Lasagna

The Art of Messy Layers

I’m writing this while my lasagna bakes, and the smell is driving me absolutely crazy. I’m starving, but I know better than to rush it—learned that lesson the hard way last week when I pulled it out too early and ended up with a soupy mess.

This time, I got smarter. Small bread loaf pan because it’s just me. Multitasking like a maniac—browning hamburger while boiling noodles while preheating the oven—because let’s be honest, I’m NOT patient. I want my comfort food, and I want it now.

But here’s the thing about lasagna: it doesn’t care about your timeline.

As I was layering everything—noodle, meat, Ragu traditional sauce (always), cheese (no ricotta, because gross)—I kept thinking about how messy the whole process is. I got cheese on the burner again, which is now filling my apartment with that lovely burnt-dairy smell that I’m way too familiar with. My stove looks like a crime scene. But somehow, when you slide that covered pan into the oven and wait those crucial 45 minutes, magic happens.

It’s not unlike the novel I’m revising right now. I’ve been writing this YA book in segments—jumping around, writing scenes out of order because that’s how my brain works. It’s efficient, but when it comes time to assemble everything, to find the layers and make sure the nuance is consistent throughout, it can feel overwhelming. Sometimes mind-numbing.

There’s cheese on my metaphorical burner there, too.

The thing about both lasagna and novels—and maybe life in general—is that the messy assembly phase is part of the process. You can’t skip it. You can’t rush it. And you definitely can’t make it look pretty while it’s happening.

My mom used to make killer lasagna when I was growing up. Hers had ricotta or cottage cheese—something white and chunky that I would have preferred not to eat. But I watched her layer it, watched her cover it with foil, watched her resist my pleas to "just check it" every ten minutes. She knew something I’m still learning: good things require patience, even when you’re not naturally patient.

In college, I made lasagna for my roommates sometimes. It became my signature dish, partly because it feeds a crowd and partly because it was one of the few things I could make that actually tasted good. Back then, sharing it felt effortless. Now, making it just for me in my little loaf pan, it’s become something different—a practice in patience, a reminder that even when you’re cooking for one, the process still matters.

The layers still need time to meld together. The cheese still needs those final ten minutes uncovered to get golden brown. The mess on the stove is still worth it when you finally get to eat something that took time to create properly.

I think we live in a world that tells us everything should be instant, efficient, streamlined. But some of the best things—relationships, creative projects, comfort food—require messy assembly and patient waiting. They require us to tolerate the chaos of the process while trusting that something good is happening we can’t see yet.

My novel is like that right now. All these scenes and chapters scattered around, cheese on the burner, wondering if it’s all going to come together. But I’ve made enough lasagna to know that if you do the work, layer by layer, and give it the time it needs, it usually does.

The timer just went off for the uncovered phase. Ten more minutes of golden-brown patience, and then I get to see if all this messy assembly was worth it.

Spoiler alert: it always is.

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