I am waiting for the linguini water to come to a boil, so I'll be quick. When cooking, it's good to be drinking alcohol and talking to good friends on the phone at the same time. This is the only way to make a mid-week left-over meal work, when you're a single person with a slim social life and a high-carbohydrate diet.

So I peeled and smashed about six or seven cloves of garlic, and brought good olive oil to hot heat. I chopped up the garlic, threw it into medium oil, and set about the carving of red onions. (The way Jacques Pepin cuts the onion is very smart and would work much better if you had sharp knives...) But if you don't know how to make small chopped onion bits, then don't keep reading.

Anyone who makes a meal should know how to dice onions with simple kitchen tools and with enough consciousness to know when to stop the drinking.

Right now, since I added chicken diced thickly and green peas, the whole pan smells great. Actually the whole house smells great, which is no doubt an irritant to the piano students who keep arriving at the studio door to begin their lessons. My mother, the instructor, must also smell the cooking dinner, and must by now be wishing that her work was done. I, meantime, call other friends to talk about this and that.

After running out of olive oil, I decided to add nuts to the saute pan. Now, with finely chopped pecans sauteeing in butter, and a tiny bit of olive oil keeping the ckicken-pea-onion-garlic concotion going, I decide to jump up the whole pasta sauce by adding a little olive oil that has been soaking with hot chili peppers for three seasons. The peppered olive oil is damnably hot, but I try to be judicious. Jacques would probably go for it, but Julia Child would probably not.

No matter, that is my own contribution.

Now, the saute pan and the house smells great, and I decide to get that linguine pot boiling again. I am imagining the final bowl:

•garlic-toasted pecans and peas with chicken, sauteed in hot olive oil
•over linguine with parmesan cheese

Drink cold water and eat anything in the house for dessert.

Hope it's as good as it smells.

Hope the piano students get the hell out of dodge before I throw them out.

I've heard enough bad Christmas carol duets and Elton John keyboarding this late November afternoon.

Time for dinner.