Saturn Returns, Cold Showers, and a Recipe for Anchovy Spaghetti

A Love Letter to Change, Chaos, and the Occasional Corn Dog

My mother just doesn't want to move back to our hometown. I’m not sure if it’s pig-headedness or the mother-daughter competitive angst that’s been simmering since I could walk and talk (much earlier than she did, by the way). She claims that it will be too hard to settle back in here despite:

Everyone saying that she must stay.
That there's nothing for her back where we (now) come from.
That even her husband is no longer there (his ashes are here).
That this is her neighbourhood.
That all of her family and friends are here.
That her old elementary school is here.
That the nunnery where she learned to sew is here.
That the girls she taught to sew are here, a street away.
That the cemetery where all of her family is buried is here, within walking distance.
That everyone speaks her language and gets us.
That she should come back to where she came from.
She insists she wants what is easy and familiar.

Me, I want new and shiny. I desire, I NEED change more than anything else.

When Jeff and I were 27, we were about to open a shop. We had a fairly successful, small-scale business making and selling wedding favours. This is pre-internet mind you. It was mainly word of mouth. We were a little goth back then, even though we didn’t know it – he had black hair, mine was pretty dark, I wore dark lipstick and a lot of black but we didn’t listen to Emo. Anyway, we were about to sign a lease on a shop on Sydney Road in Brunswick, smack bang in the middle of wedding territory. A friend had designed beautiful frescoes for the shop’s walls. We would sell wedding favours and invitations and dried flowers and dreams. It was going to be a stunning space, a fantasy.

And we would be locked into a lease for a decade, maybe longer.

At 27, this was clearly our age of the Saturn Return and life needed a big shakeup.

And I said to Jeff: Dude, what are we doing? We're 27. We have no kids, and no intention of having any. We can't be locked down at the prime of our lives. We're young and beautiful and can still climb through broken windows in flip flops. We can still eat spicy street food, get food poisoning, and bounce back quickly. We can scale mountains, all the while complaining (me) that we’ll (I’ll) never climb another mountain again as long as we (I) live. Let's get the hell out of here and live life!

So we quit our sensible jobs, our dream business, bought new backpacks and one-way tickets to Egypt, signed up for an archaeological dig in Northern Israel, right near the border with Lebanon, and got the hell out of the safety we were settling into.

Because security, the known, the comfortable, schedules, plans have always been my nemesis. Sure, I’ve used a planner for a whole six months now…

Jeff and I have started a bunch of side hustles. I once made jewellery, and then I turned it into a business and it became a chore, something I HAD to do to fulfill orders. Jeff had an epic vinyl record store for a while. He was a DJ; still is I suppose (do you ever really stop being a DJ?). We had a teensy café inside an artist’s market. I studied to be a Life Coach (stop laughing) and one session with my first client I thought: This is bullshit and people are fucked.

Let’s face it, we’re all a little restless, aren’t we? I have restless leg syndrome as well as restless heart, soul, fingers, and head. Who wants to be locked down, told what to do, when to do it? When I started this Substack, I swore I would post an essay once a week, then it changed to fortnightly, then whenever the mood strikes me. You want to know why I haven’t turned on paid subscriptions? This is it. I don’t want to let anyone down (all the subscribers!), and I don’t want to feel obligated, encumbered, I don’t want to lose interest. I want to experience as much of life as my body and ennui can manage (which isn’t really that much). I want to take risks (but nothing serious like base jumping, maybe just scrambling through abandoned council buildings and the like) and go on the scariest rides at a theme park (next time, before eating).

Around 15 years ago, we lived next door to a family with young kids, two boys, whom I would often babysit. Their mum was a nurse and worked late. We took them to an arcade game auction so they could play all the games they wanted FOR FREE, and then one time, Jeff took to the Royal Melbourne Show. And I said: Boys, make sure you go on the scariest rides. The tallest. The fastest. Eat corn dogs and fairy floss until you feel like you’ll throw up. Listen, I went on, you’ll ride The Claw when you're 8 or 28, maybe even 38, but you're unlikely to want to ride The Claw when you're 48. You’ll grudgingly climb Mount Sinai at two in the morning when you’re 27 and fit, but at 55? Forget it. They really ought to install a chairlift—or even a slide, like the one at the Great Wall of China. Have epic experiences today, even if you don’t feel like it, because one day you may not want to.

And you simply must move to a different country when you're 55 (me and Jeff) or 81 (mum). You simply must. Life is goddamned short. Last year, my friend died at 54. 54! That's nuts. He was a creative, vital man and he just died.

I get that a big move like this will be challenging. We have to change the bottled gas every month—and sometimes it runs out before it’s replaced, which means cold showers. Amazon doesn’t do next-day delivery here (!), and IKEA is a whole hour away. But honestly, what is life without a little life in it? So whether it’s trying out a side hustle, riding The Claw, or eating Vincenzo’s Anchovy Spaghetti, what is life without a little Life in it?

Vincenzo’s Anchovy Spaghetti

To anyone who’s followed me for a while, you’ll know my love of a salty, oily anchovy. I’ll eat it on pizza, in a cheese toasty, and straight out of the jar.

Recently, after reading Lolly Martin’s recipe for pasta and broccoli, I was encouraged to buy the best anchovies I could find. I headed to Marzamemi, the gorgeous seaside village where Dolce & Gabbana held a runway show a couple of years ago, and which houses tuna canning warehouses. I got these. They weren’t cheap, but as Lolly says, you don’t need too many.

Except she hasn’t met Vincenzo.

Vincenzo is my cousin in law’s nephew. Got it? Anyway, we became a good friends last time we were here, and he loves taking Jeff on adventures for hours. Or they’re having an affair. I’d rather not know. Recently, he made us the best carbonara I will ever eat and that will one day clog my arteries if I eat it again, and, last night, anchovy spaghetti. I promise—it will not taste like anchovies.

Ingredients to serve 3-ish people:

• A lot of anchovies packed in oil - whatever you can find is fine, but if you can buy great ones, do.

• Extra Virgin Olive Oil - I currently have fresh oil made from my cousin’s trees. You can just use what you can get your hands on. It’s okay.

• Garlic cloves - around 3-4 - halved, you’ll take these out once the dish is served, except I ate all of the cloves everyone left on their plates.

• Crushed red chilli - the chunky kind, not powdered.

• 80-100g of spaghetti per person. You’ll want a pasta that has been bronze extruded because it is textured and will grab the sauce. Vincenzo used Voiello.

Start boiling your pasta water, remembering to salt it well. In the meantime, add a reasonable amount of oil to a frying pan - around 1/2 cup plus a little of the anchovy oil - then add the anchovies in a single layer, garlic, and chili flakes. Turn the stove on to medium and cook the anchovies slowly, they will start to melt and fall apart on their own, but you can give them a hand by breaking them up gently with a wooden spoon. They will fall apart completely leaving you with as brownish oil. Turn off the stove.

When the water boils, add the spaghetti and cook per the instructions on the packet - all pasta cooks at different rates. As an aside, I think all pasta brands should stamp the cooking times in the exact same place on the packet. It should be law. I don’t want to search every time I change brands.

When the pasta is 2 minutes off its total cook time, turn on the anchovy sauce to low and add around 1/2 cup of pasta water. Before draining the pasta, scoop out a cup of pasta water and set it aside. Throw the spaghetti into the pan and toss it in the sauce. If you need to add more water to help the spaghetti cook, add a little at a time until the pasta is al dente. Finely grate in some lemon rind and half of its juice, add grated parmigiano (preferably Reggiano) - not too much or it will upset the flavour. Toss some more. Serve hot. If you have some toasted breadcrumbs, use them instead of the parmigiano.

You’re welcome.