Pasta Fagioli （My Way）
— SERVES 4 —
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, sliced
2 garlic cloves, halved
? bunch cavolo nero, roughly chopped
Three 14-ounce cans cannellini beans
3 cups Chicken Stock （page 253） or vegetable stock
2 to 3 cups marinara sauce
1 pound small pasta, like ditali or gnocchetti sardi
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Parmigiano-Reggiano or Pecorino, for serving （optional）
Pour a glug of the oil into a medium pot and sauté the onion and garlic over medium-low heat until soft. At the same time, boil the cavolo nero in a small pot of salted water.
Add the beans, stock, and marinara to the pan with the onion and garlic and stir together. Cook over low heat.
When the cavolo nero is soft, strain it, add it to the bean mixture, and stir. Continue to cook on a low simmer with the lid askew for about 15 minutes.
In the meantime, boil the pasta in salted water according to the directions on the package. When it’s done, strain it, reserving about a cup of the water, and place it in a large bowl. Add about 2 cups of the bean mixture to the pasta along with some of the pasta water and a drizzle of oil and mix.
Salt to taste and divide among 4 bowls. Add more bean mixture to each bowl along with a drizzle of oil. Sprinkle with pepper and Parmigiano or Pecorino, if using.
Variation: Loosely scramble 2 large eggs in a pan with olive oil. Then add one portion of the finished recipe above, including the pasta, and toss together. Finish with grated Parmigiano or Pecorino and a drizzle of olive oil.
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There have been two rather strange beneficial effects from the radiation treatments, neither of which I anticipated. One is an increased metabolism. I already had a very fast metabolism, yet now mine could keep pace with that of my eighteen-year-old self. The other is that any food allergies I had, such as intolerance to dairy, sugar, and at times gluten, have basically disappeared. I have been told that because I didn’t really eat for so long my system “reset,” as it were. It’s like when people are told by dieticians to cut out certain foods to see if they might be the cause of some gastrointestinal issue, then slowly reintroduce those foods sometime in the future and the stomach will sometimes be able to accept them. That has happened in spades to me. I can eat basically everything now, my digestion has never been better, and I have finally put on about fifteen pounds.
I have chosen to write about this painfully ironic experience because my illness and the brutal side effects of the treatment caused me to realize that food was not just a huge part of my life; it basically was my life. Food at once grounded me and took me to other places. It comforted me and challenged me. It was part of the fabric that made up my creative self and my domestic self. It allowed me to express my love for the people I love and make connections with new people I might come to love. When I was traveling, it kept me in touch with my family wherever I was in the world, whether on holiday or cooking for myself and a few colleagues while filming on location. During such meals I would explain that the recipes I’d prepared had been passed down through many generations. These humble dishes had traveled from Calabria to the US to London and now, to give one example, on location with me to a small bungalow in England’s Lake District, where they nourished a whole new set of people who had just entered my life. Watching my guests enjoy the meal I’d made filled me with great familial pride. In those moments it was clear to me that someday, when my parents are no longer alive, I will always be able to put their teachings and all the love they gave me into a bowl and present it to someone who sadly will never have had the good fortune of knowing them. But by eating that food, they will come to know them, if even just a little. Until I began to fathom my deep emotional connections with food, I had always thought that the ceremonial eating of the communion wafer, a symbol for the body of Christ, was a strange, almost barbaric, pagan ritual. However, now it may well be the only aspect of Catholicism that makes any sense to me at all. If you love someone, you just want them inside of you. （I know what you’re thinking, but let it go.） How many parents hug and kiss their kids and say, “I love you so much I just want to eat you up!” Love can and does enter through the mouth.
I must admit that years ago I never thought that my passion and interest in food would come close to eclipsing how I felt about my chosen profession. Acting, directing, cinema, and the theater had always defined me. But after my diagnosis I discovered that eating, drinking, the kitchen, and the table now play those roles. Food not only feeds me, it enriches me. All of me. Mind, body, and soul. It is nothing more than everything.