Wine-based pasta sauces are for the weak

What you do, you get the pan steaming hot, then lower the flame to a low growl; you throw in some oil, some minced garlic and sliced (not like a tree trunk, cut them the other way) shallots, boil some water for the pasta, and take out the zucchini. You slice that like a tree, then into quarters, you take out the mushrooms (flat, large) and bell pepper (old, yellow) and slice those up any way you can, toss them in there, throw in some dried oregano or marjoram or whatever it is you've got, maybe some pepper--reach for the wine then stop, wait. Think, wine, really? Again, for the nth night in a row, wine-based pasta sauces? Say, no, you don't control me. Reach for the Pernod. Oh, you thought wine was bourgeois but no no no Pernod is so bourgeois it's French. Those tomatoes you stuck in the boiling water to peel, take them out. Throw them away; they're no good to you--there will be no red you're too bourgeois now. The shallots are getting dry; add more oil. Move with confidence now; feel the upward economic mobility coursing through your veins. Pour in a capful of Pernod, another capful, really, just empty the bottle who do you think you're kidding. Drink in that strange dried oregano/anise tension, the we-will-put-aside-our-differences-and-move-to-the-Paris-suburbs aroma: je ne se quai indeed. Now you strain the penne that you didn't even know you put on to cook. You strain it, drizzle it in more oil, because, really. You cover the plate in a thin layer of pasta. You slide the sauce (now really just liquor-soaked vegetables) onto a circle in the middle. You have three concentric circles now, so perfect it might be Greek. You pour yourself some of that wine, wine, you weren't so bad after all you say, you just needed to get the swing of things, find your true calling. As you finish your pasta you swirl the half-glass left, you stand up, and you get your laundry out to dry. You hang it over a chair, because you can't afford a dryer and, let's face it, your bourgeois days are over now.