Eggplant sauce of my dreams / What is a newsletter and why?
Dear friend,
Dare I say that I hope this finds you well, despite the internet repeatedly telling us that the way the email finds us all is cowering in fear of said email? Yet in this increasingly befuddling time of our lives, I can’t help but cling even more to sincerity. And so, yes, I do sincerely hope that this find you well.
There are a few important things that are different in my life now than the last time I wrote to you. I now live in a different neighborhood, so my evening walks have been new and interesting (remember when I used to talk about walks?).
My absence, at first, was unintentional. I wanted a week or so to focus on life events like moving and clawing my way out of a depressive episode that threatened to swallow me whole. Unsurprisingly, the latter took considerably longer than I hoped and with the distance came the usual questioning of what this thing even is. What it is that I am attempting to do here.
You and I both know about the insatiable beast that demands content from every and any person that has ever hoped to do anything creative in their lives. You have a book or an article in you? Well, you better get on twitter and start a newsletter and build your audience! Editors won’t see you unless you’re churning out content and growing an audience. You might as well not even bother to send anything in unless you know someone or you’ve connected online. What do you mean you need time to actually sit down and think and maybe even write the actual book that’s simmering inside of you? what about the marketing? who will read this book if you don’t first build the audience brick by tweet by newsletter by IG by ???
Anyway.
I didn’t start Take Your Time because I wanted to build anything other than a place where I can write. Because, unfortunately for me, writing is a necessary activity in my life. I thought I could start this thing, write some essays here and there about things that interest me, and then go about my business. A couple of weeks ago I got an email from someone who wanted to know what I intended to “do” with this newsletter. Do I have any goals? Something I’m working on? And I kind of felt like an idiot because here I am, misusing this platform to indulge my ridiculous need to express myself, to share the thoughts that come to me when I’m out on my walks so I’m not just thinking and simmering alone. That’s all I’m doing here. I’m talking about my thoughts and feelings. I don’t want to convince you of anything, unless it is to remind you of your own precious humanity and thereby ask you to respect mine. Does that mean that this is pointless? Because I have no calls to action and no agenda beyond expression? Does every piece of writing need to be trying to convince you of something? To have a take? Does everything have to “provide value” so it’s worth your precious attention or can you just read something for the sake of reading? Can we have an exchange of ideas for the sake of just expressing ourselves?
I don’t know but I hope so. I’m so tired of takes. I’m tired of art forms having to function as content because apparently everything is content now and the people who wish to create art are creating content. I feel sadness for the writers I know and those I watch from afar swimming in this endless soup of algorithm worship: create the content that captures attention so that the machine that sells that attention to advertisers can reward you by growing your influence so you can create the content that captures attention so that the machine…
I am by no means in this soup, and I’m certainly not creating any art, but I know it’s there and sometimes I feel the steam from it because I know that if I ever want to write, I better suit up and dive in.
The point of this is to tell you that I’ve figured out a few things about what I’m “doing,” here. No matter how often I complain about the internet, I enjoy having this space and I’m proud of myself for having created it for myself; a place where there are no word counts or editors or worrying about rates or rejection. Most importantly, this newsletter is a powerful weapon in my battle against my inner bully, the most dedicated and loudest voice committed to keeping me from sharing anything I write. When I hit “publish” on my very first letter, that bully took a blow that wounds it to this day and this is an invaluable gift to myself. So here’s what you can expect from this newsletter, going forward:
I will write to you when I have something to say.
Personal or cultural essays, not “life updates.” (honestly, who cares?)
Recipes or something about food because that’s a driving force in my life and because we all have to eat.
Speaking of which:
Something to cook
A few days ago, a friend came over and I had no idea what to cook for us so I looked into the two places where most of my dishes begin: the vegetable crisper and the pasta drawer. Among the usual staples in my home (to be listed shortly), I found an eggplant, a red bell pepper and half a bag of bucatini. The rest, my dear, is a beautiful symphony.
Ingredients:
One beautiful eggplant, chopped into medium pieces. It’s cooking down to nothing so it really doesn’t matter what size or shape.
One whole red pepper (or a handful of those mini sweet ones), diced. Keep the seeds, don’t keep the seeds; I simply do not care.
Half an onion, diced
Three cloves of garlic, diced
Olive oil
Lemon (to be juiced. Please endeavor to use an actual lemon and not one of those pre-juiced things).
Spices: a tablespoon of smoked paprika, freshly ground black pepper and salt to taste.
Pasta of your choice.
Alternatively, this sauce can be spread on anything, including toast (as I did the next day) and used to simmer some sort of protein (as I did two days later with some cod)
Method:
On medium low heat, coat the bottom of a large pan with a very generous amount of olive oil. Add the chopped eggplant, salt, and saute moving the eggplant around once every few minutes (just to ensure that all pieces are coated in the oil and salt).
When eggplant begins to soften and give off some of its water, add the red pepper, onion, paprika and more olive oil. Stir to combine everything, cover, and let simmer for about 15 minutes on low heat. This is when the flavor develops so low and slow is what you need.
Add the garlic and a little more black pepper. Everything should be saucy now. stir to combine and encourage the eggplant to disintegrate. Cover and let simmer on low for another 15-20 minutes.
If you’re using this as pasta sauce, prepare your pasta now and - as usual - preserve the pasta cooking water. Once pasta is ready, remove about half of your eggplant sauce from the pan and set it aside. Add the pasta directly into the pan, and use little drops of the pasta water to emulsify and glossify everything. This is a magical time.
Just before serving, hit it with the juice of the lemon (the entire lemon) and a little drizzle of olive oil, of course. A few leaves of fresh Italian parsley would not hurt at all.
I hope you make it, and I hope you enjoy it, and yes, damn it I hope you are well.