Three Things for Early March

Finding themes, Finishing, and Carbonara

Having fun in Scotland!

It’s rainy here in NYC! Perfect weather for reading and writing and knitting and cooking at home!

What I’m Writing…

Lots! But I can’t share any of it with you yet! I’m working on four essays on topics near and dear to me that I’ll post links to when they’re finished and published.

And I’m halfway through a first draft of a new novel, tentatively titled The Project. A few weeks ago I hit a snag. Something was missing. Why is the protagonist on this particular mission? My immediate thought was: she needs to save her child’s life.

You see, no matter what I write, it seems to always return to the same theme. As many of you know, in April 2002, my five-year-old daughter Grace died suddenly of a virulent form of strep. Ever since, I’ve been struggling to understand such enormous grief through my writing, including in my memoir, Comfort: A Journey Through Grief.

When I was a kid, I read to escape my every day life and I wrote to understand the world around me. I guess I’m still doing that. I keep the promise I made when I was 10 to read a book a week, and the hours I lose myself in books are magical. (For my bimonthly book recommendations, you can sign up for my husband’s newsletter where I post them). And I am still writing to understand what happened on that warm April day and how it affected us all.

I once heard the writer Tim O’Brien say that a good writer writes about A and then A and then A, trying to get it right.

Will my protagonist in this new novel be trying to save her child’s life? Probably. I’m still trying to get it right.

What I’m knitting…

Like most knitters, I always have more than one project on my needles. Usually one of them is portable so I can bring it when I travel, and the other is either more complicated and requires concentration or it’s too big to stuff into a Zip Lock bag.

This week I finished both!

Remember the orange hat I had to tink?

And the gorgeous fuchsia scarf?

And look who else finished! Here’s the 7th dishrag.

So now it’s time to start this big project—the Crowberry sweater from MDK Field Guide No. 26, Moss. I’m terrified and excited!

What I’m thinking about…

Carbonara!

Anyone with grown up kids knows the joy of them coming home, even if it’s for only one night. So when my son Sam said he and his pal needed to stay at my loft in Providence for an early morning meeting in Boston, I was delighted because I am in Providence that whole week for my grown up daughter Annabelle’s spring break. Both kids at home for a night? The heart soars.

“What do you want for dinner?” I asked Sam. “Carbonara,” he said without hesitating.

“What do you want for dinner?” I asked Annabelle.

“Carbonara,” she said.

Carbonara is my go to dish and clearly my family’s favorite. Pasta plus 3 ingredients: bacon, eggs, and Parmesan. Ingredients I always have on hand, and a dinner that takes about twenty minutes to make.

The first time I had it was in Rome on a layover when I was a flight attendant for TWA. Coming from a red sauce Southern Italian American family, I’d never had spaghetti that wasn’t drowning in marinara and didn’t have a side of meatballs. That dinner was transformative.

I spent months trying to recreate it at home, failing every time by making the mistakes people still make—garlic, cream, even mushrooms once. But I finally figured it out and my recipe is below. The full story of my carbonara discovery in Rome and more food essays and recipes is in my book Kitchen Yarns: Notes on Love, Life, and Food. Enjoy!

Ann’s Carbonara:

Cook one pound of spaghetti or your favorite shaped pasta al dente.

While it’s cooking, sauté 1 pound of chopped thick cut bacon until crisp. If you can find guanciale, a perfect combo is 1/2 pound of bacon and 1/2 pound guanciale. I’m not a fan of pancetta in this dish.

Beat the same number of eggs as people eating. So Monday I’ll be beating 4 eggs. Leave an extra egg out in case the sauce is a bit dry.

Have a cup of Parmesan ready.

When pasta is done, drain it and add to the pan with the bacon, tossing. Add the eggs and toss quickly so they don’t scramble. Then add the cheese, tossing some more. Add the extra egg if sauce isn’t creamy

Dump it all into a pretty bowl and serve with more Parmesan on the side and good black pepper. Traditionally the pepper goes into the dish, but my kids didn’t like it so I still have it on the side.

And also…

My husband and I met at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference in August of 1988.

Here we are at Bread Loaf almost thirty years after that first meeting!

Well, sort of. He says he called out to me and when I turned around I asked him what he wanted to write. “Fiction,” he said. “You will!” I said. And walked away. I have no memory of this meeting. But, after many successful years writing nonfiction, he did write fiction! Michael’s YA novel If You Can't take the Heat is out in June. Preorder available now.