My World Famous Lasagna

That is neither famous nor technically lasagna.

It begins with a lie. 

I am making my world-famous lasagna; can I make a second one for you? 

My lasagna isn’t world-famous.

That’s lie number two. 

The first lie is that I am making lasagna. I’m never just making lasagna. If I offer you a lasagna, it's because I love you dearly, and I think you need a little extra warmth in your life right now, but I’m worried you’ll say no if I offer it outright. 

If I can, I take great pleasure in going to the store to retrieve my ingredients. In my fantasies I can find them all in my backyard, and actually my backyard is a backyard I share with my neighbors, and we all come by with baskets in the evening for basil and the tomatoes and the eggplant and the zucchini, but I don’t even know what season these grow in (yet), and thus far plants have been little else than a hassle. That’s okay. The ingredients are fun to harvest all the same.

If I have the time, I go to the store and move slowly as my ever buzzing energy allows me. I look over the vegetables, hmm, this is on sale this week, but I think I prefer the tomatoes on the vine… as if I really know the difference, and I check the box twice to ensure I’ve grabbed the oven ready lasagna noodles, because I can’t even fathom how I’m supposed to put lasagna noodles in a boiling pot of water.

Sometimes, I skip the meat altogether. The first time I did this was the very first time I had lasagna–like, actual lasagna. In my childhood home we used to eat the kind that came in the box that went in the microwave, it was an individual serving, and it would be cooked through sometimes and sometimes it wouldn’t. I appreciated it but much preferred those Banquet chicken pot pies or the little pizzas, but I much much preferred the rarity of my dad having enough energy to cook us something. He was a good cook. His aunts taught him how to cook, and his great grandma taught him how to cook, and all of these wonderful and loving family members who could never seem just to tell him I love you filled his plate with warm meals that he carried in his heart with him.

But the first time I ever actually had lasagna I had made it myself. A gift to me. Just barely into my twenties. I was a vegan–plant-based, even–and I can’t remember if 2020 had shut down the world yet or not. I was living with my very best friend, in an apartment at the edge of the city near where my Great Grandma Lucy had raised her kids, and in those days my best friend and I danced around and drank a lot of wine in the evenings and just indulged. We really savored our youth, savored fancy cheeses from the discount bin, appreciated coffee in the mornings on the balcony and long talks about what we needed to do to be better and brighter and prettier versions of ourselves.

We were just fine then, really.

But no one ever quite knows that in the moment, right?

Now I don’t drink wine by the bottle, or alcohol at all, and I really should be drinking decaf, but I love those memories all the same. It was with her I shared my first lasagna. Now I add meat to my lasagnas.

Lasagnas are love in a metaphorical way that is more mature than sauce is a hug and one that is more juvenile than to make a lasagna slowly is to put effort into your care of someone. Lasagna is love in the way my little brother's favorite frozen dinner was lasagna, so I didn’t touch it when it was in the freezer, and therefore I never really cared for lasagna. Lasagna is love like a freezer filled with frozen TV dinners is love sometimes. 

I used to make lasagnas (okay, twice, maybe three times) for this really cool little organization called Lasagna Love. They connect people with other people who need a lasagna. Who needs a lasagna? Plenty of people need lasagna. It was so oddly fulfilling and cathartic. There’s no quick way to make a good lasagna.

But this is fine, too. Lying, I mean.

I am making my world-famous lasagna; can I make a second one for you? 

I chop and dice and decide the theme of this lasagna–and I’ve made many thematic ones, including the vegan, the plant-based, the gluten-free, the no ricotta, the I promise you’ll like the lasagna let me put you on–is chunky vegetable lasagna, because my phrase of 2024 is slow down but I can’t manage to do it. My sister is FaceTiming me, and did I look too displeased in today’s meeting, and what deadlines am I missing, and Copper get out of my way! 

I promised I’d think only positive thoughts when making this lasagna, but I’m settling for the thought before the thought that counts, and I’m chopping things roughly and trying to think about how much I love the people I love, and how grateful I am for the opportunity to make this lasagna, and l wish I wasn’t thinking about work and the news and my bills and that I could just really like force some loving and happy energy into this lasagna so that when people ate it they’d know how much I 

Copper lays by the oven. I think he always does this, no matter what I’m making, but I like it especially when I make lasagna. I see him in that old apartment, and my parents house, and my husbands old studio, and my other house, and…all the places he’s lived with me. Each one, his spot will always be in front of the oven. I imagine Garfield’s voice in my head when I’m making my world famous lasagna. Garfield reminds me of my brother. 

God, I love my brother so much. 

I’ve made him lasagna. Twice, maybe three times. I knew he’d love it. He loved those frozen ones. The first time was when we lived together and he was still in high school, but the world had shut down, and I saw his faith in humanity crumble as he slept through his online classes and watched as we all argued with each other over–I don’t know, *gestured vaguely*--and the second time was when we lived together in that little bungalow on the other side of Denver and what a beautiful time of my life that was, right? His girlfriend had a plate, and I didn’t know she was his girlfriend then, but I’ll never forget the way I saw her lean her head on his shoulder that first time, just through the rearview mirror, and I wanted to cry because God, I love my brother so much. 

I’d give anything for the people I love. I’d sacrifice it all. I feel the love I have for the people in my life so heavily, so fully, that it makes my eyes well. I feel all things so vividly that it makes my eyes well. 

And yet.  

There are extra noodles and a cup full of extra meat and chunky vegetable sauce, and I find the smallest casserole dish I can and roll up a little mini lasagna for me. It comes out dry because I ran out of cheese, and the noodles are a little hard, and I pray the other one turned out better, the real one I mean. My husband doesn’t like lasagna, he told me once he didn’t like how his mom made it, and I am a little jealous he lived in a house where lasagna was made. It takes a lot of planning to make a lasagna and a lot of love. 

I’ll deliver this lasagna to a dear friend tomorrow, struggle to give them a loving embrace, avert my eyes when they thank me, facepalm on my drive home as I wonder if I should have said, well, I love you, I hope things get better. 

And I think to myself, why am I such a liar? Next time, I’ll say, I love you, and I don’t know how to show it, but I make a pretty-okay lasagna if you’d like me to make you one.