When the sky is falling, I cook. When all else fails, and life is reduced to a scrap, an empty book of matches, a thin shadow of what I thought it was supposed to be, I pull mixing bowls from the closets. A pinch of yeast, warm water and flour are stirred into a paste and left overnight. The magic happens when everyone is sleeping.
In the morning it is a sticky and fragrant. Somehow it smells like the ocean. More flour, more warm water and it becomes a taught dough that clings to every pore of my skin. All you have to do is let it rest. There are such lessons in cooking. To listen for a certain sizzle, when to let things breathe, when to slap them down hard, how to cut against the grain, how to separate muscle from sinew, skin from bone. And then a slurry of more yeast, water and finally some salt. It comes together in a wet mess, some grown-up playdough that I squeeze and fold, twist and swirl. Eventually it grows taught and smooth. It will rest once again, get folded again. Rolled out and layered as this simple paste becomes strong, as it matures hour by hour until I cut it into two loaves and cook it on a stone with the oven cranked up as hot as it will go. A pan of water is tucked into the bottom to create steam, and with any luck a good crust.
The loaves sit on the kitchen table, like peace prizes as the world crumbles.
Later, I make sauce. If you are Italian-American you might call it gravy (not that I have a drop of Italian blood in my veins). We all have our recipe, our catch-phrase and it really does not matter what we call it, just that we make it. Of all days, today is Sunday and I am accidentally making Sunday gravy without even knowing it. As the kitchen steams up, I think about that question people like to ask - are you Jewish? Are you Christian? Are you a Buddhist? And then that long, slow pause as you chew on the prepared answer you keep handy, but maybe today you’ll speak differently. You might be surrounded by atheists and agnostics. You might be surrounded by people that pray with crystals pressed tight in their hands. Today, I answer this question with a smirk, and say that a good bowl of pasta is what I believe in more than anything else in the world. The making of it, the humble purpose, the wish to sit at a table with family and friends and spoon into it, chewing on a museum of garlic and olive oil. What is more noble than nourishment? I could easily say that a bowl of pasta saved my life more times than reciting lines from an old book written by clerics. Cooking gives us a real purpose. It is an expression of love, and care. What better way to describe religion?
There is an old Russian saying, that when the cook is in love they over-salt the food.
I slice a heel from one of the fresh loaves of ciabatta, and dunk it in the sauce. Chewing on it, soft and sweet and almost too hot for my tongue I understand the bread is just a bit too salty.
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