Good morning. One of the greatest first lines of a novel, ever: “One evening, it was toward the end of October, Harry Arno said to the woman he’d been seeing on and off the past few years, ‘I’ve made a decision. I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told anyone before in my life.’ ”
That’s Elmore Leonard, in “Pronto,” from 2003. (Of course it is. What a writer he was!) I thought of it because I’ve been coming around to just that sort of decision myself. And here it is: I’m kind of sick of cooking. Not every day, and not all of any day, but sometimes lately, yes, for a moment or two, cooking is a drag. There’s the tyranny of it, for one thing: three squares for four people, same as yesterday, same as tomorrow.
Maybe that’s true for you, too — this occasional malaise about performing a task that, ordinarily, you love so much? It’s understandable if that’s the case, with so many of us stuck at home for so long now, with some of us working unimaginably difficult shifts before coming home, with others not working at all but following the daily passage of the sun past the window, gray dawn to inky dusk. Dinner again? Really? So soon?
Here’s what to do. Cook anyway. Cook something new, even if you don’t have all the ingredients. Cook to surprise yourself and maybe you will be surprised.
Mise en place. I had smoked sausage: commodity beef and liquid smoke shaped into a horseshoe. I had a big onion, some garlic, a box of pasta shells, a small can of puréed tomatoes, chicken broth, a heel of mozzarella. I had Parmesan. I always have hot sauce.
I sliced the sausage into coins and sautéed them crisp in olive oil, then added the onion, sliced, and the garlic, minced. When these were soft, I hit them with salt, pepper and hot sauce, then added the tomato purée and a couple of cups of broth. Got that bubbling, then added the shells and mixed them around. Covered the pot and lowered the heat. Spaced out for 15 minutes. Then, when the pasta was just about done, I took the pan off the heat and mixed into it the mozzarella, torn into pieces, and covered the top with Parmesan. It was delicious, a half-hour well spent. I loved cooking once more.
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Now, it’s nothing to do with grillades or tuna poke, but if that Elmore Leonard quote intrigued you, you can get started on his work at ElmoreLeonard.com.
The Memphis photographer Jamie Harmon has been making portraits of his neighbors living under quarantine. They’re in The Bitter Southerner, and they’re remarkable.