed myself too old to change direction. I immediately got another job in publicity at Kit’s old workplace, Atlantic Monthly Press. Anton, one of the editors, called me “Super-Duper” or sometimes just “Super,” because when Kit and I first started dating, he asked Kit how his girlfriend was and Kit said, “Super-duper!” Everyone there thought Kit and I were adorable—but not so adorable that I didn’t get laid off yet again when Atlantic was sold less than a year into my tenure.