Vodka Sauce
Tragedy, Loss & Sobriety
S.W. Lauden is my pen name. The person behind it is Steve Coulter.
Earlier this week, my family and I sadly lost our Altadena, CA home to the Eaton Fire. We are all safe, but the road ahead will no doubt be difficult.
This post is more Coulter than Lauden. We’ll return to our regularly scheduled “music, books and music books” programming soon, hopefully with the help of a few contributors.
My daughter wrote out our favorite pasta recipe by hand and hung it on the refrigerator door before she went back to college after the holidays.
She discovered it on Tik Tok and whipped up a batch for us over the summer, adding several personal touches (lots of basil, crushed tomatoes, etc.). It was an instant hit with the whole family, especially her younger sister. My wife and I don’t claim to have mastered the recipe, but we’ve both attempted it several times.
A picture of the results is added to our family text group whenever I make it, always met with supportive hearts of approval. It’s so hard to know when you’re doing things right as a parent, but the bonds we’ve created with our children around cooking at home is something I cherish.
Today we traded photos and videos of the smoking rubble that was once our beloved home in Altadena, CA.
We’re all safe—having evacuated before the Eaton Fire swept through our beautiful foothills neighborhood—but our hearts are broken for everything we lost: our newly painted cabinets; pots and pans stained from years of overuse; chipped coffee mugs and mismatched silverware worn down by loving hands; shelves full of knick knacks and family heirlooms…and a handwritten recipe that hung on our refrigerator.
We bought our home a dozen years ago, after dreaming of the day we would find an affordable place in this specific neighborhood. It was the most beat up little house on the block when we moved in, but we worked away at the improvements as we filled those rooms with memories.
Now that neighborhood looks like a scene from the end of World War 2. Our beautiful little home was reduced to wreckage like block after block of houses in every direction, sturdy chimneys hovering above the remains like towering headstones.
So many friends and neighbors—and countless Angelenos from the mountains to the ocean—are living through similar tragedies. My heart goes out to everybody impacted by this devastation.
I’m typing this in the living room of the house where I grew up in Redondo Beach, thankfully still a safe haven for me 50 years after my family first moved in.
Our SUV was stuffed with as many personal effects as we could fit when we arrived, but only a small fraction of what we lost to the flames. We really hoped it would only amount to a couple uncomfortable nights on a friend’s floor in Eagle Rock, but by dawn the next morning we were confronted with the terrible truth. We retreated further south when those friends received an evacuation notice of their own.
After we got settled, I wandered my mom’s kitchen looking for wherever the hell she keeps the glasses these days. I opened and closed cabinets, flashes of ancient memories passing through my mind: holiday meals prepared with endless laughter; Sunday soup seasoned and stirred by my long gone father; my two young children learning an Old World recipe from my German mother.
I stared at her refrigerator door, wishing hard that I had taken that handwritten Vodka Sauce recipe with me in the rush to get out of our house for the last time.
I went to the Trader Joe’s near my mom’s house to grab a few familiar foods in hopes of comforting our youngest.
I briefly worked at this specific location in high school, back when Trader Joe’s was still a mostly local phenomenon. It was my third job after a tween paper route and an early high school gig stocking shelves at the liquor store across the street from TJ’s.
At 15 I often worked the register, selling cigarettes and booze long before I was legally able to purchase them myself—although I was already consuming plenty of both. When people say the ‘80s were a different time, believe them.
I followed that particular self-destructive path straight through from my early teens until my mid-30s, raging behind a drum set for most of it. That’s when the wheels finally spun off and the prolonged joyride came to a less-than-graceful halt.
Sobriety thankfully stuck after a few false starts and I’ve been on the straight and narrow ever since (aside from addictions to sugar, caffeine, bubbly water and writing).
The thing about Vodka Sauce? The recipe actually calls for three tablespoons of Vodka.
I learned this when my daughter texted me to ask if I’d pick some up on my way home. I’ve been sober long enough that buying alcohol personally doesn’t bother me, so I added it to the grocery list.
Of course, most grocery stores only sell big bottles of booze—not the little airline minis I hoped to acquire. So I grabbed the cheapest fifth I could find on the lowest shelf and brought that home with a few other missing ingredients for dinner.
The Vodka Sauce was delicious as always that night.
My daughter was back at college and I was home alone the next time I attempted the recipe on my own.
I followed her directions carefully, doing my best to recreate the addictive concoction. And when it called for those three tablespoons of vodka, I absentmindedly reached for the still-full bottle.
This was only a week after being laid off from my longtime job—the first time I remember leaving a position on somebody else’s terms. Suffice to say, my defenses were weakened as I stirred the sauce that evening. I twisted the cap and the scent of vodka hit my nostrils like a genie snaking upward from a rediscovered magic lantern. Out of nowhere, for the first time in many years, I had a strong urge to take a gulp.
This happens in sobriety, no matter how long you go without a drink. In my personal experience, the trick is developing tools to help it pass without acting. I was very lucky to have a lot of support in filling my toolbox in those first few years.
That moment stopped me in my tracks for a split-second, only long enough for the image of a stop sign to form in my mind—a simple trick taught to me by an amazing therapist who helped me get sober.
I put the bottle away without taking a drink and served dinner that night without saying a word about the momentary temptation. And it thankfully didn’t return…until I found out our house had burned down.
This time it was less of an urge to drink and more of a lamentation that drinking my problems away wasn’t an option. Because completely checking out sounds pretty good right about now—even though I’m absolutely certain that my drinking would soon spread like the flames that eventually consumed my house.
There isn’t anything even slightly good about losing your home, the possessions that filled it, and the many memories attached to it—but a few times today I have pictured that particular vodka bottle exploding in slow motion as the flames engulfed our world, and it brought me a small sense of relief.
I’m definitely adding that image to the toolbox.
My family will get through all of this. Together.
And I will get through it sober. For that, and all it allows, I’m eternally thankful.
Wherever we land next and however long it takes to get there, I already have the first family meal planned. I know the recipe by heart.
A heartfelt thank you to everybody who has reached out to me and my family, offered resources, contributed to the GoFundMe set up by a former co-worker, become a paid subscriber to this newsletter, or otherwise been there for us in this uncertain moment. We are overwhelmed by the love and support of our extended community.
Man, I am really sorry to see this. Glad you all are safe, and hope you are holding up as well as can be expected. The four of us are pulling for you from out here!
Oh, Steve, I am so sorry this happened to you and your family. And also so inspired by your story. You are truly an inspiration.
I hope your daughter can refind that recipe and you can make it together again!