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| Cooked brown rice pasta makes a lovely little crust for the eggs. |
An Italian Classic - Updated
It's crunch time here at Casa Allrich. Moving day looms. Packing has begun. I've been sitting on the floor like a cast-off princess in a fairy tale assigned to her individuating task, combing not through haystacks or mountains of tiny grain but musty boxes of thirty-five-year-old letters, stacks of faded photographs and yellowed clippings, evidence of another life allegedly my own. I am struck most by the persistent echoes, the parallels spiked with the quirky twists of fate that led me here, to now, the line between seeking and creating blurring into a narrative that persists in your life like an ache.
We seek what we need to become. We long for the parts of ourselves we discarded out of necessity or people-pleasing acquiescence. Accommodation is a common theme in many a woman's life. Mid-life sharpens this trend into focus in subtle ways. When you begin counting seasons, and fewer summers await you, each choice you've picked up to now- and every discarded loss- becomes bittersweet and ripe with meaning.
All this contemplation and dust as we recycle the last remaining things we carry.
Our life has been whittled and sanded and simplified these
last six years. An
empty nest has its gifts. From the
east coast to the west coast we have pared down and let go with each move (five times in six years). No original furniture remains. We own
a sofa (a floor model bought in Marina Del Rey). A bed. Two desks. The truckload of books and old paintings is now a carload.
My boxes of cookbooks have shrunk from twenty to two.
Our move to Studio City is a gesture toward community (writing and film). A move closer to family (both sons- and a new daughter-in-law- live closer to Studio City than Redondo Beach). A move away from the ocean, but toward sun. From
fog to heat. Our new neighborhood is a quiet, leafy one, framed in well tended white fenced gardens that rival Provincetown. We walked the block last week. Waist high lavender bushes, roses, iris and honeysuckle feed me in ways concrete and steel cannot. Small town New England is in my bones, I guess. And forever will be.
Today I offer you a recipe spun from the magic of leftover brown rice spaghetti and eggs- a creamy, light frittata. Perfect for when you're simply too tired to cook. Or you have nothing in the fridge but a carton of eggs, half a bag of kale salad and last night's leftover spaghetti in eggplant marinara.
The "cheese" I used was a vegan "mozzarella" (my current favorite is Vegan Gourmet). But if you prefer using dairy- select one or two of your favorite organic cheeses.
READ MORE and get the recipe ...
. Gather some candles. And know I'm counting with you- the lengthening days till Spring.
