Spaghetti Carbonara
So, for people who know me, know some things about me:
I don’t talk to people before having my first coffee (or caffeine in some form)
I love Harry Potter
Tequila is my celebratory drink of choice
People who know my culinary preferences would also know, I only like red sauce pasta. I mean, I’d try that mushroom truffle pasta thing you ordered but I don’t really like it. If I were to be honest: white sauce never really stood out to me as special. It would be a good dip suuuuure but not something that becomes the sauce you base an entire recipe on. OK, now that I have offended at least half the world, let me get back to my story.
(Before you assume, it doesn’t end with me liking white sauce pasta or finding the one true meaning)
I’ve been in Almería for a couple of days now and not much had happened as of Friday afternoon. I had joined a gym, gone to a few restaurants, made the same old omelette unsuccessfully twice and then something changed.
It was FRIDAY.
I had had a few beers the night before and I didn’t wake up hungover but I did wake up happy. I started work early: attended a few meetings and was looking forward to a quiet day when it occurred to me I didn’t want to eat omelette again. I did have eggs, olive oil and Spanish cured meat.
Then, it came to me: Spaghetti Carbonara.
Now, it doesn’t sound dramatic but it was:
I’ve never made carbonara before. Forget make, I’ve never had carbonara. Not even tasted. I’ve seen carbonara of course; it’s another white sauce pasta. I know it has meat and I know it has egg.
Spaghetti is probably my least favourite form of pasta.
Not that it is by any chance relevant at this point to the story but I stopped making pasta when I went low carb about 2 years ago.
So, you can understand how dramatic a moment for me it was. Not only was I going to make pasta, I was going to make pasta I’d never had or made before. HOW EXCITING!
I bought spaghetti but trying to be healthy I decided to choose semolina (all carbs are evil but maybe not equally). Anyhow, all the ingredients at hand: I set to work. I don’t have much to say about the process except that I enjoyed it. I used cured meat (Iberico ham) instead of pancetta which would’ve been the recommended choice. I sort of halved it a two person Jamie Oliver recipe. When it was done, I tasted it.
…
If you are still reading this really long winded tale that should’ve been this sentence: I made Spaghetti Carbonara; then you’re possibly wondering how it tasted.
Well, to be honest it is a hard question to answer. It was alright I guess. I am not a great cook anymore so I can’t claim that it was delicious. The pasta was overcooked, the sauce wasn’t saucy enough and the meat wasn’t exactly right. I was proud and liked the fact that it was new (in both flavour and experience). I couldn’t have expectation because I didn’t know what it was.
I suppose that’s what I have been trying to express and find out in my time away of wandering around. I don’t know what this means, I may not ever know. I don’t know if I will be the same person in 6 months, maybe I will be and feel disappointed.
I do what feels right now. Today. This moment.
The rest of it is just going to have to wait. I am not meditating if I don’t want to. Friday night, I went out to the beach and watched the stars. I doubt I will see Milky Way from Almería’s beach but I knew it was there which is sort of comforting.
Maybe there is free will after all. I had managed to make my way to Almerían soil to watch the stars. Maybe, the universe has nothing to offer except wonder. Maybe, with free will you know that someone chose or didn’t choose you. It can be both a depressing and uplifting thought. It just struck me even though this is probably obvious to every one else.
All life is choice. The ones we make, the ones we choose not to make and the ones that are made for us.
“Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.” - F Scott Fitzgerald