One nice thing about the holidays is that everyone (visiting scholars, house guests all and sundry, distant relatives) pitches in with the kitchen chores. Folks help to empty the dishwasher, and although sometimes it takes weeks to find the cheese grater again, I am not complaining. Others remember their long-ago assigned chores of emptying the trash and the recycling, and then they remember to bring the bins back in from the curb! College is just amazing! Although, to be quite honest, some bad roommate behavior was exhibited as well; dishes tended to pile up in the sink, towels accumulated on the bathroom floor and the wine evaporated…
The more memorable dinners were when many hands made light the work and multiple-course meals materialized numerous times. Out on the back porch, under the full moon and a gaudy string of Christmas lights, a pair of dueling grill-masters twirled tongs and spatulas, oven mitts, heirloom platters and chunks of flaming meat. One night there was a lobster race (much to Luke’s consternation and confusion) before those bugs were tossed into their steaming black enameled lobster pot. Those nights tend to be much more memorable than mac and cheese Mondays, or baked chicken with roasted potatoes Wednesdays.
The best meal of all was a massive effort by Best Beloved to concoct his semi-annual Spaghetti and Meatballs, with a couple of pounds of Italian sausage thrown in, just in case someone hadn’t quite arrived at a New Year’s Resolution. Only the pescatarian absented herself from this table groaning with spaghetti, sauce, Parmesan cheese, garlic bread, salad and the last bushel barrel of Christmas shortbread. (I did hear a new term for her eating habits on Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me last weekend – she is a Pastafarian, sans the meat sauce…)
The preparation of Best Beloved’s spaghetti sauce is multi-pronged and takes many hours in the kitchen. My contribution consisted of hunting and gathering some of the ingredients and washing the perpetual progression of dirty pots and pans. He starts with a couple of pounds of ground beef, which he mixes in a bowl with Progresso Italian Bread Crumbs and a couple of eggs. He then rolls the meatballs around in a large sauté pan with olive oil and chunks o’garlic until they are nicely browned. Then he sets them aside on a layer of paper towels which lines an expansive cookie sheet. This is basically a football field of meatballs, a little army, waiting by the sidelines for its submersion in the rich, red garlic-y sauce to come.
Next about 2 pounds of Italian sausage are parboiled in a pan of water, before Best Beloved cuts the links into manageable pieces, and browns them lightly in a little more olive oil. (We like both hot and sweet sausage.) Then he pulls out the largest caldron we have, this side of the lobster pot. He warms up some more olive oil, scatters another few cloves of garlic to cook briefly, wafting the alluring aroma through the neighborhood. It is amazing how appetizing garlic smells at almost any hour of the day. Best Beloved was doing this bit of cooking mid-morning and already I had forgotten about the hearty bowl of Special K I had wolfed down just a couple of hours earlier. Sometimes cooking is a spectator sport. We all lined up at the kitchen counter, coffees and Diet Cokes in hand, ruffling the papers and petting the dog who thought it was all very exciting. He, obviously, was hoping that the meatballs would have a terrible accident and he would have to save them from their eventual sandy fate on the kitchen tiles. (We all interpret dog thought with great ability, artistic license and aplomb…)
Over the next half hour Best Beloved lovingly opened six or seven 28-ounce cans of Tuttorosso Crushed Tomatoes (with basil). Each can brought the cat into the mix, as she hoped we were opening cans of tuna and not tins of tomatoes. (The Tall One is still not very fond of textures in his spaghetti sauce, so cooking with crushed tomatoes was a bit of a compromise. Normally we use whole tomatoes, but we had to have good manners. Feel free to use whatever tomatoes your audience prefers.)
Gradually, Best Beloved added the sausage and the meatballs and a couple of bay leaves to the vast vessel, stirring greatly and with strength and vigor. This was some spaghetti sauce. We would have to wait far too many hours until dinner, when it was finally deemed perfect. The Chef enjoyed his privilege of dipping fresh Italian bread into the sauce during the cooking process, gauging its progress.
The best thing about the meal, like Strega Nona’s magic pasta pot, was that this morning of cooking would yield several more meals. We had leftover spaghetti for lunch the next day, we used the sauce for Chicken Parmesan another night, the Tall One had a meatball sandwich, and then a sausage sandwich (in one sitting), and we had one more night of spaghetti. Now this is just enough left in the freezer to make a memorable lasagna this weekend. Good show! Buon Appetito!
Here are some measurements from Martha if you feel unsure of eyeballing your ingredients:
https://www.marthastewart.com/336523/easiest-spaghetti-and-meatballs
And our inspiration, Strega Nona. Thank you, Tomie dePaola!
https://www.tomie.com/books/spotlight_on_strega.html
“After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.”
-Oscar Wilde
“Everything you see I owe to spaghetti.”
-Sophia Loren
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