uplifting spinach and feta pasta verde

This is a diary-entry post that, fair warning, gets pretty dark. Click here to skip to the recipe.

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For a really long time, I’ve practiced a philosophy of what I call “uplifting nihilism”: life is short, unpredictable, often brutal, wildly unfair, and possibly pointless, and the best way to cope with the guilt and dread that comes from these unchangeable facts is to make yourself as comfortable as you possibly can. It’s all predicated on the (somewhat ridiculous) idea that the inevitability of horrific accidents, rampant disease, a sudden cancer diagnosis, a climate disaster, a family tragedy, or outright war—all things that every day will happen to someone and can happen to you too—can be somewhat-tolerated with the help of relationships, music, good food, soft clothes, and a comfortable place to hide. It isn’t that any of these good things protects against any of these bad things, but that these good things can help insulate against the dread and anxiety that any of these bad things might in fact be happening tomorrow.

For that reason, even in darker moments (see: March 2020) spent listening to dumping rain and drowning the despair of pandemic isolation with mail-order wine and the first season of Euphoria, I’ve always felt false protection in this amber-lit corner of the universe I’ve created, huddled under a big blanket. Yet while I’ve been hiding inside my warm space, the tenuous peace, resources, and logic we’ve counted on to keep society’s worst demons underground have all been eroding steadily for years. During that time, it’s been easy for those of us in the west to architect our own comfort in a way that covers our ears to the ticking sound of faraway time bombs. When we take our blankets off, it’s a lot easier to hear.

Like so many others, I feel guilty for the privilege of finding any bright spots, finding it nearly impossible to justify any kind of joy when confronted with the human darkness that exists just outside my field of vision. Currently, that darkness is busy destroying people’s once-safe corners 6,433 miles away, after which it remains to be seen what will happen to its appetite. But human darkness has a long and horrific resume: it’s bombed civilians in the desert, vaporized mothers and children in the jungle, enslaved innocent people for profit, attempted to gas an entire race in the shower, burned whole civilizations to the ground. Darkness’s cousin apathy is no less accomplished; it is the blind eye with which ordinary people allow those things to happen somewhere else, relieved deep down that this time, at least, it’s not them.

Darkness, apathy—there’s nothing new here to be upset about. But at a a more existential level, it’s also nearly impossible today not to imagine that this same darkness now conceivably has room to shift position so that its hand hovers over the self-destruct button, threatening to obliterate all that we believed was The Point into dust in about 15 minutes. It’s unthinkable—until it isn’t. But the shape of the darkness has changed in the last 80 years. That darkness has gotten braver, colder, and more reckless. What happens when that darkness finds itself with nothing left to lose?

The official stance of the news is that, despite all the other inevitable tragedy yet to come in the world, this kind of annihilation by darkness “is probably not going to happen.” And it probably won’t. It makes no rational sense. But as someone whose brain operates primarily in if/then scenarios, the news to me also feels like a bit of a false blanket, predicated on the idea that rational sense is still a rule of the chess match, and that the pieces themselves have not gone insane.

I say to my boyfriend all the time about the many dumb things I am afraid of: whether something inspires fear has far less to do with the probability than it does the stakes. When the probability is high, but the stakes are low, there’s no real sense in lamenting the outcome; “the worst that can happen” in most day-to-day western dilemmas is typically a result of perspective failure rather than a real crisis, and definitely not nearly terrible enough to waste time wringing one’s hands over. But as the stakes go up, probability matters less and less, until eventually the stakes are so high that the probability ceases to influence the calculation at all. Any chance of the worst happening in that equation is still too much to risk to bear, no matter how unlikely it is to pass.

Sometimes I can’t tell if I’m just being paranoid, or if I’ve finally realized there’s enough to live for where the height of the stakes is warping my perception of the odds.

Paranoia or not, though, the last week has spiraled into a rumination loop on some miserable, shitty questions. And don’t get me wrong: the entire generation of people who grew up under the specter of the Cold War have had to answer this question many times over; millions of other people will have far harder questions to answer in the next few days than anyone in a bubble like me likely ever will. Not the question of whether someone is crazy enough to burn it all down—nobody knows that, although clearly I think it’s possible—but instead, a question that’s important to ask only because the answer will tell you something about the choices you’re making with your time. If you got a 15 Minute Warning tonight, what would you do? How would you spend it? And more importantly, are those the things you are filling your other minutes with on a daily basis? Or are those things you’ll find yourself grasping for in the dark, unable to savor enough of in the moments that remain?

The resulting shift in how I am living is, yes, unthinkably but truly, how we arrived here at pasta verde, an uplifting meal conceived as a reminder for me to keep faith, a level head, and careful count of my blessings. It is a representation of the abundance one has in a country that is currently at peace; a few simple ingredients, but not ones to take for granted. It is inspired by Italy and Greece because those are places where I was happy, and where I am lucky to have been able to visit in my lifetime. I designed it for the person I love most in the world, because it is a joy to have someone you love to cook with and for. It has the bright, uplifting flavor profile of spring that reconnects you to the earth, experiencing the change of seasons, connected to an ecosystem that still sustains life. Despite my overwrought intentions, it is super simple to prepare, because I wanted to feel good for a couple minutes when cooking it. And by design it takes less time to cook than it does to eat, because nobody regrets time they could’ve spent working harder in the end.

So tonight, after a long walk and a hot shower, we put on soft clothes and a record, and made dinner together. We lit all our candlesticks, put placemats out, and sat at the table. We broke our rule of not drinking wine on weeknights and had a glass anyway. We washed the dishes in five minutes flat, and talked for awhile instead of watching TV. I appreciated for a minute that I got to meet the love of my life in my lifetime, and decided to say so for a change instead of thinking it in silence. We went to bed early to savor the satisfaction of laying in the dark in a warm bed before falling asleep. These are the things so many are living without today, tonight, maybe ever in their lives. These are the things you start to make time for when you remember how lucky you are to have them. These are the things that belong in as many minutes as we have, so that we don’t regret having squandered the chance to feel them in the final fifteen.

No amount of time will change certain facts. Men have most of the world’s power. The male ego is exceptionally fragile. The protective mechanism of that ego has the ability to produce a poison more fatal than any pandemic. That poison, 60 years ago, mixed with science’s best intentions and created the architecture to transform human darkness into outright Doom. And the time it takes for Doom to cross a continent and show up at your front door is about half the length of a television show. If it comes knocking, there is nothing anybody can do about it. All you can do is live as well as you can in the time that you have.

This recipe is just one small part of my attempt to infuse every 15-minute increment with joy, appreciation, and satisfaction—the only “sense of purpose” my life has ever had—to savor them, celebrate them, hold onto them tight. I don’t have much to offer to humanity but a donation, a sympathetic shoulder, and a bowl of fucking pasta. Nonetheless, I hope this recipe brings light to your corner, if only a little, on a day where the darkness seems to be winning outside.

Loosely inspired by Joshua McFadden’s technique for kale sauce pasta from Six Seasons Cookbook.

recipe

Simple uplifting pasta for the soul. This is a vibrantly green pasta that combines spinach, dill, and feta into a sauce inspired by the places and people I love.

Effortful time: <10 minutes

Total time: 20 minutes

Serves 2, easily doubled

you need

  • 5 oz. baby spinach

  • 8 oz. sturdy pasta

  • 1 clove garlic, chopped

  • 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

  • 1/4 cup crumbled feta

  • Salt and pepper, to taste

  • 2 tbsp. chopped dill, for serving

  • More feta and chili flakes (optional), for serving

make it

  1. Do some prep. Boil water in a large saucepan or skillet. Salt it first. While that heats, prep your dill and chop a clove of garlic. I know one clove of garlic means six in some households, which definitely applies to me, but you are using this raw, so please trust me that one clove is enough.

  2. Add the spinach to the boiling water. Cook this about 60 seconds until the leaves are vibrant green and soft. Using tongs, remove it to either a blender or a cup you can use an immersion blender in (which is what I did). Set aside.

  3. Add the pasta to the green water and cook according to package directions, minus 1 minute. It finishes with the sauce.

  4. Create your sauce. In your blender/blendable vessel, add the chopped raw garlic, 1/4 cup crumbled feta, and 1/4 cup of olive oil. Then blend it hard until vibrant green and silky smooth. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Finish the pasta. Save a cup of starchy pasta water and drain the rest. Then combine the pasta in your pan with the pureed spinach sauce over low heat. Stir together to fully coat all the pasta, splashing in pasta water to get full coverage. Serve with more crumbled feta, the chopped dill, and a scattering of chili flakes. Drizzle with a little olive oil. Open your good wine. Hug your pet. Tell someone you love them. Eat slow. Remember you are lucky. Remember it every day.