Hey, Beautiful!
Lately I’ve been thinking that I’m saving way too many things for later.
I have things tucked into cabinets and drawers—beautiful things, carefully chosen things, cherished things—all of them waiting in the wings for the version of my life, or maybe the version of my self, I imagined I would be someday, when I first brought them home.
The woman who had somewhere fabulous to wear the dress. Who lit her expensive candle on a Sunday afternoon instead of deciding it should be saved for company.
The woman that I’m always in the process of becoming, but somehow feel I have not yet become.
A few weeks ago, I pulled out something I’d been “saving” and wore it on a completely ordinary day. No occasion. Nothing even remotely eventful happening.
And it made me ridiculously happy just to hold it in my hands.
Not because the thing itself was inherently precious, but because for once I didn’t see it as belonging to some future version of my life.
Simply by holding it, it became part of my now.
So I just—wore it.
And there was something alchemical about deciding that on an ordinary day, the future magic of someday could become the immediate magic of now.
Because maybe that special future moment isn’t coming anytime soon.
Maybe it will never will. But the thrill I felt when I first chose that thing, first tried it on, first imagined the moment I would wear it—
that moment could be the very next moment of my life.
Because becoming isn’t always about changing.
Sometimes it’s about claiming the life we have instead of waiting for the life we keep envisioning for ourselves.
Because this very moment—in all its messy, unplanned glory—is beautiful too, too.
Even if it’s just an ordinary kind of beautiful.
This week, I’m going to take something else out of a dustbag and wear it.
I’m going to crack open the packaging on that beautiful candle that’s been sitting on my shelf. I’m going to open that special bottle of wine and serve it with a weekday dinner.
No occasion required.
Because maybe becoming my future self starts by realizing that I already am that person.
Around my table
Marcella Hazan’s Onion and Butter Sauce
(Four ingredients, one hour, and you’re a miracle worker.)
Tomatoes. An onion. Butter. Salt. That’s it.
Marcella Hazan first published this now iconic recipe in 1973, and its honored place in the pantheon of go-to recipes for home cooks lies in its reliably delicious outcome and almost suspiciously simple preparation.
Make it once, and you’ll understand why.
Ingredients
- 2 pounds ripe tomatoes, blanched, peeled, cored, and roughly chopped (about 4 1/2 cups), or 1 (28-ounce) can imported Italian plum tomatoes (such as San Marzano) (undrained).
- 1 medium-size (10-ounce) yellow onion, peeled and cut in half around its middle
- 5 tablespoons of the best unsalted butter you can find (2 1/2 ounces)
- Salt to taste; don’t use table salt. I suggest using Diamond Crystal Kosher salt
Place tomatoes in a medium saucepan; add onion cut side down, drop in chunks of the butter, and add a generous pinch of salt. Cook over a low heat at a simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally and mashing any large pieces of tomato using the back of a wooden spoon, until fat floats free from the tomatoes and is incorporated into the sauce as it slightly thickens, about an hour. Season with more salt to taste. Remove and discard onion.
Yep, that’s it.
A few notes:
(Rather than chop the canned tomatoes, which is a mess, I put them in the cooking pot,
break the tomatoes up with my hands, and remove any fibrous leftover bits.)
Don’t overthink this one. Don’t add garlic. Don’t add herbs. Don’t start wondering if it needs a splash of wine.
Marcella knew what she was doing.
Just, Random
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