It Might Get Messy

So, as an official Dead Man Walking, I pay obsessive attention to physical signs of decline. “Is my breathing tight today? Shit, maybe the cancer’s waking up in that right lung.” “Am I running a fever? It must be pneumonia.” Etc. I do the same regarding psychological markers, but (shockingly), until recently, haven’t found much down that rabbit hole.

I’ve spent my life functioning in an oddball maze of interests and obligations. Read this, write that, sketch that dream from last night, practice those new scales, structure the chords for that new song, get the camera, there’s a good bird on the feeder. Half a century of bouncing from project to project, always with a pit of guilt deep in my gut that I’m not finishing things fast enough to move on to the next thing.

What I realized this week is that, while I still work the same way—book to guitar to manuscript to recipe to sketch pad to watercolor sheet—that nugget of gonna-miss-the-deadline-panic is no longer there. In fact, when I open that book or pick up the guitar, I actually become calm and comfortable. Where I used to get tense and worried. So what the hell happened?

Took me a bit of self-analysis to figure it out. But I think I got it. Back when I was healthy and anticipating a long, strong life, everything I did was about PRODUCT. About getting it done. Finish it so I can move on to the next thing and finish that so I can move on, and on and on. And of course I never (well, seldom) actually finished anything. Thus the gnawing deep inside. 

But now I can see the end of my life. And it isn’t that far away, and it’s very, very real, not the abstract empty concept of my younger, hardier days. Not only can I see it, I can feel it. In the pain, the discomfort, the mucous, the blood, the crazy surgically redesigned plumbing in my throat and chest and gut. And now, when I put down book A and pick up book B or the guitar or the sketch pad, I feel still and quiet and complete. And it’s because, to a dying person, doing something--anything-- is life-affirming. It’s time off the track to the grave. It’s no longer about product, because there’s no hope that I’m going to generate meaningful product before I’m dead and gone. Now, it’s all about PROCESS. Process of the things I love—reading, writing, music, photography, drawing, painting, cooking, hell, just watching my kids come and go. For someone in my condition, BEING is everything. Because pretty soon I am no longer going to “be”. I’ll be gone, trading physical presence for existing as fading memories of family and friends. So the more being I do now, the longer I hold off that moment of not-being. Time to wrestle that guitar and the scale book out of the corner behind my double medicine cabinets… . 

Along those lines of being, we had old friends in for dinner last Sunday. It makes me feel incredibly good to have family, old friends and young kids in the house, sharing food and wine and telling jokes and stories. Almost allows me to forget, for a while, that I’m living on borrowed time with a terminal illness. And that’s a great feeling.

For supper, we wanted something easy but delicious. Right away, when those are your criteria, you think Italian. A few plates of antipast and some simple but tasty main dish and everybody’s life takes on that Zen patina of comfortable existentialism. So we went for one of my Mom’s best repertoire items, Pasta Fazool.

Of course, I ended up too sick at the key moments to contribute physically to the cooking. I did manage to direct Colin, Molly and Cathy through the process of getting it all together. And it worked out well—probably better than if I was on the case myself.

Pasta Fazool. An Italian, and Italian-American, classic. Properly it’s pasta y fagioli, pasta and beans. “Fazool” is commonly believed to be a sloppy Americanization of the native Italian. I don’t buy that (but as far as I know, I’m the only person on the planet who doesn’t). I think “fazool” reflects Arabic “fool”, for beans (offered 3 meals a day in the four-star hotels of Jordan and Kuwait, and I expect elsewhere although I can only provide on-the-ground verification for these two). Given the dominance of Muslim influence around the Mediterranean, including Sicily and Spain through the 1500s, and the continued mix of cultures since then, it seems likely to me that the peasantry of the Italian peninsula conflated things before Italy became an actual national entity in the late 1800s. In which case “fazool” is a linguistic bastardization and not simply a slipshod error.

Anyway. Pasta fazool. About the simplest and most delicious dish in the global Italian repertoire. My family always made it with nonsmoked pork, which distinguished it immediately from pasta y lenticci (“pasta lindeech”, or pasta and lentils), which we always made with smoked pork and/or bacon. Pasta fazool is usually made on the stovetop, but there is a high risk of burning the bottom and rendering the whole batch inedible. I make it in the oven, which requires much less fussing, and also accommodates a huge batch if you want to make it for a crowd.

So. Get a chunk of pork. Not a lean piece. No loin, tenderloin, chops, or fresh ham. This is needs to be an old fashioned fatty and gristly piece of meat. The best cut is the shoulder (sometimes called “butt” or even “Boston butt”, and I have no idea where either odd misnomer came from), bone in. Without bones is fine. If you can find shanks, these are excellent, good fatty ribs work, and if you’re a little adventurous, a couple of pig’s feet make it even better. 

In a baking pan appropriate for the size of the batch you’re making, put olive oil, the pork, chopped onions, plenty of crushed and minced garlic, heavy doses of salt, pepper, dried basil and dried oregano, a couple of bay leaves, canned diced or crushed tomatoes, canned or boxed beef and/or chicken broth, and a heavy sprinkle of standard supermarket-grade balsamic vinegar. Throw in some wine, if you have an open bottle/box in the frig. Stick all this in a slow oven. Let it cook until the meat is falling-off-the-bones or falling-apart (if no bones) tender. To a certain degree, you can adjust the size of the chunks of meat to the time available for cooking. If you use a whole shoulder, it will take 6 to 8 hours. The same shoulder cut in 10 or 12 hunks will need 3 to 5 hours. Check periodically to make sure things aren’t drying out, this wants to be stew or even soup texture. At this point, remove the meat and let it cool so that you can pull it from the bones and shred or dice the flesh and skin. Skim some of the fat off the contents of the roasting pan. Just get the easy stuff, don’t be anal about this. You need some of that fat (which is part olive oil, remember) for flavor. Return the pan of liquid to the oven. When it re-reaches a simmer, add small pasta (what Italians would use for soup—ditalini, little elbows, tiny penne) and canned Cannellini beans. When the pasta is done, so is the dish. Toss the meat back in. Serve with Parmesan, grana padano, and/or pecorino grating cheese, good bread, a salad, and plenty of rough wine. Made correctly, this dish has the odd property (associated with other dishes of Italian extraction, such as sauce Bolognese) of rendering the happy diners unable to stop eating until they are stuffed to what would be gills in an aquatic version of human beings. Very satisfying for the cook!

And for the cancer victim. Sitting in my hospital style bed and watching it all go down gave me just that same Zen-of-being peace as picking at the guitar. Which I did for most of the afternoon while the garlic clouds drifted through the house. Having people around actually feels better than a full dose of dilaudid, which is a highly pure and potent opiate. Which is pretty much the gold standard for “feeling good” in human beings. Along with, as I now know, simply being alive and paying attention!

As always, I urge you to live ‘em while you got ‘em, because they are NOT forever. But if you use ‘em well, you can wring some real value from them. Thanks for being here, everybody. I love you all. And I love still being here to…well…be here!!!