The Carbonara Story

I learned how to cook a few things in college, as most guys do.  I could make a very good spaghetti sauce, and also knew how to stir-fry.  I like cooking, and I'm pretty adventurous with spices.  I also recognize that that kind of cooking is different from "make-some-food-fast-because-we-have-so-many-other-things-to-do-and-we're-already-late", which is more common and a lot less fun.

Here at home I've typically done about 10% of the dinner cooking, if that -- for years I've gotten home too late from work to make dinner in time for everyone.  I always did the kitchen cleanup and the dishes, which isn't a totally fair trade, but it's what I could do.

One dish I did pick up along the way was Spaghetti Carbonara.  I got the recipe from a cookbook, adapted it a little, made it a few times, and it got to be a house favorite -- it's really good, and kinda fun to cook.  Until recently it was the only dish the kids thought I could make.  I'm sure by now I've made it 50 times, but somehow it's never exactly the same twice.

One time early on (Carbonara batch #10?) Rach was on her way home, Kathy and Sheila were coming over, and I was doing my thing in the kitchen, when I saw we were out of crushed garlic -- a key ingredient.  I did find some fresh garlic, which I'd never cooked with before, but I was sure I could figure it out.  The recipe called for one clove, so I took one of the hunks of fresh garlic, opened it up, peeled all the little pieces, crushed them in the garlic press, and mixed it in.  It seemed like a lot, but then maybe the crushed garlic in a jar was more concentrated somehow.

It turns out, of course, that a hunk of garlic is called a "head", and each of those little pieces is a "clove".  Who knew?  I mean, besides everyone else?  So the batch must have had 10-12 cloves in it.  We tried to eat it, but couldn't really get much down.  And even from what we did eat we had that garlic odor coming out our pores for at least a day.  We laughed about it then, and still do.

Your reward for following along is Pat's Excellent Carbonara Recipe -- be careful with the garlic:

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. pasta (I prefer linguine; any will do)
  
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
  
• Salt, pepper
  
• 1 large onion, chopped
  
• 1/2 lb. bacon
  
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
  
• 4 eggs
  
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
  
• 1 large clove garlic, crushed
  
• 1 tablespoon chopped basil (fresh is best)
  

1.  Cook and chop the bacon.  Drain the grease from the pan, but no need to clean the pan yet.

2.  Cook the pasta per the "al dente" instructions, with 1 tablespoon olive oil.  Meanwhile...

3.  Heat 3 tablespoons olive oil in the bacon pan, add the chopped onion and fry gently for 4 minutes or so.

4.  Add the chopped bacon and fry for an additional minute or two.

5.  Add the white wine, and boil until most (but not all) of the liquid is gone.  (The onions should be tender but not mushy, having absorbed much of the wine.)  Meanwhile...

6.  Beat the eggs with the cheese, garlic, and basil, and add salt and pepper to taste.  (I use about a tsp. each.)

7.  Drain the cooked pasta and quickly stir in the egg mixture and the bacon/onion mixture so that the heat from the pasta lightly cooks the egg.  Serve immediately.

It may take you a few tries to get the bacon/onion mixture just right, and have it finish exactly when the pasta finishes, ideally.  Let's hear a review from one of you after trying it!

And a future post will tell the "Weed Pesto" story.

Pat

Rock And Roll Part Two

What's Wrong With Kids and Music These Days, a.k.a. The Death of the Album

By Me, A Grumpy Old Man Shaking His Fist in the Air

I mentioned earlier that I'm getting a kick out of seeing the kids enjoy some classic rock via the game Rock Band.  That doesn't obviate the fact that they're missing out on a major pop music form, the album, aided and abetted by the playlists on their iPods.  Just because you can play a bunch of songs in random order doesn't mean you should...

Bands used to make a musical statement with each album -- at least some bands, some of the time.  (Some bands still do, I suppose -- Radiohead comes to mind.)  These hung together thematically, and hearing one song plucked from the album and not in sequence with the other songs seemed...wrong, or at least a little unfulfilling.  Some completely subjective examples:

• Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" captured the band's thoughts on insanity, colored by the fact that founder and former bandmate Syd Barrett was crazy.  The songs flow together beautifully.
• U2's "The Joshua Tree" was a completely new sound for them, and came from their tours of the western U.S. and Central America.
• The Clash's "London Calling" -- I don't know where to start, except that I'll always remember where I was when I first heard it in 1980, thinking "Wow -- what's that?"
• Los Lobos' "Kiko" really showed them branching out from the pure Tex-Mex sound they were known for.
• Almost anything by Bruce Springsteen.  His "Tunnel of Love" is about, well, love, and loss.  His 9/11 album "The Rising" really hangs together as well.
• Ditto for the last 5 Beatles albums or so.

I could go on and on, but I hope that gives you the idea.

And I don't think I'm being inconsistent in citing one of my favorite collections, the complete recordings from Stax Records in Memphis.  This is a 9-CD set, with every single recorded by this label, in order, from 1957-1968.  It's a lot of different artists, but the same Memphis Soul sound throughout -- Sam and Dave, Otis Redding, Booker T and the MG's, etc.  It's all I listened to for a while in the early '90's.

Back to those children of mine: It probably makes sense to just buy a single song from an artist via iTunes if it's the only good song on the album, but then, who cares about an artist like that?  When there's so much else to choose from?  If you do own the whole album, you're missing a lot by shuffling it up with the rest of your music.  I fear that this is a trend, not a phase, and not just my gang, which is why it's worth ranting about.

And don't get me started on the lack of patience/short attention span that causes someone to not even be able to finish a song before switching to the next one...

There -- I feel better.  Now you kids get off of my lawn!

Pat

The Ring

My office had a fun overnight social event this weekend in downtown Chicago -- drinks and dinner on Saturday night, organized to allow some family time on Saturday afternoon and again at Sunday morning brunch.  The kids and I went down in the early afternoon to the Field Museum (it was pretty empty, due to the weather), then checked in to the hotel.  They got to order room service for dinner, and stay in to watch a movie while I went out for our office dinner.

This morning we joined everyone for breakfast, then went up to my old parish, St. Clement's in Lincoln Park, for 11:15am Mass.  I was a little distracted all weekend, I think, as today was my anniversary -- Rach and I were married 17 years ago at St. Clement's, on January 11th, 1992.

Unlike this weekend, that one was crisp and clear, about the best weather you can hope for from Chicago in January.  After the Saturday afternoon wedding we had our reception at Cairo, a funky bar/restaurant on Wells (no longer in business), and wound up that evening still in full wedding regalia at the Burwood Tap, still very much in business.  The next day it was off to the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean, while a snowstorm hit Chicago -- that's one treat to having a January wedding...

Something I'm sure people have wondered, but no one has asked, is: How long is Pat going to keep wearing his wedding ring?  I've been thinking about this for a little while myself.  What does it mean to keep wearing it?  What does it mean to stop?  What would I do with it?  It's just a little piece of gold, so why do these seem like momentous questions?

As I knew this anniversary weekend was coming up I mulled it all over, and made a decision.  At Mass at St. Clement's today I took my ring off and put it in an envelope in the collection along with a note to the pastor, giving him a little bit of the story and asking him to make the best use of it as he saw fit.

The symmetry of the whole thing was too compelling.  I left St. Clement's 17 years ago with that ring on my finger, and it served me wonderfully as a symbol, a reminder -- maybe a talisman?  (Good word, that.)  Now it's been returned, completing another circle, to serve some new purpose (I wish it were worth more) while I journey on.

It's been four months since Rachel's passing.  The saying "Life goes on" would have seemed trite, and maybe even cold or cruel, on September 9th, but now seems to fit -- it's an observation, not a slogan.  What removing my ring doesn't mean is that I've stopped mourning or missing Rach, or that I'm ready to start something new.  It was just...the right thing at the right time, and another small step toward closure (whatever that means).  I suppose on the list of Who I Am, "Widower" has been moved down a notch, and "Single Dad" has moved up.

I don't want this to be just an "Oh Poor Pat" post, so let me assign a little homework to you married folks out there: What does your ring mean to you?  More importantly, what does your marriage mean to you?  And what are you doing about it?

A little heavy, I know -- I promise a return to frivolity next week.

Pat

(Inscription: "R.J.H. to P.J.H. 1/11/92")

Rock and Roll Part One

We joined the video game generation this fall, setting up a Sony PS3 and a new TV in our newly-finished basement.  I had resisted this for a long time, as I'd rather have the kids doing something more active, playing outside, etc.  But playing video games is certainly more engaging than sitting passively and watching TV, which was their tendency.  That engagement is especially true with multi-player games.

So far the biggest hit is the game "Rock Band", where you play fake instruments (guitar, drums, bass) or sing along with various songs.  The levels for each instrument are Easy, Medium, Hard, or Expert, with the differences being how fast the notes come and how many different notes you have to play.  The game comes pre-loaded with about 50 songs, from new music to punk to heavy metal to classic rock.

Conor's primarily our drummer, since he's a drummer in the school band, and he's ventured up past Medium into Hard on occasion.  The rest of us usually play at the Easy level, to keep from missing so many notes that we get booed off the virtual stage (really!).  My goal is to get good enough to generally keep up with the kids, but stay bad enough that they can still make fun of me, which is their favorite pasttime.

When we're listening to music elsewhere they reject my choices automatically, even though I'm pretty open to new music (Modest Mouse, Franz Ferdinand, The Killers, etc.) myself.  So it's been fun to see them get an appreciation through Rock Band for some classic rock, including Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper", David Bowie's "Suffragette City", and others.  They've even bought some of the Rock Band songs on iTunes so they can listen to them on their iPods.  Maybe someday they'll appreciate that a lot of good music came out of the '60's-'90's, and that I know my stuff -- "Dad, tell us more about the Rolling Stones and U2..."  I can dream, can't I?

We hosted Christmas this year, and after dinner we all ventured down to the basement to play a little while.  The award for "Best New Rocker" was a tie between Rachel's sister Marilyn and her mom Gert -- see below...

Pat