There is a bright red robin tapping his beak against our basement window. He’s been doing this for days now - tap tapping above me as I throw laundry into the basement washing machine, or below me as I chop onions in the kitchen. Then the doorbell rings, a teenager is hungry, the phone beeps, and the robin is back. I put down my knife and google, why is a robin tapping at my window? It is most likely, replied the internet, that the robin has a nest nearby to protect. When he peers into a window, he assumes his own reflection is a threatening bird. Stay away, the tapping says. I have babies nearby.
I am making Fettuccine Mio Amore to celebrate my eldest son’s last high school exam. The recipe comes from a scene in the book, The Lincoln Highway, by Amor Towles: It’s 1953 and a ‘band of youths’ are staying at a stately home just north of Manhattan. The house is owned by the older sister and snobby brother-in-law of Woolly, one of the ‘youths’. The couple are in the city for the night, so it’s just the youths at the helm. And seeing how it’s their last night together, Duchess (an eighteen-year-old New Yorker fresh out of juvie) makes an Italian dinner inspired by a favourite restaurant in Soho. They set the table with linens, silver and china from the locked cabinet in the dining room then open a few bottles of Château Margaux ‘28 from the cellar. Pasta is a rarity for this crew, as is red wine and Duchess’s skillful passion in the kitchen. I could sense the energy, smell onions as they caramelized, hear the sizzle of white wine as it hit the pan. But I could also feel a foreboding that the characters didn’t seem to be feeling - will they get caught taking such liberties? Will they get in trouble for pouring the Margaux down the drain so Duchess can use an empty bottle to perform a magic trick? And, how does the pasta taste?
I always read the end of a novel before I begin, said my Dad, casually, one morning over coffee. I was sharing a few favourite quotes from The Lincoln Highway with him, and suddenly felt the need to tell him that all would be alright in scenes x, y and z, in the event he chose to read the book and struggled, like I did, with the tension. His heart has endured a triple bypass and a cardiac arrest; I assumed reading the end was a tool he used to quell anxiety. No, he explained, I do that because the pleasure in reading is the journey of the story, the character development, their interactions, not the end in itself. So I read around a book first - the blurbs, the back, the intro and the end, and then, I begin.
Perhaps this is why my dad has become a cook in retirement - recipes with photographs tell us the end before they begin. The ingredient list explains what we’ll need, the method holds our hand, and if we’re lucky, the writer will share a detail or two to pull us into the story. The tension rises when there isn’t a photograph to accompany the recipe. This is when imagination is required, perhaps some cross-referencing, knowledge of character development, a little back-story. A choose your own adventure of sorts, with a meal waiting at the end.
I found the recipe for Fettuccine Mio Amore on the author’s website - an homage, Towles says, to an Italian-American friend named Claudio. There is a photo provided of the finished dish - not served on the family’s china, no silver, no pressed linens - but it gives me an idea of what a sauce featuring one pound of bacon tossed in just a touch of tomato sauce looks like: bacon-heavy, therefore perfect for my gang of youths.
After dinner I stepped outside and found the robin’s nest, perched high between the branches of our rhododendron, the nest dripping with strips of last year’s Solomon’s seal. I could hear the father crying in a tree above. Step away. If all goes well, in just a few weeks the babies will leave the nest. We don’t know the ending, we never do. In the meantime, all we can do is read around the story, then sink comfortably somewhere in the middle.
Notes on the recipe -
It's uncomplicated and delicious, with a lovely kick of heat.
1 lb of bacon for four people is a lot, but when you drain off 'most of the fat, but not all' it seems like the perfect amount.
Fettuccine is so wonderfully toothsome. I had forgotten.
The youths loved it, especially the one leaving the nest.
PS - I'm thinking about sliding over to Substack to share my newsletters and future podcast episodes. It's so user-friendly for writers, especially those with podcasts. This platform has worked so well for so long, but it's good to mix things up, no? I don't think it will be much of a change, many of you may not notice the switch. But if you have any thoughts or concerns, please share by replying to this email.
Maggie Mackellar's Substack - The Sit Spot - is one of my favourites. Here is her latest.
Recent Stories
Double Dutch
It's hard to start new things.
I’ve written podcast scripts before. Lots of them. But then I took some time off. Days, weeks, then months. A year. Everyone needs a break from creative endeavours from time to time; the secret is to pay attention to when it’s time to gear back up again. Notice the pull of curiosity, notice there are questions that need answering, some stories that need to be told, connections yearning to be made ... read more
Soft but Heavy
One hundred and fifty days in and my first big, cozy knitting project is done. It’s not perfect timing; daffodils are out, days are warmer, and most people are tucking away their wool and alpaca. Everyone, except for me.
All I have to do now is block it. This means wetting the garment, rolling it in a towel to soak up the excess moisture, smoothing it into the desired shape over spongy tiles lent to me ... read more
Grandmother Wisdom
When my eldest son Luke was a baby, I visited my grandmother Vivian every Thursday morning. She thought I did too much with my days. Why not just come and visit me instead, she’d say. Sometimes we’d go for a drive so I could run into the grocery store while she sat in the car and watched the baby. When the weather was nice we went to The Chicken Burger, a local drive-in with spinning stools, a jukebox and picnic tables on the grass in the back. Behind the restaurant was a small home where the owner, an elderly lady, raised her children. She lived there by herself before she died a few ... read more