Do you think I meant country matters? —Hamlet

Rock Island, IL

The pasta—which turns out great—begins in the engine compartment of a 27-year-old Dodge Ram pickup truck, although to say when exactly anything begins is always tricky business.

Maybe it begins that day in January when I change out the coil in air that at its zenith hits a mere nine degrees above zero—after which the truck still won’t start.

Or maybe it all begins a bit later, when I decide that swapping out the entire distributor in such weather ought properly to be done by someone else—someone who actually knows what he’s doing and has a heated space to do it in.

(After this wise decision I look out the window through the snow at the motionless truck—helpless, vulnerable, forsaken—and, as if to ratify the deal, sit down by the fire to read. It is a great day in the bleak mid-winter.)

Or maybe it begins when I buy the truck in the early ’nineties, or when my father meets my mother, or when my grandparents elope.

Hell! Maybe it begins when Eve says to Adam, “eat the apple, Bucko, or sleep in your own banana tree from now on.”

At any rate, it begins. Cause leads to effect that, in turn, becomes the cause of other effects, and somewhere down the causal chain I am putzing around in my garage, occasionally casting malevolent glances through the rain at a truck that will start only on dry days of low humidity.

But then, as if by divine intention, “Afternoon Delight” comes on the garage radio, and that, let me tell you, gets me thinking down the usual tracks: there must be something wrong with that brand new distributor cap—and, to boot, we’re going to need a good starchy side dish to take to dinner.

For—cards on the table—being ass-up in the engine cavity of an old truck and looking at a convoluted spaghetti-like tantalus of plug wires conduces perfectly to inventing new summer pasta dishes. How the grease reminds you of olive oil! How the grime puts you to thinking of fresh-ground black pepper!

Or, to be as plain as I can be, cause leads to effect that, in turn, becomes the cause of other effects, and somewhere down the causal chain there I am, called upon to please two women in a single afternoon: one, my wife, who very much wants me to return the truck to its wonted reliability—so that I will quit pestering her about buying a slightly newer one; the other, my buddy’s wife, who very much wants us to bring a pasta dish to accompany the pork shish kabobs he’ll be grilling and she’ll be serving when we arrive at their house around six o’clock.

But O the sins of a Sunday afternoon! How soon after partaking of the sacred mysteries can a man utter imprecations at a piece of innocent machinery when he ought instead to be throbbing with life and inventing a new (or tupping a familiar) summer dish!

Very soon, apparently. I have already come off a heavy penance imposed by a severe confessor (“my son, for your meanness you must read, cover to cover, Forgotten Founder, Drunken Prophet”), and yet there I am, so lately seraphic, so lately shriven and freshly fed from our Lord’s bounteous table, but already accusing Chrysler workers from over a quarter-century ago of having been begotten upon female dogs that had somehow secretly scaled familial walls. There I am, asking an inarticulate coil wire (which on several occasions I have called a piece of fecal matter) why it won’t seat properly. Behold me, demanding of a dumb extension cord why in the blanking blankety-blank it won’t reach from the fornicating receptacle on the side of my house to the sodding battery charger … when lo! the new distributor cap snaps into place, and (could it be?) all the wires accord perfectly with the firing order on my diagram!

I turn the key. The old Dodge jumps to life as if it had been made yesterday. Land rocket in flight! I’m ready to …

But wait! But ah! Dammit … I mean—sorry, God!–darn it. There remains the dish—and only thirty minutes until the ETD! (“Dodge Rammit!” as my wife once put it.)

Well I’ve satisfied one woman; by God, I’ll satisfy the other—even if it is Sunday.

Into the house to scrub & scour my hands!

“Daddy, will you please play catch with …”

“Silence! Grease Monkey is creating!”

I paw through the pantry. Not much to work with but enough to make a safe bet if the basic principles—(1) keep it simple and (2) keep it fresh—be adhered to.

Our friends and hosts, whom I’ll protect by calling them “Scott” and “Alexa,” know food. They know it, love it, and enjoy preparing it. They know dullness when they taste it. Meals at their house always sky rocket. And—mein Gott!—their bar and wine cellar! I have the sure confidence of a fine bourbon or a single-malt scotch or a premium gin martini awaiting me, so I can’t exactly show up with Kraft mac-and-cheese or Hamburger Helper. (Not that I would, but you get the point.) These folks don’t feed. They eat.

The little missus and I are both in the kitchen now dealing with my Afternoon Neglect. It’s going to be a team effort, because I’ve spent half the Lord’s day profaning it, and she, I think, has spent the other half resting–not that there’s anything wrong with that. Whatever the offenses of the immediate past, we’re now complementing each other, thinking in blissful marital syncronicity about what to throw together–even as we playfully bump each other in the kitchen. Do we have enough of one kind of pasta to feed nine? We do. So exactly what will we put in it?

I think about the health of our herbs out back and say “oregano.”

She agrees and asks about the peas.

“Yes!” I say. They’re snap peas. I picked them yesterday. “And garlic.”

“Okay. What else?”

“Do you mean, ‘what else do you need a man for around here?’” (because, verily, I’ve fixed the 27-year-old Dodge, I’m working on the side dish, and, as usual, she is a moving violation from head to heels).

Imagine this! She ignores what I’ve said!

“Capers,” I say.

“The kids won’t eat the capers.”

I say, “your point being … ?”

She reminds me that the kids have to eat too.

Peas, oregano, and garlic then.

We chop up some fresh oregano from out back. The peas are already picked and waiting. We chop them in thirds, pods and all.

Chopped garlic–God’s own bounty thereof–softens in butter on the stove.

Butter! Thou that improveth all things!

Has anyone ever written an ode to butter? (Note to self: write an Ode to Butter.)

Do we have enough parmesan? No. Asagio? No.

No matter. We have a little of both. We’ll grate it all.

The boil is done, the pasta oiled, the children summoned. We toss everything and look at it forlornly.

“The color ain’t right,” I say. “Sun dried tomatoes?”

We chop them up, add them, and send recalcitrant urchins to the car. The color is much better now. Moreover, the gummy chew of the sun-dried tomatoes will offset the crunch of the peas. Accounts will balance.

But here’s the question: will this be served warm or cold?

We’ll decide when we get there, which, when we get there–and thanks to a protracted cocktail hour of the sort prescribed in the New Testament (I forget the exact reference)–turns out to be cold.

And the dish ain’t bad.

How do I know? Our hosts, who have no especial reason to be polite to us (we’ve sponsored one another’s children in baptism and, like all true friends, have fought like hell at many-a dinner party), both take seconds. They, who aren’t liars, even say it’s good.

Proof whereof: the next morning Nature, who pardons no mistakes, provides rain once again. I go out to test the Dodge. My old friend cranks up as if it had been built on the Lord’s day. Walking back inside I catch sight of Sleepy Pie in her nocturnal whites coming down the stairs for coffee. O this loving heart of mine!

Next time I’ll add chopped local bacon. Bacon and capers. Pork Pasta in flight—afternoon delight. A-a-a-a-aaaaaf-ternoon De-li-i-ight.

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