Campsite Spigots and Spaghetti Carbonara

Even yellowjackets can't keep me from pasta.

Hi! I’m Sasha - and I'm glad you’re here to read my memoir-style newsletter on traveling. If you’d like you can share this post. :)

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The minutes of grinding black pepper have tired my hands. I switch between coarse and medium grind, an occasional switch to a second pepper grinder for a finer blend: like coffee but for pasta. 

I eye the Maldon. Flaky salt, waiting for me, and I tip my head side to side, wondering if I should just grab the sea salt for the boiling water. But how could I? I can’t. Behind me, 3 eggs sit in a bowl of water. They have passed the test - the good test. They’re outdated, expired, sure. But they are on the bottom of the bowl. They are fine to eat. Good eggs sit on the bottom, right? If not, well, we are certain to not have a good meal. That’s unfair. We are certain to not cook a good meal. There is always Doordash.

I learned to cook spaghetti carbonara on a hot August day after driving in our motorhome for hours through the high deserts of Nevada. We had landed close to the edge of not-Nevada. In Ely. Have you been there? I thought not. But we have friends of friends of...No I lied. We had a lawyer who knew the area. He corrected our pronunciation of Ely, Nevada, and I will still take to my grave the inaccurate way to pronounce the town. 

When we reached Ely, Nevada it was after sitting in the hazy deserts of Nevada where I ran with hares and I visited shoe trees and I had escaped the California bay. After weeks or years, who’s to say, I had left the bay and I found energy in the hot sand of Nevada and I sat there half-expecting, half-hoping for scorpions to arise from the tan desert. I cooked very little here. It was hot. And let me tell you in no uncertain manner, we were on the loneliest highway in the world and it was blank blank blank. It was nothing. Nobody drove by us. Nothing. No hookups, so we grilled some, ate a lot of non-cooked stuff. We ate chips and sandwiches and dry ramen noodles.

A few days later, when we found a high desert campground that had electricity, I learned how to make a meal that tonight, on the 2nd of November in 2021, I make again. 

Spaghetti Carbonara is quick and easy and delicious. Here though, it is different. There is a dishwasher running in the background. It is cold: almost 52 degrees Fahrenheit. (cold comparatively speaking.) I make this meal,  and every time.. every time, I think of this moment in Ely, Nevada. A day when I was the type of exhausted where I finally didn’t give care what other people thought. I backed the RV into the campsite and then I walked outside and I watched yellowjackets hover around a water spigot and I thought, I don’t care. I’m going to get water. I have to boil pasta. And I did.

Every time. Every time I make this meal I am greeted with these memories. These solid memories of desert exhaustion. I had never made this dish before. Never. But I wanted it. And so I said, okay, I’ll figure it out. I’ve figured out the past 30-some years. I can do this too. After all, it’s just some pork and some pepper and some pasta and a little parmesan. 

But each time I cook spaghetti carbonara, the meal brings with it different memories.

I have different memories that I’m adding to it today. 

Today I hung a big shop door because I now live on land, instead of in an RV traveling.  It is so large, that door: nearly 14 feet tall. 12 feet wide. Jeremiah and I, we did it alone, hanging that door. 

We will eat this meal together, and he will say, “this is the best meal I’ve ever had,” or he will say, “this is so good, how did you do this?”

But nothing will ever compare to that time in the heat of August in 2020, at nearly 7,000 feet elevation, with exhaustion running my body. Nothing will compare to that carbonara that I cooked in a motorhome kitchen, with water from the yellow jacket spigot. 

And I think now that there are enough memories associated with this meal. The creaminess of the starchy water cheesy sauce. The boldness of the bits of pepper that get stuck between our front teeth. It is heavy with memories. There are enough memories that I don’t think I will make this again. Not for a long time. Maybe next time when I’m in a desert after a long day, I’ll find the yellow jacket water. And I’ll search the cupboards for a box of dried spaghetti. Maybe. For now, I will enjoy it this last time. And tomorrow, I’ll make another meal and with it, I will add in more memories. 

Thanks for traveling with me,

Sasha