It’s an odd holiday season, but it’s still a holiday season nonetheless. Twinkly white lights in the shape of ships are strung up above Main Street in town and when I take an evening walk, I can see Christmas trees glowing from within the houses along the water. As soon as the day melts into dusk, I turn the music in the house to either the classical holiday or the Etta James/soul holiday station.
I won’t be home for Christmas this year, just like I wasn’t home for Thanksgiving—although all plans are soft as my dad likes to say, quoting that excellent scene in The American President (please say you’ve watched it!), so who knows. Maybe I will be. I’m rolling with it, and trying not to look further ahead than a few days. (With the notable exception of fully embracing any joyful or out-of-the-ordinary plans I can arrange and reliably look forward to! Those are few and far between in this ever-shifting landscape.)
I find these sentences, by the very wise Wendell Berry, to be comforting: “History overflows time. Love overflows the allowance of the world. All the vessels overflow, and no end or limit stays put. Every shakable thing has got to be shaken.”
I’ve been thinking about some things I think you should do, if you’re up for it. If you want your day to be different—just slightly—than you expected. If you want to read something new, eat something different, hear a different song, such that you wedge open a tiny crack in your day, allowing for an almost imperceptible change in the energy.
First, you should read “Slow Dance” by Tim Seibles.
The poem is quite long, but soldier through it because you’ll be rewarded with lines like:
Missing someone is like hearing
a name sung quietly from somewhere
behind you. Even after you know
no one is there, you keep looking back
until on a silver afternoon like this
you find yourself breathing just enough
to make a small dent in the air.
Then read “Love, with Trees and Lightning” by Catie Rosemurgy. (You might need to read that one twice,)
(Bonus round! If you can’t get enough and you’re in the mood for words, for “A la Recherche d’Gertrude Stein” by Frank O’Hara and '“Any Morning” by William Stafford.)
(Oh, and if the first poem wasn’t enough to make you fall for Tim Seibles, consider that elsewhere he wrote this particular bit:
How
do we not talk about it
every day: the ways
we were changed
by the gift
in someone’s touch—your body,
suddenly a bright instrument
played by an otherwise
silent divinity.)
Okay whew! Sorry! I’m finished! I REALLY LIKE POETRY. (My twenty-year-old self is laughing at me because I never, ever thought I’d say that.)
Next, you should listen to “Control” by Luwten. Later, just before bed, dim the lights and sit somewhere comfy and turn on “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” by James Blake. (Twenty points if you can listen to it without melting into a puddle!)
Finally, make the following recipe for dinner. In my head, I imagine this to be a more sophisticated cousin of hamburger helper—however, having never actually eaten hamburger helper, I can neither confirm nor deny this to be definitively true.
But it’s a saucy, savory, one-pan affair of ground beef, shallots, and pasta. It’s particularly great for weeknights because you don’t cook the pasta separately—you just chuck it all in the pan with the browned beef and some water (or stock) and let it boil and cook that way. Brilliant. (BRILL, as the Brits would say.)
Once you’ve finished cooking, you’ve got three options.
Serve it as is (or, maybe add a handful of greens. Gotta keep up appearances.)
Stir in a few fistfuls of grated cheddar cheese, letting it melt a bit.
Pour a generous amount of the sauce I used over the top. OKAY OKAY, the sauce could be called “vegan cheese sauce” by some, but let’s just ignore that, and call it what it is: an actually addictive substance/a culinary magic trick/something I want to bathe in. It may seem odd that combining steamed sweet potatoes and carrots with cashews and nutritional yeast—no oil and no actual cheese—could yield such a nuanced and absurdly delicious sauce that looks like Cheese Whiz but is wholesome and all kinds of good and good FOR YA, but it’s true. It does. It’s salty and a little sweet from the vegetables and smooth and creamy and…uhh…I’ll stop now. Except to say that I’m calling it Magic Sauce. You with me?
Cheesy Beef Pasta Skillet (with Magic Sauce)
For the pasta
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 shallots, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 pound ground beef
1 cup white wine
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons tomato paste
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3 cups water (or stock)
8 ounces dried pasta
For the sauce
1 medium sweet potato
1 large carrot
1/2 cup cashews
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon salt
pinch of red pepper flakes, optional
Heat the oil in a large skillet. Add the shallots and garlic and cook over medium-high heat for a minute or two. Add the beef and cook, breaking it up with a spoon or spatula, until it begins to brown.
Add the white wine and cook until the liquid is almost reduced (about 5 to 10 minutes).
Stir in the paprika, salt, tomato paste, and flour—cook for about 2 minutes, stirring constantly.
Add the water (or stock) and pasta. Bring to a boil and cook until the pasta is al dente, stirring occasionally, about 9 minutes.
Remove from the heat. If you’re skipping the sauce but you want cheese, now is the time to stir in a few handfuls of grated cheese.
While the pasta cooks, make the sauce (you can also make it in advance): Peel the potato and carrot and cut them into 2” chunks. Place the vegetables and cashews into a steamer basket fitted inside a pot with 2 inches of water. Bring to a boil, cover, and steam for about 5 minutes or until the vegetables are soft.
Transfer the vegetables and cashews to a blender along with 1/2 cup of the water from the pot (if there isn’t enough left, just add regular water). Add the remaining ingredients and blend on high until smooth and creamy. Taste and adjust the salt/vinegar as needed.
You can add slightly more water if you want it thinner.
Divide the pasta among bowls and top with the sauce.