Half Life – 15 – spag bol
February 5th 2021
The secret of the perfect spag bol is to make no attempt to be like any dish you would find in Italy. Abandon all ambitions to mimic a regional meat ragu of the type that makes you feel inferior when watching ‘Jamie Olive Oil does Italy well proper’. A Mediterranean equivalent of Chicken Tikka Masala, this unashamedly British creation, mixed with pasta of any shape you feel like or happen to have, might once have had a connection to warm seas and sunshine, but now it’s a well establish children filler made by the vat-load. Any limit on the number of times you want to eat it is acquired with age. It can be served to The Boys three days in the same week and is consumed with simple, t-shirt spotting, contentment every time.
Making a spag bol when you walk like a slightly drunken pirate with a wooden leg five inches shorter than the other one takes planning. Each item is assembled in an order based on where they are in the kitchen, well before any knife-wielding or tin opening can begin. One at a time, they make a many-stepped journey to the table or work surface, whichever is nearer, then they enjoy a bit of sliding along until they get to a point where they can be transported over to my favourite cooking point near the toaster. Happy chopping, frying, and stirring is punctuated with pauses and breaks to sit and allow the lone operational leg to recover from doing the work of two, and for energy levels to creep back up. Sometimes, this requires a small sip of restorative wine to be diverted from the cooking to the cook.
Cancer doesn’t just munch on cells and bone, it devours time, purpose and meaning. It’s not just the time spent getting to and from hospital, being treated, waiting to be treated, and getting home again, but the deep exhaustion it brings together with the sense of uselessness it adds to the mix. Getting up and having a shower can, on bad days, be a fight against the ease of slipping back onto the pillow. Guilt at not being able to do the things you used to be able to do combines with the deep fatigue. Changing light bulbs, fixing squeaking door hinges, hanging pictures, taking out the rubbish, or helping re-arrange the spare room all become nearly impossible. I can’t even prance around the house with the hoover singing ‘I want to break free’ the way I used to. Real, paid, work, in the normal sense, drained away years ago as the pain and the drugs cut concentration times pitifully short. Endless lists line up like the ingredients for each day, compensating for a morphine-muddied memory. The sense of purpose, and engagement with the world, evaporated and the world of work transformed into stories, told to an attentive JJ the dog, of what I used to do.
One of the few gifts bestowed by Covid is the ability of the four of us to have dinner together every evening. Breakfasts and lunches are chaotic, staggered, affairs, fitting themselves around on-line meetings, logging on for school, and rushed morning routines, but dinner has firmly planted itself at the end of the day as a time we get together without a screen in sight. Cooking for our ritual gathering, even endless pots of spag bol, has become a moment of purpose, of being able to do something useful, if only in a minor way. The internet trawling, seeking inspiration for food which won’t exceed my modest chef skills, is a daily pleasure often done first thing in the morning when still in bed with a cup of coffee. Not all experiments have worked. Pork chops in marmalade was a notable failure and a vegetarian curry, through a calamitous misjudgement on the strength of dried chillies, reduced dinner to a rice only event with boiled eggs following as quickly as I could produce them. Our adventures in food have taken us around parts of Europe, India, South East Asia, Australia, central America, and the USA. The Boys may not be able see the world at the moment, but they have been tasting it. They listen patiently to the food stimulated memories The Wife and I indulge in; the travellers’ tales becoming bearable as long as they can eat while we reminisce. Even the much-repeated reasons why they will never find spag bol in Bologna in Northern Italy gets knowing nods as tomato sauce fixes itself around their mouths and pebbledashes the table.
The time-thief nibbling away at my bones never fails to remind me of his presence after dinner. Energy levels depleted, I slump into a favourite chair in the living room, tired but contented as long as the evening’s creation has not ended up in the recycling bin. A sense of purpose momentarily restored, listening to the clatter and chat in the kitchen through half closed eyes, I sip the remains of my dinnertime wine. Small victories have replaced grand plans, horizons have shifted to weeks or months rather than years ahead, and success is measured differently. On a good day, Younger Boy comes in to see me in my chair holding the wine bottle and, with his sommelier training going well, tops up the glass.
Just spotted a typo...sorry everyone. I had to speed check this morning and missed it.
My question is, did you wear a French Maid's outfit when you hoovered while belting out "I Want to Break Free"?! What a fabulous visual, my friend 🤣 And yes, I echo every single comment on both the beauty and heartbreaking candor of your writing—as I have said to you before, PLEASE EXPLORE GETTING THEM PUBLISHED!! They are helping all of us; there is a much wider audience they could benefit as well...please think about it... xoxo