Mother's sad spaghetti

A spaghetti recipe for the overwhelmed

Autumn is here and I’m tired. October brings a month of illness. The baby has just started nursery and now she's covered in spots and full of snot. The news is bad and I am overwhelmed by change. 

One week I am so frustrated I bite my lip so hard it turns blue. I argue with a friend, I rock the baby to sleep, I work through tonsillitis. I tell myself it's a phase. I lose my voice over the course of an evening with my friends at dinner: I am released from the house and we eat pizza and laugh. We talk about our children and then walk along a dark, country lane to our cars. I feel like a teenager again, for a moment. 

It can be lonely, staying at home with a sick baby. I call my mother. She tells me the week my brother and sister had chickenpox was one of the worst of her life. I feel so relieved. I remember turning to her in confusion after the baby was born. You did this three times? But you were all so good, she said. No, I think, she's just forgotten.

While I work myself through the phase, I need something to take the edge off. Maybe you need that too. We all need that, sometimes.

There is one recipe I continuously return to, again and again. This year, it has taken on a new significance: it is comforting and unctuous eaten hot from the pan or cold from tupperware while I feed the baby toast. She will only eat toast, everything else she throws on the floor. 

My husband comes into the kitchen on his lunch break. ‘What are you eating?’ He asks me.

‘Mother’s sad spaghetti,’ I say. I look at it. Is the spaghetti a remedy for the sad mother or is the mother simply eating cold, sad spaghetti? Actually, as with so many things in life, it works whichever way you choose. Either way, eaten in sadness as a tonic or with dismay in a cold lump the next day, it will not fail at comforting you.

It's a Nigella recipe, of course (the queen of quick, cosy comfort). It is slick with oil, salty with anchovies, hot with chilli and garlic. The original recipe calls for eight anchovies and three tablespoons of oil, but I always tip out a whole jar and watch it melt and pop in the hot pan with glee. The anchovies are salty seasoning, so the more the better. I use chopped chilli from a jar, too (easy), whatever greens I have in the fridge (the iron you will need to give you energy for dealing with all that snot), and fat garlic gloves. Finally, an overenthusiastic dusting of parmesan.

It's simple, hot, pungent, spicy, fatty and salty – a hit of carbs on a bad day and an injection of taste to remind you that there is still fragrant joy to be had. It will punch you in the face (in a good way)! It will get better with time (like sleepless nights, nursery colds, and that same stupid argument you have with your husband about scrunching up the tea towels).

I eat the spaghetti and I feel better.

I buy tulips from the local florist. He says his favourite flower is the type of lily that was laid on Princess Diana’s coffin. He used to order them in but no one bought them. I tell him my favourite flowers are tulips and he shakes his head. Still, I take them home in a bundle (yellow and white) and they cheer me up all day. I listen to Taylor Swift’s 10-minute version of All Too Well as I walk the dog and realise it is a strangely perfect autumnal song. I try and teach myself a lesson about the muffled ways I communicate with the people I love. I finish a bad tv show and I read a very good book.

I talk to one of my colleagues about the nursery illnesses. ‘All anyone says about babies is how much admin there is, how they get sick and how difficult they are, why does anyone have one?’ She asks.

I think about it. 'Well, I can't just go around saying she's the light of my life and I adore her, can I?'

She laughs, incredulous. ‘Yes you can. Of course you can!’

I realise I might be doing a disservice to the experience of parenthood. It’s easy to complain. But what goes without saying (why, because it’s trite?) is that she is the light of my life. I spent a long time fearfully anticipating a child entering my life with all the chaos and trauma that people talk about. What I didn't realise is what people left out, what I now sometimes leave out.

Even when it’s difficult, the joy is unparalleled! The first time she laughed, I cried with happiness. I recorded the moment on my phone and my sister asked: ‘Are you crying?’ I wasn’t embarrassed to say yes. How often did I cry with happiness before?

‘If that’s how you feel,’ my colleague says, ‘that's what you should say.’ So here I am, saying it. Every day, everything in me rises up to meet her. Every time I get to the point where I am fed up, overwhelmed, or just want to throw her out the window, she does something that reminds me. She's the light of my life.

While this is true, there are still days where I need the spaghetti. I am lucky that most days, the spaghetti will do. I am lucky that my baby is safe and warm in bed and her illnesses only last a few days. And while she may not eat all her toast, she does improve.

After a day like the one with the tulips, the spaghetti doesn’t seem so sad after all. It does its job. And who can ask for more than that? It reminds me: six ingredients can make a song, even if some days you aren't able to sing it.

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This week I'm eating: Chicken bolognese (don't ask), Morrisons bacon flavour rashers (the best of the genre), and the baby's leftover toast.