{"id":16368,"date":"2020-01-01T09:00:20","date_gmt":"2020-01-01T14:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sasee.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=16368"},"modified":"2024-03-26T15:08:46","modified_gmt":"2024-03-26T19:08:46","slug":"beyond-spaghetti","status":"publish","type":"essay","link":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/essay\/beyond-spaghetti\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond Spaghetti"},"content":{"rendered":"

I asked my mother why she broke the spaghetti. I expected some culinary explanation that had evolved from years of experience in home cooking.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n

I was cleaning my home office for at least the fifth time in a month. How easily my desk became cluttered with old files. The pattern on the carpet never had a chance to fade because it was perpetually shielded from sunlight by a coating of papers I looked at it time and again but never quite determined what to do about. And each time I set out to clear it all away, I had the same thought: Why did I let it get this way? Again?<\/p>\n

I seemed to be stuck, doing the same things over and over. When I thought I couldn\u2019t get out of the annoying syndrome, I suddenly remembered my mother\u2019s spaghetti.<\/p>\n

My mother always bought boxed spaghetti. She took out the stiff spaghetti strands and broke them in half and then slid them into the boiling water in her favorite pot. I never knew any other way to cook it so when I married, I made spaghetti the same way. That was how a person cooked spaghetti, wasn\u2019t it? But I noticed that when I ate in an Italian restaurant, the pasta was long and could be twirled around a fork. I asked my mother why she broke the spaghetti. I expected some culinary explanation that had evolved from years of experience in home cooking. She said she did it so it would fit in the pot!<\/p>\n

It was such a startling, simple answer that I began questioning my taken-for-granted kitchen activities. I had a larger pot was it necessary for me to continue breaking my spaghetti or even using dried pasta at all? I liked the texture and flavor of the homemade pasta the restaurants served so why didn\u2019t I buy that kind instead?<\/p>\n

I was soon thinking of a bunch of new ways to cook. Did fresh herbs taste better than dried? Could I substitute ingredients in a recipe and still make it taste good? What would happen to a cake if I changed the size of the baking pan? Would a cold version of a favorite soup be as good as its usual hot presentation?<\/p>\n

The awareness of being free to experiment with food opened up a part of me that could allow me to rethink whatever I was doing. Perhaps now I could bring that flexibility into all of my daily activities.<\/p>\n

So I stopped berating myself for being messy and started doing things differently. Instead of trying to do everything at once, I began\u00a0putting away one thing at a time. Before I knew it, my office looked neat and it was easy to find what I needed without going through a slew of unrelated papers. That led to my wondering how I could organize my pantry so I wouldn\u2019t have to sift through every box looking for the one I needed. And doing laundry became a way to cleanse my spirit, as well as my clothes, when I was feeling overwhelmed.<\/p>\n

I decided to celebrate. One day I invited some friends over for lunch. We sat and chatted and when it was time to serve the meal, I presented a dish of long strands of spaghetti coated with (no, not tomato sauce) chickpeas and artichoke antipasto with a generous sprinkling\u00a0of cheddar cheese. It wasn\u2019t traditional, to be sure, but everyone loved it.<\/p>\n

I silently toasted Mom with my iced tea, a drink she would never have chosen over her beloved coffee, and thanked her for helping me see beyond spaghetti.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I asked my mother why she broke the spaghetti. I expected some culinary explanation that had evolved from years of experience in home cooking. I was cleaning my home office […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":21562,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_tec_requires_first_save":true,"_gspb_post_css":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","footnotes":""},"essay_type":[46],"essay-category":[93],"class_list":["post-16368","essay","type-essay","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","essay_type-features","essay-category-food-drink"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay\/16368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/essay"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay\/16368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"essay_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay_type?post=16368"},{"taxonomy":"essay-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay-category?post=16368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}