Normally around this time of the year, I talk about the powers of single spaghetti. Having been single for about five years and counting now, I use one of my favorite foods to feel better about the fact. Though I did reinstall Bumble on my phone and am trying it out again tentatively. With a pandemic, the rules are definitely going to change for love, and for meeting someone in person. (I may consider trying out an innocent show from Animal Planet to see how a date goes, depending on what they like.)
This year flipped the script for two reasons. One is that Valentine’s Day was a weekend, today actually. That means that I wouldn’t be ordering in spaghetti when we make lunch at home. The other is that we made lasagna on Saturday. There is so much leftover that we had the rest of it today. I had some and my older brother soaked the pans in hot water and dish detergent,
It was a huge group effort, doing both turkey and vegetable dishes, with my siblings. My older brother wanted to do the pasta, having made the turkey version while in Philadelphia. I chopped the carrots rather than doing the same with the zucchini and squash and making sure they were the proper size. Instead, my sister chopped the squash and cooked on the stove before transferring to a plate for lasagna assembly. We sneaked a few bites, careful not to burn ourselves. My older brother emptied two jars of tomato sauce into two different-sized pans, and we deliberated on how much the water needed to boil before putting in the lasagna noodles. It took about an hour or two of labor and assembly before lunch was ready on Saturday. We all agreed that the effort was well worth it.
Single spaghetti for me is a way to laugh at the fact that our society wants romance to be neat. Yet in reality, it can be hard to meet people, figure out if you click, and take that next step duly. The pandemic has also restricted the amount of times that a person goes out, because eating in restaurants is a high-risk, and coffee-shops have been reducing the amount of tables they have available for safety reasons. Remote activities can certainly prove more difficult.
Yet making lunch together proved you don’t have to be alone on Valentine’s Day. You just have to know who is willing to spend time with you to make the day better.
