8 to 10 small zucchine
1 ? cups chopped fresh basil
Sea salt to taste
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 pound spaghetti
3 cups grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
Put the sunflower oil in a large pot and bring to a low boil over medium-high heat.
Slice the zucchine into thin rounds and fry in the oil until it is golden brown. Remove and set aside on paper towels.
Sprinkle with the basil and the salt to taste.
Transfer to a bowl and drizzle liberally with olive oil.
Boil the pasta until al dente and strain, reserving about 2 cups of the pasta water.
Place the cooked pasta in a large pan or pot over low heat along with the zucchine mixture and combine gently. Add the pasta water, a little at a time, to create a creamy texture. You may not use all of the pasta water. Now add some of the Parmigiano to the mixture and continue to combine by stirring gently and tossing. When the mixture has a slight creaminess, remove from the stove and serve immediately.
Note: The zucchine mixture can be refrigerated for about 5 days for use at a later date. Best to bring it to room temperature before using.
I?I have just recently returned from Lo Scoglio, where I watched Antonia’s brother Tomasso make this dish. On the table were all the ingredients as I described above, plus… one other. A small dollop of butter! I KNEW IT! PS: Antonia and I still remain friendly, but I wouldn’t trust her as far as I could throw her. I’m kidding. I would do anything for her and her family. Always and ever.
19
The sense of freedom that sailing the Amalfi coast engendered is in stark juxtaposition to the restrictive lifestyle that March 2020 brought upon us all, also known as the first lockdown. （The one that we thought was going to be the only lockdown.） I wrote this piece during that time. It chronicles a day in our lives and the events of that day, which then just basically repeated themselves for months.
We were in London: my wife, Felicity, and I were sequestered there with our two small children, a boy, five, and a girl, two; my three older children, a girl, eighteen, and boy/girl twins, twenty; and a girlfriend of theirs from university who was unable to get to her parents overseas.
Cramming all of these people with differing personalities, ages, needs, wants, etc. in a house for six weeks created for an interesting dynamic. For the most part things went very well, meaning no one murdered anyone.
At first I had grand plans for what we might do to pass the time in convivial and entertaining ways. I thought perhaps a rotating schedule of cooks for the nightly meal, followed by movies, games, or Bordeaux-fueled charades by the fire. Things didn’t quite work out that way. Instead, here’s what our typical lockdown day looked like with the absence of our nanny and our weekly cleaning lady.
7:00 a.m. GMT
Within moments of Felicity’s and my awakening, our five-year-old is in our room. It’s not clear how he knows we’re awake. For all we know, he has a monitor like the one we use to listen to his two-year-old sister. He waltzes over to my wife’s side of the bed, completely ignoring me as usual, and begins to chat with her about nothing and everything. （His usual topic is dragons, as he is obsessed with the wonderful book series How to Train Your Dragon and its various cinematic spinoffs.） Felicity and I head to the bathroom and he follows, and perches himself on the bidet to regale us with plot points from the novels and observations about the seemingly endless variety of dragons and their specific attributes. He will carry on this way more or less until sunset.
After dressing, we head to his sister’s room, where she has been “singing” in her crib and perusing the shredded remains of her extensive Peppa Pig book collection. When she sees us enter she inevitably covers her face with a book and pretends to be asleep. She thinks this is funny. She is right. I change her “nappy” and she kicks me in the groin a few times for my trouble.
We all head downstairs for breakfast. For me, this consists of a double espresso, orange juice, and a bowl of cereal with a banana and almond milk. I also choke down a handful of vitamins, including D3, K2, C, B12, curcumin powder, and joint supplements so my knees don’t crack like a melting glacier every time I bend down to pick up a rogue Lego block. Felicity has her tea and the children have either toast, cereal, fruit, the occasional egg, or whatever else their little hearts desire. Most of their food ends up on the floor anyway. This precipitates my first deep-clean of the day.
8:00 a.m. GMT
I tidy up their mess, empty the dishwashers—yes, we have two—scour the counters, wipe down the cabinets and their handles, and organize the contents of the fridge, discarding anything past its due date. I also sweep the floor, but after summoning considerable willpower, I decide to delay the mopping for after lunch.