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The Life-Changing Magic of Making Pasta Sauce
A recipe for self-expression.
I’ve often bristled at men who think a woman’s place is in the kitchen. I’m going to glaze over the cosmically sexist reductionism in that maxim, and approach the fallacy from an alternate angle: I think men who refuse to cook out of principle are sub-optimal, half-formed and blatantly obtuse. They’ve yet to experience the unadulterated satisfaction in synthesizing bliss from elemental flavors that, when assembled just so, combine to create magic.
I love to cook. I won’t go so far as to say I’m Michelin-star worthy — I’m a chef in the same way I’d classify myself as a runner (as in, I run a lot, very slowly, but more miles in more long-distance races than 99% of Americans as of this writing) but I know my way around a kitchen, so long as that kitchen is mine. I have a wall-mounted spice rack with hand-labeled Ball jars containing everything from saffron (culinary cocaine) to garam masala (culinary heroin) to THC-infused olive oil (actual culinary weed). I add those things to proteins, greens, nuts, seeds and starches to create alchemy. It’s zen. It’s fulfilling. It’s perfect.
In what has to be the worst-kept secret on the Internet, I am a second-generation American, and a plurality Italian (along with drawing roots from the rest of the countries around the…
