I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti (25 page)

Spaghetti and Meatballs for Cooking Sluts and Those Who Love Them

For meatballs

1 pound chopped beef (I like to use chuck, but Lucinda prefers a leaner cut; either way, they’re delicious)

¾ cup plain bread crumbs

1 clove garlic, minced

¼ cup freshly grated parmigiano

2 eggs

¼ cup milk

1 teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper

½ cup chopped Italian parsley

2 tablespoons olive oil, plus 2 more tablespoons reserved for browning

Throw all the above ingredients in a large bowl and blend well with your hands. Shape into balls (you choose the size).

In a large skillet, heat the reserved 2 tablespoons olive oil and sauté the meatballs until they are browned on all sides.
Remove to plate lined with two paper towels. Set aside.

Yield: About 20 (1-inch-diameter) meatballs.

For sauce

2 tablespoons olive oil

Big pinch hot red pepper flakes (optional)

1 (28-ounce) can chopped or whole (the better choice) tomatoes from Italy

1 tablespoon tomato paste

¼ cup red wine

2 teaspoons sugar

2 teaspoons salt

1 pound spaghetti

¼ cup packed basil leaves

Freshly grated parmigiano for passing at the table

Heat the olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat, then add the pepper flakes (if using), tomatoes (and their juices,
breaking them up with your hands, if using whole), and tomato paste. Add wine, sugar, salt, and meatballs. Bring to a simmer,
then lower heat to medium-low; cook, stirring often, for 40 minutes.

Cook spaghetti according to the directions for pasta
here
. Drain and return to pot, then add a few ladlefuls of sauce
and a few leaves of basil torn with your hands. Add pasta to individual bowls garnished with 1 to 2 meatballs (depending on
the appetites of your friends) and a few torn basil leaves. Pass parmigiano at table.

Serves 4 to 6.

I
f a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, does it make a sound? If I make a splendid rigatoni with sausages, broccoli,
onions, and butter, and only I taste it, did it exist?

I’ve spent just as much time single as I have as half of a couple, and though I much prefer cooking for two to cooking for
one, if one is all I have, I cook for her. It’s not like I only got into this racket to please men, though I do get a thrill
out of feeding those unfathomable creatures. Many have found succor on that old green sofa, where sooner or later I’m going
to offer them a cookie, but never enough to sign up for a lifetime of three well-made squares cheerfully provided daily. I
don’t blame any of them for my situation (well, I sort of do but not fully, at least); my logical mind knows that in every
case I got precisely what I was looking for. I’m where I am because of me. I haven’t gotten to the bottom of why that is,
but I have a battery of professionals working with me on the case.

Because cooking and eating well are my raison d’être, I don’t stop when there’s no one else to feed. Even if it’s just me,
I make breakfasts of pancakes and sausages or French toast, just as I would if I’d woken up with a man in my bed. The idea
of going to the café on the corner for coffee seems insane to me. I’ll make myself a Niçoise salad with olives, capers, red
onion, grape tomatoes, parsley, and canned Italian tuna for lunch. At dinner I’ll roast some fish, grill a steak, or invent
a pasta from whatever happens to be in the fridge. Those dishes, born out of random couplings dictated by whatever is available,
are the ones that make me saddest. They are never to be duplicated; I am the only one who will ever know how delicious they
were. I’m conflicted about whether that is good enough, just as I’m conflicted about whether it’s better to be with someone
or to be alone.

There are many things I like about being by myself and few people who can provide me with the sort of peace I get buzzing
around my apartment, singing along to Belle & Sebastian’s “Funny Little Frog” as it emerges from speakers planted wirelessly
in every room of my apartment—including the kitchen, of course—a system I masterminded and installed all on my own.

I manage to be both ashamed and proud of how self- sufficient I am. When I was going to an office every day, I hesitated to
admit to colleagues that I couldn’t wait to go straight home after work, roast myself a piece of salmon over a bed of asparagus
(450-degree oven, handful of asparagus drizzled with olive oil, a sprinkle of salt, and a grinding of pepper, salmon fillet
over it seasoned in same manner, roast for twenty minutes, squeeze a little lemon on top, and chop an herb and stick it on
there if you wish, but delicious even without), and sit with it and a glass of cool white wine at my dining room table
toute seule
. Back then I found this vastly preferable to postwork socializing at a bar. I love drinking, but only when there’s food involved.
When I had to go, I was the one showing up with a bag of pretzels.

There are as many pros to being alone as there are cons to being coupled. Sacrifices you must make to be in a couple that
you don’t have to make when you are single, and many pleasures to being alone that you forfeit when you are bound to another
person. Like being able to watch whatever you want on TV—my current fave is
Gossip Girl;
I don’t think any man would abide that habit (well, Mitch might, but I won’t give him the chance to find out). When you’re
with a man, you have to pretend you like shows like
The Wire,
which I can’t believe any woman actually likes, though my married friends swear up and down that they truly, truly do (and
I’ll take them at their word, but you won’t find me watching it). Or being able to jet off to Cannes with a friend who is
going there on business, as I recently did, without having to take anyone else into consideration. Then there’s having the
entire bed to spread out in all by yourself.

It’s the sheets that get to me—there is absolutely no way on earth to do a proper job of folding them alone. And that stuff
that’s fun to do in them, you really do need to be in a couple to get the most out of that. Meals, of course, are vastly more
enjoyable when shared. I can’t marvel about how perfect the rigatoni is to myself, though I sometimes do. Yes, as much as
I like my freedom, I am convinced that it’s better to be with someone than not. If nothing else, it makes it that much easier
to explain yourself at group functions.

My own dinner parties are full of couples. What choice do I have? When you are my age, the lepers who remain single are few
and far between. And as my guests compliment my cooking, which feels great, I also have to hear them wonder aloud how it could
be that I’m not married, which feels awful. The person who brings it up is usually a man, a man married to a woman who doesn’t
cook. I end up wishing I were a fat, terrible cook; that way my life would make sense to me. But my reasoning is faulty. Fat
people get married, and women who can’t cook get married to nice men who cook for them. In fact, both of my brothers do most
of the cooking for their wives, and they are quite talented. What I like most about cooking for the priests is that they never
ask me why I’m not married. I don’t ask them, either, but if I did, they would have canon law to explain their situation.
There’s nothing to explain me.

It can be lonely to be alone. But there is nothing that screams “loneliness” louder than takeout. I don’t want my dinner for
one brought to me by a man on a bike. I can’t stand waiting around for him to arrive. I’d rather be busy in the kitchen, not
sitting around waiting for the doorbell to be rung by a man with whom I have merely a business relationship worrying about
how much to tip. No, it is infinitely better to prepare your own food. I believe in a well-stocked pantry and the sense of
tranquillity that comes from a well-appointed domestic life, even if it’s only for me, as sad as that may sound.

Those who don’t cook think it’s too much trouble, especially if it’s just for one. If there is anything I want to convince
the world of, it is that this is not the case: Cooking is impossibly easy. Food that is prepared simply from a few fresh ingredients
is the food I like best. Like this spaghetti with arugula, which involves absolutely no work if you buy baby arugula that
is already washed and ready to go. I try to have some in my refrigerator at all times so I can throw together this wonderful
pasta at a moment’s notice.

Spaghetti with Arugula and Pine Nuts

(Adapted from Bon Appétit magazine)

2 to 3 ounces spaghetti (depending on how hungry you are)

1 tablespoon olive oil, plus a touch more for taste

2 heaping cups arugula (preferably prewashed baby arugula, for your sake; regular arugula is very dirty, and that’s more work
than you want to do right now)

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Freshly ground pepper

Salt

Freshly grated parmigiano, as much as you like

1 tablespoon pine nuts, toasted

Cook the pasta according to the directions
here
.

When the spaghetti is nearly cooked, heat the olive oil in a medium skillet over low heat, add arugula, and cook until just
wilted. When the spaghetti is done, drain and add it to the arugula. Add a touch of olive oil, lemon juice, and some pepper;
taste for salt, then remove from heat, add cheese and pine nuts, and serve.

Serves 1.

If you want to double this recipe and make it for a boyfriend, that’s your problem.

I will allow that there could be something in my DNA that makes cooking easy for me when it is not so for other people. Those
people, on the other hand, are probably gifted with a gene that makes men want to marry them, or at least ask them out on
a second date. In the past few years, even this has proven a feat akin to making a soufflé that never falls. Would I trade
with them? Probably.

While I’ve struggled with relationships, cooking has been a fairly consistent source of satisfaction. How to behave with men,
I just don’t have a feel for it. It doesn’t come naturally to me the way creating a perfect base for any sauce does. “And
then she never heard from him again,” is how I’d jokingly wrap up any report of a promising date, phone conversation, or e-mail
exchange. It was my defense, so that when it happened I would be protected by the fact that I expected it. I really didn’t
think I would never hear again. But date after date after witty banter and comic repartee, I didn’t. I was astounded by the
fact that I did not manage to arouse even the slightest curiosity in the criminal defense attorney, money manager, business
magazine writer, book editor, or pickle maker I went out with. (The pickler actually decided he’d had enough of me while the
date was still going on. He invited me back to his apartment to make me a salad. We sat on the couch and he fell asleep straight
away. No steam and, worse, no salad.)