Pastina

...and thoughts on the grandness of a simpler life.

I’ve been sick for the past few days—and if the amount of people in my office who have been working remotely this week are any indication, so has half of New York City. I’m on the mend now, but have been spending a lot of time resting in bed and teaching Ben how to make me pastina. (My version is below in recipe form…you’re going to want to bookmark this one.)

Truth be told, I don’t always hate a sick day, because it gives me time to do something I, a 33-year-old Millennial who grew up overly-obsessed with Sofia Coppola’s filmography, love to do: Lay around listlessly like a Victorian woman with consumption. I love this. I stack my cookbooks and magazines next to me, pile every pillow in the house just so behind my back so I can be properly propped, and make a literal nest out of my bed. Glorious!

I’d taken to bed shortly after Ben and I had come home from a weekend in upstate New York with his family. Our outings to the ‘burbs, whether for a family trip or a trip to visit family, have recently become little research expeditions. As we inch closer and closer to our wedding date, Ben and I have started to consider “where we might want to go next.” (I love the drama of that, btw.)

I’ve been a brat about wanting a patch of grass to grow tomatoes on since we started dating, and we both love the idea of living close to the ocean, so an exit from Brooklyn feels imminent for us. And recently, I realized that meant I’d likely have to start saying goodbye. Not to New York (Joan Didion did it better than I ever could) or to friends (I’m an excellent long-distance friend, so they’re stuck with me for life). I’m realizing that I need to say goodbye to a version of my life I thought that I would live.

A few weeks ago, I was walking through Park Slope on a rainy morning that also happened to be the first day of school for the kids in the neighborhood. I saw families bustling out of their brownstones, posing for photos on their stoops. I saw little kids dressed up in their first-day-of-school outfits, sprinting down 8th Avenue. I watched parents playing catch-up, having not spoken since June, clutching their sourdough loaves and coffee from Winner down the block. I watched those parents wave their kids off and head back to their brownstones or the subway to work.

I was struck in that moment by how closely the scene followed an expectation I’d had for my own future. It was one I’d dream about during previous sick days in my cramped, studio apartment on East 84th Street—when I was in my early 20s with my life stretched before me, limitless. It seemed like one of the many futures that were just within distance of my eagerly-grappling fingers in those early days of my career.

But now I’m a little bit older, and I realize that I’m not going to get everything I ever dreamed for myself. That, in fact, nobody does. And while it’s slightly strange to watch the life you never had pass before your eyes on a rainy, late-summer morning, I’m beginning to realize that it’s all okay. In fact, I’m recognizing that I made the choices I did in order to end up in a reality where a cozy home by the beach with the man I love sounds more appealing to me than a brownstone in Brooklyn with pocket doors and original crown molding.

When I was younger, I’d dream of a massive, sprawling, expansive life filled with lavish parties, and an apartment in Paris, and multiple published novels, and a closet full of expensive clothes. But I’m starting to understand that there is grandness in things that are, actually, a little simpler. Where you’re not jetting off to Europe multiple times a year. Where things feel a little bit slower, and a little closer to home. Where you can revel in the simplicity of a bowl of pastina on a cold, rainy day, with a husband who you adore, and children who you share, and vines of tomatoes growing in the yard.

So that’s where I am, currently: Somewhere between my past wishes and my forthcoming reality, bidding farewell to the lives I thought I’d live, and opening my arms wide to the future I’ve built in their place.

Note: There is no real recipe for pastina, but there are a few elements that make this dish the bowl of comfort it truly is: pasta, eggs, butter, and cheese. Here is how I love mine.

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 cup pastina (or acini di pepe or couscous, if you can’t track pastina down at your local super market)

• 2-3 cups water or broth of your choice (I also sometimes boil water and toss in some powdered or cubed bouillon)

• 1 egg

• Grated parmesan or peccorino, to taste

• 3-4 tablespoons of butter (or more, to taste)

• Black pepper, to taste (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Bring your water or broth to a soft boil in a medium saucepan. Add your pasta and cook according to package instructions. For a thicker pastina, use less water or broth. For a soupier version, use more. (You can also drain your pastina if you end up using too much water or broth and want something a little thicker.)

2. Once the pastina is cooked through, remove it from the heat. Either crack an egg in a small bowl and whisk it before adding it to the pastina, or crack the egg directly into the pot. Mix vigorously until combined and the egg is cooked. (You’ll likely wind up with little streaks of egg white in your pastina.)

3. Add in your butter and cheese and mix until combined.

4. Add a few healthy cracks of fresh ground pepper, and serve warm.