Don’t Lose Your Softness

“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.” 

- Louise Erdrich 

Louise Erdrich so perfectly articulates how one can, and why one should keep their softness.

Imagine never allowing yourself to enjoy the fleeting sweet moments of life? Tristesse absolue

That’s all. That’s the post.

Keep your softness out there, people.

Keep Your Softness Pasta

I love anchovies. This recipe was also adapted from the NYTimes Food Midnight Pasta dish.*

*I used a lot more anchovies than suggested in the original recipe and zero capers. I am not a fan of capers. I also opted out of the parsley. It felt excessive.

Ingredients

• ½ pound spaghetti

• Salt

• Black pepper

• 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

• 4 garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped

• ½ white onion, roughly chopped

• 8 anchovy fillets, rinsed and roughly chopped

• ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes, or to taste

• Parmesan for grating, optional

Preparation

• Put the spaghetti in a large pot of well-salted boiling water and cook until firmly al dente. I would recommend start checking the pasta’s al denteness at around 7 minutes. If it is not al dente at 7 minutes, keep checking every 30-50 seconds.

• While the pasta is cooking, warm the olive oil in a small skillet over medium heat.

• Add white onions and cook until translucent, it shouldn’t be brown

• Add the garlic and cook for about 1 minute, it shouldn’t be brown.

• Stir in the all the anchovies, add the red pepper flakes and ground black pepper

• Cook until the anchovies are most dissolved. It should take about 1 minute or so, if the anchovies aren’t mostly dissolved but the onion and garlic is beginning to burn, turn down the heat under the skillet.

• Turn off the heat, but keep the anchovy garlic onion goodness in the skillet.

• Drain the pasta and return it to the pot.

• Pour the garlic mixture into the pot of pasta and toss well to coat.

• Serve with grated Parmesan, if desired.