Our true life adventures...
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Happy Hour
One of the things Leslie told me I needed to do while we were in the hospital together, knowing the end was coming, was, "make friends." I rarely went out even before Leslie was sick. I preferred time with the family to time away. I still do. But now I feel like I need to be social with people. Let them in. Back then I didn't need friends. I had Leslie. She was always enough socialization for me. Now...
I went to a Happy Hour with work people a month or more ago. First time I've done it in years. Literally years. At some point during the happy hour a girl, new to the company, was talking to me. We had been talking about her husband and their dogs. She pointed across the table to my ring and said, "I see you're married." Asked me about it.
I had known it was coming. Had pictured that moment in my mind. I didn't know it would be that night. I thought about what I'd say. How do you tell someone who has no idea that your wife recently died? How do you do it in a way that doesn't make them feel like a total asshole? I didn't let myself come up with an answer though, mentally changed the subject until just then, that night, and she popped that cherry and I found myself completely unprepared.
Everything now seems so pregnant with meaning. I'm no longer officially married, but I wear a ring. When do you take off your wedding ring? Everyone tells me, "When it feels right." It doesn't feel right. But I can't help thinking about it. When will it feel "right"? That answer seems too simple. It will never feel right, because the minute I think it feels right I will also feel like I'm betraying her. Betraying us. Facebook rolled out this new profile video thing, and I was like..."oooh, cool!" and before I could think about it, I took this stupid little 10 second video and it replaced my profile picture. And a minute later I was like..."Shit! That just changed it from the picture of Leslie and I!" I used to change my profile picture relatively frequently. Now I can't do it without second-guessing what messages people will glean from it.
I took my ring off a couple nights ago and massaged my ring finger like she used to, and it made me think about this. Then I slid it back on. Maybe it will feel right someday. Maybe everyone is right. Whether they are or aren't...today is not that day. But maybe I'll know when it is.
"Uhhh," I said, unhelpfully, looking down at my ring, twisting it nervously, "It's sort of weird situation." It was a horrible non-answer. I wanted to deflect the question, make it disappear, but my answer just invited curiosity. She guessed wrong and congratulated me for getting out of a bad relationship. I let out a long breath and said, more or less, "It's not that. My wife passed away a few months ago." And into the shocked inhalation and near comical gesture, her hand going to her mouth, immediate apology on her lips, mortification evident, I quickly said, "You had no way of knowing. It's weird. I have this ring, and it's obvious from the ring that I'm married, anyone would think it, and it's just that I'm not ready to take it off yet." Words tumbled out quickly, I tried my best to make her feel better. It wasn't her fault.
Next to me was a woman who had lost her husband perhaps a decade before. She pointed to her right hand and said, "I still wear mine. I just moved it to my other hand." More apologies followed. The night was ending anyway. I'd had my beer. Had my second. Paid the tab. I was leaving anyway...but what a way to end it.
So...I'm making friends. Sort of.
I miss just rolling out of bed and having a friend to talk to. Not just anyone, obviously, I mean, I miss Leslie in particular. But I mean, when you get married, assuming you get along as well as Leslie and I did, you always have adult conversation. You always have company. I miss Leslie specifically , but I miss company in general, and conversation, even arguments. I don't want to make it sound pathetic, because I think somehow it always sounds pathetic when people say it, but I get lonely at times. Not cripplingly lonely, it's not a cry for help, or an open invitation to drop by (I don't love that), but just missing the mundane day-to-day feeling of being around people I enjoy. The banter. Even the small talk. It's out there for me all the time via social media or whatever, but in person is so much harder.
I've gone to a local microbrewery a couple times with a couple different friends. I'm realizing that "making friends" or even maintaining existing friendships requires a bit of work. I'd love to just "go out" to grab a beer or two and come home, but I have to schedule it, line up a babysitter, that kind of thing. It's one thing to talk to a friend about "grabbing a beer" and then a whole new thing to actually execute that plan.
I went to meet some "internet friends" recently. It was fun, but even that wasn't without its strangenesses, since most of my internet friends are female, and I worry what Emma will think. When I say I'm going to meet a friend from out of town and use the "she" pronoun, I immediately worry what she'll think. We went to dinner and had drinks, and the idea of getting Uber or a taxi or something exhausted me as I then tried to figure out...how will I get my car back? So I stopped drinking. I got "lost" on the way home (phone gps wasn't updating as quickly as I needed it to) and ended getting home about 30 minutes late. I ended up paying the sitter for 8 hours, and then thought...oh my god, has it really been eight hours?? But I left at 4:30 and I didn't get in until 12:30. I paid her for an actual eight hour work day... THAT shit will get expensive.
And then I think...I had fun, I'd love to do it again, but think...Emma...money...get a sitter...and then think, "I'll give it some time." Anyway...I started writing this post weeks ago. The day after the happy hour, actually, and then forgot I started it. Then I wrote a post for Healthline (which was sweet because I actually got paid for it) here: http://www.healthline.com/health/parenting/explaining-death-to-children, and one for Glade Run (which was sweet because I got etc etc) here: http://gladerun.org/blog/2015/10/06/you-should-have-written-this-post/. But I think I'll write about the day we got married next.
I can always go back in time and write about the stuff that we did before we were 'legit' another time, but we've been watching the video of our wedding a lot lately (Lily calls it "Mommy Video") and so it's pretty fresh in my mind.
Thursday, September 3, 2015
Memories and Gentle Wind
I am lying in bed with Lily. Her eyes are heavy-lidded, drooping. Her face is turned away toward the wall but I can see her eyes, still open, dreamily gazing toward her nightlight between languid blinks. I am holding her hand with one of mine. With the other, I am tracing a slow gentle arc from her cheek, over, around and behind her ear, across her hair, sleek and smelling of flowers from her bath, four fingers smoothing it back from her face and sweeping it over her ear. Slowly. Over and over. She is very still. I look at the clock. It is 8:45.
My mind wanders as I perform this nightly ritual. It wanders back to the first time I ever did it, lying in bed with Leslie, as she told me how her grandmother used to run her fingers through her hair in just that same way to calm her. To put her to sleep. She shows me on my hair. It feels nice. It feels soft and gentle with the faintest hint of a tickle, but not an uncomfortable one. Like a sort of faint electric thrill at the nerve endings. It makes me want to purr like a cat.
Virtually every night for twenty years I smoothed Leslie's hair back over her ear. She was always early-to-bed. I was always a night owl. Before I ran or read, watched TV, played video games, surfed the net or wrote into the wee hours of the morning, I first would put Leslie to sleep. Through the years that slow gentle arc over her ear morphed into back scratches, foot rubs, calf rubs, head rubs, or finger massages, but they all started with that first slow gentle smoothing of the hair from her face. We called it her rubby-rub. In the morning she'd wake me up with the same. A back rub or scratch, a head massage...it woke me up. It put her to sleep. We limited it to ten minutes each to save on muscle strain. It was always over too soon for me, the waking one. She rarely maintained consciousness long enough to feel me finish my ten minutes.
Sometimes she'd take my wedding ring off and rub the finger under the ring. It felt so good. Who knew how good a simple finger rub could feel. She'd pull the ring off clumsily. It wouldn't budge, tight against the knuckle. She'd yank it until I'd yelp then she'd get frustrated and give up, so I'd pull it off for her, twisting it as I pulled.
Sometimes I think about how it shouldn't be any different, me being downstairs alone with the kids while Leslie was upstairs resting in bed, or me being downstairs with the kids with Leslie passed on. But it is. Of course it is. It's just the knowing. Observing something changes it. If I didn't know that Leslie was gone would I still be as sad?
Sometimes at work, my mind trips over the phone call. The nightly call home. "Hey honey, taking off now. See you in about 45 minutes." The habit is there. I never actually start to make the call, but the urge to reach for the phone and call her still exist, deeply ingrained after years of repetition. Sometimes I briefly imagine she's there. If I don't call her, I never feel the gut punch confirmation of someone else answering the phone. It will never be her again. But I can toy with the idea of her being there, and me just not calling. Observing something changes it.
I once wrote a fictional short story around the premise of Schrodinger's Cat. The idea that you cannot know whether the cat is alive or dead until you open the box to observe it. It lives as a probability, no matter how minute, until it is observed to have died. It wasn't about Leslie. When I wrote it in 2011, Leslie was "cured". In remission. Our worries were behind us. Instead, it was inspired by true events, earlier that week Leslie had gotten an email that a coworker's mother had died, followed by another email that she was not dead, followed by another that she was. Apparently there were three sons, and they had sent word of the woman's passing before the third son knew about it. . . attempted to retract it until he could be told. . . then sent it again once he was notified. She'd died, they just didn't want him to learn in QUITE such a shitty way. In my story, the "hero" gets a phone call that his girlfriend has died only to find out that it's a false alarm. It is implied in the story that the girl dies shortly after the first call. Certainly she is expected to, and when the phone rings a second time, the man doesn't answer it. He packs all his belongings and leaves, taking only her picture with him. If the box isn't opened, you can never be certain the cat died. Its life continues as a probability. So he leaves, loses himself in another city, another country, another culture. Never calls never writes, never learns whether she dies and allows himself to believe that if there is a probability that she is alive, then she will always be alive. At least for him. He saves her life by never observing her death. I loved the idea of it. It seemed sweet and haunting but it wasn't great the way I wrote it out then. It would probably be better now that death has touched me and grief and I are better acquainted. Write about what you know...right?
Anyway, I think of that sometimes. What's the difference? When Leslie was alive and I didn't see her, I always knew she was upstairs. She existed as a probability in that upstairs bedroom. A strong probability. We weren't talking. I couldn't see her, but I always knew I could visit her at any moment. I always knew I could run upstairs, give her a kiss and an update on the kids, then run back downstairs before Lily grabbed something fragile. But she wasn't with us. She wasn't being 'observed'. I wish I could make my peace with the idea of this unobserved 'better' place beyond where Leslie is...and that place is really no different than when she lay upstairs in bed...a different plane, a higher existence, but still at the heart of it...just "upstairs". Just like always. And nothing is different about the scenarios. But everything is different. Uncertainty is a sort of questionable deathlessness. But observing something changes it. And this isn't an invitation to anyone to tell me, "But Jim it IS just like Leslie is upstairs, you can still talk to her, you can still see her if you close your eyes and think about her" or whatever. I know. I know.
When we told Lily that Leslie was dying, we told her that she was going to live in heaven but that she'd always be with her in her heart, and that if she needed to see her, she just had to close her eyes and remember and Leslie would be there. That's an immortality of sorts. Not a Shrodinger's cat kind. Not a probability. But a handprint left on the soul of someone who loved her. Who loves her still. A spark of recollection. An image of a face. A remembrance of soft words whispered nightly by a mother who loves you.
And nobody ever is really gone even if you are sitting with her holding her hand as her breath stills and her pulse fades, as it was with Leslie, so near imperceptible that I didn't even feel it go until I questioned it. Felt for the pulse. Watched her breathing. It was slow and peaceful, subtle and silent. Observed. Changed. But everything she touched and everything she observed remained behind, changed by HER observing. Like the wind. You don't see it, but you observe it bend branches, and watch the leaves it stirs on the ground. You can't see it, but it's real. It is alive. It exists. Leslie is still with us. The gentle wind.
With Emma, I always tell her to listen to her mother's voice. It's still there. We know what Leslie would say. We know her council. We listened to it for years. I can play it out in my mind...that's Leslie. That's what she would say. We know whether she'd approve or disapprove. I can hear her voice saying the words. Those memories, the way she changed me, the way she help shaped the kids, that's Leslie. That is Leslie alive and walking. A gentle wind bending the branches of our lives.
And so tonight in bed with Lily I'm thinking about these memories that keep Leslie alive and in our lives. Not the funny stories. Not the anecdotes. But the things that she changed by observing them. The things she shaped and developed. The branches she bent and bends still. The leaves she stirred and stirs still. Our kids. My parenting. The presence of her moral compass. And I'm thinking too about this life-preserving passing on of traditions, because here I lie in bed with my daughter, stroking her hair the way her great grandmother, a woman who died before I ever met Leslie, once stroked Leslie's hair. And Leslie now gone too. And yet I trace tiny arcs over Lily's ears. And WHY do I do that? Because a woman I never met once left an undying imprint on a little girl who grew to be the woman I married. Who herself grew to be the mother Lily knew. Who stroked her hair. Who stroked my own. Who imprinted me. And I pass it to the girls.
I wonder who once stroked Leslie's grandmother's hair. Where did it start? I'm stroking Lily's hair and I'm thinking about how Leslie's grandmother is alive in this gesture. I'm thinking about how Leslie is alive in this gesture. And I see my daughter's eyes are closed. And she is sleeping. I look at the clock and it is 8:51. Six minutes it took to put her to sleep. It was the same with Leslie.
My mind wanders as I perform this nightly ritual. It wanders back to the first time I ever did it, lying in bed with Leslie, as she told me how her grandmother used to run her fingers through her hair in just that same way to calm her. To put her to sleep. She shows me on my hair. It feels nice. It feels soft and gentle with the faintest hint of a tickle, but not an uncomfortable one. Like a sort of faint electric thrill at the nerve endings. It makes me want to purr like a cat.
Virtually every night for twenty years I smoothed Leslie's hair back over her ear. She was always early-to-bed. I was always a night owl. Before I ran or read, watched TV, played video games, surfed the net or wrote into the wee hours of the morning, I first would put Leslie to sleep. Through the years that slow gentle arc over her ear morphed into back scratches, foot rubs, calf rubs, head rubs, or finger massages, but they all started with that first slow gentle smoothing of the hair from her face. We called it her rubby-rub. In the morning she'd wake me up with the same. A back rub or scratch, a head massage...it woke me up. It put her to sleep. We limited it to ten minutes each to save on muscle strain. It was always over too soon for me, the waking one. She rarely maintained consciousness long enough to feel me finish my ten minutes.
Sometimes she'd take my wedding ring off and rub the finger under the ring. It felt so good. Who knew how good a simple finger rub could feel. She'd pull the ring off clumsily. It wouldn't budge, tight against the knuckle. She'd yank it until I'd yelp then she'd get frustrated and give up, so I'd pull it off for her, twisting it as I pulled.
Sometimes I think about how it shouldn't be any different, me being downstairs alone with the kids while Leslie was upstairs resting in bed, or me being downstairs with the kids with Leslie passed on. But it is. Of course it is. It's just the knowing. Observing something changes it. If I didn't know that Leslie was gone would I still be as sad?
Sometimes at work, my mind trips over the phone call. The nightly call home. "Hey honey, taking off now. See you in about 45 minutes." The habit is there. I never actually start to make the call, but the urge to reach for the phone and call her still exist, deeply ingrained after years of repetition. Sometimes I briefly imagine she's there. If I don't call her, I never feel the gut punch confirmation of someone else answering the phone. It will never be her again. But I can toy with the idea of her being there, and me just not calling. Observing something changes it.
I once wrote a fictional short story around the premise of Schrodinger's Cat. The idea that you cannot know whether the cat is alive or dead until you open the box to observe it. It lives as a probability, no matter how minute, until it is observed to have died. It wasn't about Leslie. When I wrote it in 2011, Leslie was "cured". In remission. Our worries were behind us. Instead, it was inspired by true events, earlier that week Leslie had gotten an email that a coworker's mother had died, followed by another email that she was not dead, followed by another that she was. Apparently there were three sons, and they had sent word of the woman's passing before the third son knew about it. . . attempted to retract it until he could be told. . . then sent it again once he was notified. She'd died, they just didn't want him to learn in QUITE such a shitty way. In my story, the "hero" gets a phone call that his girlfriend has died only to find out that it's a false alarm. It is implied in the story that the girl dies shortly after the first call. Certainly she is expected to, and when the phone rings a second time, the man doesn't answer it. He packs all his belongings and leaves, taking only her picture with him. If the box isn't opened, you can never be certain the cat died. Its life continues as a probability. So he leaves, loses himself in another city, another country, another culture. Never calls never writes, never learns whether she dies and allows himself to believe that if there is a probability that she is alive, then she will always be alive. At least for him. He saves her life by never observing her death. I loved the idea of it. It seemed sweet and haunting but it wasn't great the way I wrote it out then. It would probably be better now that death has touched me and grief and I are better acquainted. Write about what you know...right?
Anyway, I think of that sometimes. What's the difference? When Leslie was alive and I didn't see her, I always knew she was upstairs. She existed as a probability in that upstairs bedroom. A strong probability. We weren't talking. I couldn't see her, but I always knew I could visit her at any moment. I always knew I could run upstairs, give her a kiss and an update on the kids, then run back downstairs before Lily grabbed something fragile. But she wasn't with us. She wasn't being 'observed'. I wish I could make my peace with the idea of this unobserved 'better' place beyond where Leslie is...and that place is really no different than when she lay upstairs in bed...a different plane, a higher existence, but still at the heart of it...just "upstairs". Just like always. And nothing is different about the scenarios. But everything is different. Uncertainty is a sort of questionable deathlessness. But observing something changes it. And this isn't an invitation to anyone to tell me, "But Jim it IS just like Leslie is upstairs, you can still talk to her, you can still see her if you close your eyes and think about her" or whatever. I know. I know.
When we told Lily that Leslie was dying, we told her that she was going to live in heaven but that she'd always be with her in her heart, and that if she needed to see her, she just had to close her eyes and remember and Leslie would be there. That's an immortality of sorts. Not a Shrodinger's cat kind. Not a probability. But a handprint left on the soul of someone who loved her. Who loves her still. A spark of recollection. An image of a face. A remembrance of soft words whispered nightly by a mother who loves you.
And nobody ever is really gone even if you are sitting with her holding her hand as her breath stills and her pulse fades, as it was with Leslie, so near imperceptible that I didn't even feel it go until I questioned it. Felt for the pulse. Watched her breathing. It was slow and peaceful, subtle and silent. Observed. Changed. But everything she touched and everything she observed remained behind, changed by HER observing. Like the wind. You don't see it, but you observe it bend branches, and watch the leaves it stirs on the ground. You can't see it, but it's real. It is alive. It exists. Leslie is still with us. The gentle wind.
With Emma, I always tell her to listen to her mother's voice. It's still there. We know what Leslie would say. We know her council. We listened to it for years. I can play it out in my mind...that's Leslie. That's what she would say. We know whether she'd approve or disapprove. I can hear her voice saying the words. Those memories, the way she changed me, the way she help shaped the kids, that's Leslie. That is Leslie alive and walking. A gentle wind bending the branches of our lives.
And so tonight in bed with Lily I'm thinking about these memories that keep Leslie alive and in our lives. Not the funny stories. Not the anecdotes. But the things that she changed by observing them. The things she shaped and developed. The branches she bent and bends still. The leaves she stirred and stirs still. Our kids. My parenting. The presence of her moral compass. And I'm thinking too about this life-preserving passing on of traditions, because here I lie in bed with my daughter, stroking her hair the way her great grandmother, a woman who died before I ever met Leslie, once stroked Leslie's hair. And Leslie now gone too. And yet I trace tiny arcs over Lily's ears. And WHY do I do that? Because a woman I never met once left an undying imprint on a little girl who grew to be the woman I married. Who herself grew to be the mother Lily knew. Who stroked her hair. Who stroked my own. Who imprinted me. And I pass it to the girls.
I wonder who once stroked Leslie's grandmother's hair. Where did it start? I'm stroking Lily's hair and I'm thinking about how Leslie's grandmother is alive in this gesture. I'm thinking about how Leslie is alive in this gesture. And I see my daughter's eyes are closed. And she is sleeping. I look at the clock and it is 8:51. Six minutes it took to put her to sleep. It was the same with Leslie.
Saturday, August 29, 2015
Pasta Carbonara (without peas)
Okay, I hate to do two recipes posts in a row, but I was talking to someone about carbonara - specifically making a "low cal" version of carbonara, which is just substituting yam noodles for regular pasta, and I offered the recipe. Then another friend asked for it, so I figured I'd just post it. I hate making recipes that don't have pictures, so I apologize that it doesn't have any, but I just made it at the beginning of the week, and really didn't plan on posting the recipe until later in the week when we started chatting about it. Next time I make it, I'll come back her and add a picture.
1) It's super simple to make. I'll give you the Jim's Annotated version complete with my recommendations, so it'll look longer and more complicated than it actually is, but if you read my stuff already you know that I make every explanation long and complicated but if you're reading for meaning, it'll make it super easy.
2) I forgot what two was. I started on 1, and then I got on a roll, and forgot why I even started numbering shit.
3) I'm adding three now because I was just rereading this whole thing and thought...here's a place for this one other little tidbit. And now I feel like I could delete "2" but I won't, because it's cute. Anway...The reason the title specifically says "(without peas)" is...I don't like peas. I don't like them alone (unless they're snap peas and they're stir fried or they're raw) and I really hate them in pasta, like pasta primavera or carbonara. And most carbonara recipes call for peas in them. I don't know why. This recipe does not. Because it's not stupid. It's awesome.
Here are your ingredients:
6 tbs butter
1/2 lb sweet italian sausage
1/2 lb prosciutto (finely diced)
2 eggs
1/4 cup shredded asiago
1/4 cup shredded parmesan
1/2 cup fresh parsley (or dried. I honestly use mostly dried cause it's easier, but fresh is obviously better)
one box pasta (I use angel hair because that's what Emma likes)
It ends up being a lot.
Pre-prep and prep: When I buy proscuitto, they cut it really thin and they separate each piece with wax paper. It's annoying as hell and completely unnecessary for THIS recipe. It's also a pain in the ass for the deli people. So when you buy the proscuitto (and they'll say stuff like...do you want the fancy-fancyioso 18 month cured or the blah blah 12 month or whatever it is...just get the cheapest proscuitto) tell them not to worry about the wax paper. You just want it cut thin. When you start the recipe, you're going to just cut it into really small pieces. So I actually roll the whole thing together and slice it, then I cut the slices until they're pretty small. Cut the parsley leaves the same way. Think about how small and fine dried parsley is and cut it about that small.
I'd start the water boiling and cook your noodles.
While that's cooking, get a kettle...I use a 6 quart kettle. Okay, brief explanation. It's not that you need a 6 quart kettle. You can do this next part in a regular pan, but later when you combine all the ingredients, it's nice if you already have a big pot and you're not dirtying another one. In your 6 quart kettle, put half your butter in and melt on medium heat. Brown the italian sausage. Toss in half of your diced/minced proscuitto.
When I brown the sausage, I'm constantly breaking it into smaller and smaller pieces. Like when you make tacos. Do the same thing with the sausage. Sausage sticks together more than ground beef does because of all the extra fat, but put in the effort, the prosciutto will help a little. It's kind of annoying because you have to reach into that big kettle to do it, but you'll thank me later. Unless you're an ungrateful asshole. I won't wait for the thanks.
Crack the two eggs into a little bowl and mix them up.
Melt the remaining butter in a Pyrex measuring cup (or whatever you feel like melting the remaining butter in, but I use a measuring cup because it's easy)
When the the sausage is done browning, toss the rest of your prosciutto in and turn the heat down low.
The idea (I guess) is that half your proscuitto will be cooked and browned and a little on the crisp side, like well done bacon, and the other half will be a nice reddish pink color and give it a better texture. Make it...sorry...more "moist". Yeah. I said it.
Hopefully your noodles are done now. Strain them. HERE'S why you need the 6 quart kettle. Dump the noodles on top of the sausage proscuitto mixture. You're going to be mixing all this stuff together, and lifting the noodles and stirring them up will take a ton of space and make a huge mess unless it's contained in a kettle.
Okay...now...to help the noodles separate, pour the melted butter over the noodles. Then dump the parsley over them. Now mix it all up.
Now you're ready for the egg. Brief sidebar, you're not going to cook the eggs, and because I never feel SUPER comfortable with that, I like the noodles and pot to still be pretty warm. Getting the egg on the noodles while they're still hot will cook it to the point where it's done. You'll know what I meanwhen you do it. You'll see the egg start to cook and change like you might if you've ever made fried rice. My point is, don't wait super long before you add the egg.
Pour the beaten egg over the noodles and stir. Dump all the cheese in and mix everything up really well. The egg will make the noodles sticky enough that the cheese will stay on them. Asiago gives it a nice tang with the sausage and the proscuitto.
You're done. This recipe typically feeds me, Emma, Lily (sort of) and gives me enough leftovers for three days. I'd say it would serve 6 pretty comfortably. It doesn't reheat badly, but sometimes I'll melt a tiny bit of butter over it in the microwave to make it less stiff and microwavy and more like it was when you first cooked it.
If you make it, and have notes, critiques or reviews, please let me know!
Oh...PS...I use that whole "coat the noodles in beaten egg then cheese" in other stuff too. It's an easy way to make plain noodles yummier. For example, I have a pretty decent shrimp scampi recipe, and since scampi is really buttery, sometimes I'll just make linguini, dump the entire dish of scampi over the cooked linguini noodles, mix it to get the butter worked into the noodles so they separate, then add egg and parmesan to it, mix it up, and make what I call Shrimp Scampi Linguini.
1) It's super simple to make. I'll give you the Jim's Annotated version complete with my recommendations, so it'll look longer and more complicated than it actually is, but if you read my stuff already you know that I make every explanation long and complicated but if you're reading for meaning, it'll make it super easy.
2) I forgot what two was. I started on 1, and then I got on a roll, and forgot why I even started numbering shit.
3) I'm adding three now because I was just rereading this whole thing and thought...here's a place for this one other little tidbit. And now I feel like I could delete "2" but I won't, because it's cute. Anway...The reason the title specifically says "(without peas)" is...I don't like peas. I don't like them alone (unless they're snap peas and they're stir fried or they're raw) and I really hate them in pasta, like pasta primavera or carbonara. And most carbonara recipes call for peas in them. I don't know why. This recipe does not. Because it's not stupid. It's awesome.
Here are your ingredients:
6 tbs butter
1/2 lb sweet italian sausage
1/2 lb prosciutto (finely diced)
2 eggs
1/4 cup shredded asiago
1/4 cup shredded parmesan
1/2 cup fresh parsley (or dried. I honestly use mostly dried cause it's easier, but fresh is obviously better)
one box pasta (I use angel hair because that's what Emma likes)
It ends up being a lot.
Pre-prep and prep: When I buy proscuitto, they cut it really thin and they separate each piece with wax paper. It's annoying as hell and completely unnecessary for THIS recipe. It's also a pain in the ass for the deli people. So when you buy the proscuitto (and they'll say stuff like...do you want the fancy-fancyioso 18 month cured or the blah blah 12 month or whatever it is...just get the cheapest proscuitto) tell them not to worry about the wax paper. You just want it cut thin. When you start the recipe, you're going to just cut it into really small pieces. So I actually roll the whole thing together and slice it, then I cut the slices until they're pretty small. Cut the parsley leaves the same way. Think about how small and fine dried parsley is and cut it about that small.
I'd start the water boiling and cook your noodles.
While that's cooking, get a kettle...I use a 6 quart kettle. Okay, brief explanation. It's not that you need a 6 quart kettle. You can do this next part in a regular pan, but later when you combine all the ingredients, it's nice if you already have a big pot and you're not dirtying another one. In your 6 quart kettle, put half your butter in and melt on medium heat. Brown the italian sausage. Toss in half of your diced/minced proscuitto.
When I brown the sausage, I'm constantly breaking it into smaller and smaller pieces. Like when you make tacos. Do the same thing with the sausage. Sausage sticks together more than ground beef does because of all the extra fat, but put in the effort, the prosciutto will help a little. It's kind of annoying because you have to reach into that big kettle to do it, but you'll thank me later. Unless you're an ungrateful asshole. I won't wait for the thanks.
Crack the two eggs into a little bowl and mix them up.
Melt the remaining butter in a Pyrex measuring cup (or whatever you feel like melting the remaining butter in, but I use a measuring cup because it's easy)
When the the sausage is done browning, toss the rest of your prosciutto in and turn the heat down low.
The idea (I guess) is that half your proscuitto will be cooked and browned and a little on the crisp side, like well done bacon, and the other half will be a nice reddish pink color and give it a better texture. Make it...sorry...more "moist". Yeah. I said it.
Hopefully your noodles are done now. Strain them. HERE'S why you need the 6 quart kettle. Dump the noodles on top of the sausage proscuitto mixture. You're going to be mixing all this stuff together, and lifting the noodles and stirring them up will take a ton of space and make a huge mess unless it's contained in a kettle.
Okay...now...to help the noodles separate, pour the melted butter over the noodles. Then dump the parsley over them. Now mix it all up.
Now you're ready for the egg. Brief sidebar, you're not going to cook the eggs, and because I never feel SUPER comfortable with that, I like the noodles and pot to still be pretty warm. Getting the egg on the noodles while they're still hot will cook it to the point where it's done. You'll know what I meanwhen you do it. You'll see the egg start to cook and change like you might if you've ever made fried rice. My point is, don't wait super long before you add the egg.
Pour the beaten egg over the noodles and stir. Dump all the cheese in and mix everything up really well. The egg will make the noodles sticky enough that the cheese will stay on them. Asiago gives it a nice tang with the sausage and the proscuitto.
You're done. This recipe typically feeds me, Emma, Lily (sort of) and gives me enough leftovers for three days. I'd say it would serve 6 pretty comfortably. It doesn't reheat badly, but sometimes I'll melt a tiny bit of butter over it in the microwave to make it less stiff and microwavy and more like it was when you first cooked it.
If you make it, and have notes, critiques or reviews, please let me know!
Oh...PS...I use that whole "coat the noodles in beaten egg then cheese" in other stuff too. It's an easy way to make plain noodles yummier. For example, I have a pretty decent shrimp scampi recipe, and since scampi is really buttery, sometimes I'll just make linguini, dump the entire dish of scampi over the cooked linguini noodles, mix it to get the butter worked into the noodles so they separate, then add egg and parmesan to it, mix it up, and make what I call Shrimp Scampi Linguini.
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