Pasta alla Gricia
... and a whole lotta info about my work calendar
Comrades:
I have been absent and remiss and I am sorry.
During the fourth and final live panel during the Recipe Development Workshop, I confessed that there are times when I simply cannot bring myself to promote my own work. I am grateful and generally thrilled to be the mistress of my own work destiny, but the reality for any of us who are responsible for our own PR is that it gets exhausting.
At the completion of the Workshop (which was amazing, btw), I think I experienced a come-down from the dopamine hit of being on Food Processing every day and how much fun I was having.
One week went by (Mushroom Parm Hero). Two weeks went by (Beef & Barley Soup). Three weeks went by. And here we are!
I am working on being more tolerant/accepting of my professional … uh … underachievements? (Trying not to say failures.) I get trapped in a circuitous train of thought when it comes to this sort of stuff. It starts with telling myself to do it, then not doing it, then thinking it’s okay to be a little late, then still not managing to do it, then telling myself it’s okay to take a break and the world won’t end, then guilt, then regret, then saying I’ll do it, then not doing it, then blaming it on Marge. She is A RESOURCE VACUUM. Anyone else relate?
Then the best excuse of all came along: a total eclipse of the sun! I am not really an astrology person unless it’s about my sign, Leo, which is the most Leo thing to say. But also true. Everywhere I looked during the lead-up to the eclipse, there was cosmically-backed evidence granting blanket permission to every procrastinator on the planet!
Last week I leased a car, shot four new videos, booked a massage, and launched Carla 2.0 for Q2. My therapist and I talked about what a perfect workday for Carla looked like, an exercise I recommend for all. (It starts with taking Marge to off-leash; she’s got me in a chokehold.) Gym. Four hour block of focused work time. Afternoon walk. Admin. Dinner. And yes, I do believe in being kind to yourself. And yes, it is okay to take a break. But no, it is not okay to sleep on pasta alla gricia.
After articulating my perfect day, I decided that I am going to try to treat work life like a curriculum, aka I’m back in college and take a bunch of classes that meet at certain times: Food Processing is a seminar. Long-form Videos is a hands-on lab. Social Media meets daily, unfortch. My Next Book is on the spring semester (!!). I’m taking a super boring Business Administration course. You get the idea. (Can you believe I’ve been working for myself for 4 years and still figuring this sh*t out??).
My therapist said to build in flexibility, but he didn’t say anything about color coding!
No one.
Me at 1 A.M. googling: “hex codes for warm color palettes”
Back to that recipe. Here’s the irony: if you haven’t planned dinner and didn’t meal prep or shop ahead of time, and you’ve been indecisive and left things for the last minute—well then, I picked the perfect day to swing us all back into it. Pasta alla Gricia has five ingredients (seven if you count salt and pepper). I hope you have a hunk of guanciale or pancetta in the freezer, as you should. A joy when it is there, a Roman cry of defeat if not. In the video, I break down all of the decisions that make this dish a classic—there’s a pecorino romano tasting, a black pepper tasting, guanciale slo-mos, and love for a new covetable brand of pasta, now sold-out in the spaghettoni I used in the video. (Coincidence?? I don’t think so. Try spaghetti instead).
I know it doesn’t look like it, but I have to go walk Marge … before running to my first massage in about two years!!!
