A Full Plate

Selected Shorts

Selected Shorts presents two emotionally rich stories centered on food as a metaphor for connection, memory, and love. Haruki Murakami's 'The

Key takeaways

• Food serves as both literal nourishment and symbolic emotional sustenance in literature.
• Loneliness can be ritualized through repetitive acts like cooking, revealing deeper psychological states.

Main topics

• Emotional nourishment through food
• Loneliness and isolation in modern life

Notable quotes

"Spaghetti strands are a crafty bunch, and I couldn't let them out of my sight. If I were to turn my back, they might well slip over the edge of the pot and vanish into the night."

Conclusion

Through the lens of food and family, this episode reveals how stories can

Transcript preview

Speaker 6 (0:08) You know those helpful newspaper articles on what to cook tonight or this week, or the ones about how to tackle a family issue? Well, on this Selected Shorts, one story offers a year's worth of pasta and a little self-reflection, and the other provides a generous helping of love served many ways. Join me, Meg Wallitzer, along with actors Hope Davis and Michael Imperioli. And at the end of the show, I visit with the members of a lively mother-daughter book club to talk about an Amy Bloom story. You're listening to Selected Shorts, where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction, one short story at a time. We're calling this episode a full plate. And yes, we know that conjures up that person online in the dining room on the cruise ship who just can't get enough of the crab-leg buffet, or the well-meaning cook in the family who doesn't believe you when you say no thank you to a third helping. But a full plate also means abundance, and that's how we're thinking about it on this show. When is a meal not just a meal? When, in the hands of good writers, it's also an emotional catalyst, a Hitchcockian MacGuffin that leads into the real story, and, as Marcel Proust has taught us with his famous Madeleine, a gateway to the past. If you're going to fill your plate to overflowing, whether in art or in life, what matters as much as quantity is, of course, quality. Those details, all 17 or 850 or 1 million of them, have to count. Otherwise, the person you're serving them to is just going to push the plate away. On today's show, you'll hear two favorite stories from our archives that demonstrate how much and how differently we can heap our plates. In one, a man navigates an existential crisis with help from his pasta pot. In the other, a complex family relationship defies convention and asks for a serving of emotional generosity. And later in the show, a lively mother-daughter book club takes a big slice of short fiction, and I get to be there. Our first Speaker 7 (2:13) story is by Speaker 6 (2:14) Haruki Murakami. Murakami is the protean author of novels including 1Q84 and The City and Its Uncertain Walls. We got to know him through his short story collections, including First Person Singular, and have featured a lot of his work, which often pushes reality to its limits and seems to bring out the best in our readers. The Year of Spaghetti is deceptively plain. Our narrator shares his nightly pasta rituals, but after a few mouthfuls, you know you're in emotionally complex territory, moving from spaghetti alla parmigiana, spaghetti alla napoletana, spaghetti alla carbonara, to relationships that aren't as easy to prepare Speaker 7 (2:55) or repair. Speaker 6 (2:57) Reader Michael Imperioli is a Sopranos alum whose other credits include The White Lotus and, most recently, An Enemy of the People on Broadway. Speaker 1 (3:15) The year of spaghetti. Speaker 1 (3:19) 1971 was the year of spaghetti. In 1971, I cooked spaghetti to live and lived to cook spaghetti. Steam rising from the aluminum pot was my pride and joy, tomato sauce bubbling up in the saucepan, my one great hope in life. I'd gone to a cooking specialty store and bought a kitchen timer and a huge aluminum cooking pot, big enough to bathe a German shepherd in. Then went round all the supermarkets that cater to foreigners, gathering an assortment of odd-sounding spices. I picked up a pasta cookbook at the bookstore and bought tomatoes by the dozen. I purchased every brand of spaghetti I could lay my hands on, simmered every kind of sauce known to man. Fine particles of garlic and onion and olive oil swirled in the air, forming a harmonious cloud that penetrated every corner of my tiny apartment, permeating the floor and ceiling and walls, my clothes, my books, my records, my tennis racket, my bundles of old letters. It was a fragrance one might have smelled on an ancient Roman aqueduct. This is a story from the year of spaghetti, 1971 A.D. As a rule, I cooked spaghetti and ate it alone. I was convinced that spaghetti was a dish best enjoyed alone. I can't really explain why I felt that way, but there it is. I always drank tea with my spaghetti and ate a simple lettuce and cucumber salad. I'd make sure I had plenty of both. I laid everything out neatly on the table and enjoyed a leisurely meal, glancing at the paper as I ate. From Sunday to Saturday, one spaghetti day followed another, and each new Sunday started a brand new spaghetti week. Every time I sat down to a plate of spaghetti, especially on a rainy afternoon, I had the distinct feeling that somebody was about to knock on my door. The person who I imagined was about to visit me was different each time. Sometimes it was a stranger, sometimes someone I knew. Once it was a girl with slim legs whom I dated in high school, and once it was myself from a few years back, come to pay a visit. Another time, it was none other than William Holden with Jennifer Jones on his arm. William Holden. Not one of these people, though, actually ventured into my apartment. They just hovered just outside the door without knocking, like fragments of memory, and then slipped away. Spring, summer, and fall, I cooked away as if cooking spaghetti were an act of revenge. Like a lonely, jilted girl throwing old love letters into the fireplace, I tossed one handful of spaghetti after another into that pot. I'd gather up the trampled-down shadows of time, knead them into the shape of a German shepherd, and toss them into the rolling water, sprinkle them with salt, and then I'd hover over the pot, oversized chopsticks in hand, until the timer dinged its plaintive tone. Speaker 1 (6:31) Spaghetti strands are a crafty bunch, and I couldn't let them out of my sight. If I were to turn my back, they might well slip over the edge of the pot and vanish into the night, like the tropical jungle waits to swallow up colorful butterflies into the eternity of time. The night lay in silence, hoping to waylay the prodigal strands. Speaker 1 (6:55) Spaghetti alla parmigiana, spaghetti alla nabolitana, spaghetti al cartoccio, spaghetti aglio olio, spaghetti alla carbonara, spaghetti della pina. And then there were the pitiful nameless leftover spaghetti carelessly tossed into the fridge. Born in heat, the strands of spaghetti washed down the river of 1971 and vanished. And I mourn them all, all the spaghetti of the year 1971. Speaker 1 (7:24) When the phone rang at 3.20, I was sprawled out on the tatami, staring at the ceiling. A pool of winter sunlight had formed in the place where I lay. Like a dead fly, I lay there, vacant, in a December 1971 spotlight. At first, I didn't recognize it as the phone ringing. It was more like an unfamiliar memory that had hesitantly slipped in between the layers of air. Finally, though, it began to take shape, and in the end, a ringing phone was unmistakably what it was. It was 100 % a phone ring in 100 % real air. Still sprawled out, I reached over. I picked up the receiver. Speaker 1 (8:06) On the other end was a girl, a girl so indistinct that by 4.30 she might very well have disappeared altogether. She was the ex-girlfriend of a friend of mine. Something had brought them together, this guy and this indistinct girl, and something had led them to break up. I had, I admit, reluctantly played a role in getting them together in the first place. Sorry to bother you, she said, but do you know where he is now? I looked at the phone, running my eyes along the length of the cord. The cord was, sure enough, attached to the phone. I managed a vague reply. There was something ominous in the girl's voice, and whatever trouble was brewing, I knew I didn't want to get involved. Speaker 1 (8:52) Nobody will tell me where he is, she said in a chilly tone. Everybody's pretending they don't know, but there's something important I have to tell him, so please tell me where he is. I promise I won't drag you into this. Where is he? Speaker 1 (9:08) I honestly don't know, I told her. I haven't seen him in a long time. My voice didn't sound like my own. I was telling the truth about not having seen him for a long time, but not about the other part. I did know his address and phone number. Whenever I tell a lie, something weird happens to my voice. No comment from her. The phone was like a pillar of ice. Then all the objects around me turned into pillars of ice, as if I were in a J.G. Ballard science fiction story. Speaker 1 (9:37) I really don't know, I repeated. He went away a long time ago without saying a word. The girl laughed. Give me a break. He's not that clever. We're talking about a guy who has to raise a noise no matter what he does. She was right. The guy really was a bit of a dim bulb. But I wasn't about to tell her where he was. Do that, and next I'd have him on the phone giving me an earful. I was through with getting caught up in other people's messes. I'd already dug a hole in the backyard and buried everything that needed to be buried in it. Nobody could ever dig it up again. I'm sorry, I said. You don't like me, do you? She suddenly said. I had no idea what to say. I didn't particularly dislike her. I had no real impression of her at all, and it's hard to have a bad impression of somebody you have no impression of. I'm sorry, I said again, but I'm cooking spaghetti right now. Speaker 1 (10:35) What? I said I'm cooking spaghetti. I lied. I had no idea why I said that, but that lie was already a part of me, so much so that at that moment, at least, it didn't feel like a lie at all. I went ahead and filled an imaginary pot with water. I lit an imaginary stove with an imaginary match. So, she asked, I sprinkled imaginary salt into the boiling water and gently lowered a handful of imaginary spaghetti into the imaginary pot, setting the imaginary kitchen timer for 12 minutes. So, I can't talk. The spaghetti will be ruined. She didn't say anything. I'm really sorry, but cooking spaghetti is a delicate operation. The girl was silent. The phone in my hand began to freeze again. So could you call me back, I added hurriedly. Because you're in the middle of making spaghetti, she asked. Yeah. Are you making it for someone, or are you going to eat it alone? I'll eat it by myself, I said. She held her breath for a long time, then slowly breathed out. There's no way you could know this, but I'm really in trouble. I don't know what to do. I'm sorry, I can't help you, I said. There's some money involved, too. I see. He owes me money, she said. I lent him some money. I shouldn't have, but I had to. I was quiet for a minute, my thoughts drifting towards spaghetti. Speaker 1 (12:06) I'm sorry, I said, but I've got the spaghetti going, so she gave a listless laugh. Goodbye, she said. Say hi to your spaghetti for me. I hope it turns out okay. Bye, I said. When I hung up the phone, the circle of light on the floor had shifted an inch or two. I lay down again in that pool of light and resumed staring at the ceiling. Thinking about spaghetti that boils eternally but is never done is a sad, sad thing. Speaker 1 (12:38) Now I regret a little that I didn't tell the girl anything. Perhaps I should have. I mean, her ex-boyfriend wasn't much to start with. An empty shell of a guy with artistic pretensions. A great talker whom nobody trusted. She sounded as if she really were strapped for money, and no matter what the situation, you've got to pay back what you borrow. Sometimes I wonder what happened to the girl. The thought usually pops into my mind when I'm facing a steaming hot plate of spaghetti. After she hung up, did she disappear forever, sucked into the 4.30 p.m. shadows? Was I partly to blame? I want you to understand my position, though. At the time, I didn't want to get involved with anyone. That's why I kept on cooking spaghetti all by myself in that huge pot big enough to hold a German shepherd. Durham semolina, golden wheat, wafting in Italian fields. Can you imagine how astonished the Italians would be if they knew that what they were exporting in 1971 was really loneliness? That Speaker 6 (14:05) was Michael Imperioli's reading of The Year of Spaghetti by Haruki Murakami. I'm Meg Wallitzer. Murakami excels at finding the hidden meanings in ordinary events. And what can be more ordinary than a man cooking his supper? But through all those layers of pasta, there's a layer of something else. Loneliness, weariness, self-imposed emotional exile. Suggesting that, despite what he says, the narrator's various recipes would be even more delicious if shared. At least they were shared with us. If I were to teach a creative writing workshop and give them the prompt, write about a full plate, I'd get a lot of different responses. Some people would take it literally and would write about glistening mounds of mashed potatoes and turkey and stuffing. Others would write about an emotional bounty, maybe someone who loves two people and can't choose between them or doesn't even want to choose. But somewhere off to the side, maybe barely expressed in most full plate scenarios, is the implicit idea of the full plate's opposite, by which I mean how it might feel to not get enough of what you're hungry for. When we return, memories of blueberry pancakes, sangria, and fast dancing. I'm Meg Wolitzer. You're listening to Selected Shorts, recorded live in performance at Symphony Space in New York City and at other venues nationwide. Speaker 6 (15:51) Welcome back. This is Selected Shorts, where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction, one short story at a time. I'm Meg Wolitzer. On today's show, we're talking about full plates, literally and figuratively. And while we don't often sit down to a meal with you, though you are welcome to attend our live shows at our home theater, Symphony Space, and on tour, our virtual table is laden with good stories. Just go to SelectedShorts.org to discover thoughtful readings of familiar favorites and new authors and stories from around the country and around the globe. And catch up with our podcast. Let us know what you thought of what you heard and who you'd like us to add to the mix. We really want to hear from you. You can write to us at shorts at symphonyspace.org or add a comment on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcasting platform. Our second story is another selected shorts favorite, Amy Bloom's Love is Not a Pie. We're sticking with our full-plate idea here, but in this case, the tale is brimful of vivid and sensual memories, complicated characters, and life-affirming