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I am making The Sauce.
Being a member of the family who cooks, my dad declared that it is therefore my sacred task to learn how to make my grandmother's spaghetti sauce. Although I think the 'sacred task' part is just an excuse for me to learn so he can ask me to make it once in a while. I figured I'd humor him this weekend, being that it was Father's Day and all. ^_^; It's somewhat legendary in our family, particularly since my grandmother only really makes it around Christmastime.
Mind you, this is not your average sauce recipe. It's the kind of sauce that takes not one, but *two* days to make, with the cook typically needing to hang in the vicinity of the kitchen all day to keep watch over it. It's the kind of sauce an Italian housewife might make, particularly since it's a very Italian recipe. See, my family lived for eons on the Italian side of New Hartford/Utica, NY, not really migrating south until I was about 4. The population percentage of the area can break down to basically: 49% Italian, 49% Polish, 2% Everything Else. We happened to fall into the Everything Else category, but being on the Italian side, we were very heavily influenced. Heck, my mother still occasionally swears in Italian, something which I've picked up in recent years. ^_^;
In any case, I suspect, therefore, that my grandmother got the recipe from an Italian friend or something. Either way, making it makes me feel like I should be shaking my wooden spoon and yelling at the kids to get down off that smokestack and come and eat their The Chekt.
A couple of things I have learned whilst making The Sauce:
--Damn that stuff's red. It also makes massive quantities. We halved the recipe, and it's still enough that we'll have enough for later in the week.
--Sauce retains a ton of heat. Seriously, you get the temperature anywhere towards 'medium', and soon you've become the caretaker of a pot of genuine lava, complete with bubbles that pop and spray scalding sauce everywhere--on the walls, on the stove, on the spices, on YOU. It got my arm at one point, though it didn't really even burn me. Still, I yelped in surprise and alarm enough to cause Arnold to come running, certain that Hottentots were coming out of the stove to kill us all. Apparently the best way to alleviate the bubbling is stirring it almost constantly. Thankfully, once it gets rocking and rolling, you can reduce the temperature to simmer, therefore avoiding Bubbles of Doom.
--The recipe itself is surprisingly simple; it calls for only a few ingredients. It does, however, call for a ton of spices. I'm thinking about maybe adding a can of chopped tomoatoes next time, because I love tomato chunks in sauce, but Dad has hinted that I will be Upsetting the Fabric of the Universe if I screw with the recipe. ^_^;;
--It does, however, smell way good whilst cooking.
--Apparently, if I burn the sauce, that'll be enough reason to sacrifice me to the Culinary Gods. Or at least a couple of toes.
And also for my own benefit, things to do today aside from watch the sauce:
--Update on Avobaby
--Email my aunt
--Email that other person
--Water the Horde
--Take care of other housey things
--Maybe find some time to knit
Being a member of the family who cooks, my dad declared that it is therefore my sacred task to learn how to make my grandmother's spaghetti sauce. Although I think the 'sacred task' part is just an excuse for me to learn so he can ask me to make it once in a while. I figured I'd humor him this weekend, being that it was Father's Day and all. ^_^; It's somewhat legendary in our family, particularly since my grandmother only really makes it around Christmastime.
Mind you, this is not your average sauce recipe. It's the kind of sauce that takes not one, but *two* days to make, with the cook typically needing to hang in the vicinity of the kitchen all day to keep watch over it. It's the kind of sauce an Italian housewife might make, particularly since it's a very Italian recipe. See, my family lived for eons on the Italian side of New Hartford/Utica, NY, not really migrating south until I was about 4. The population percentage of the area can break down to basically: 49% Italian, 49% Polish, 2% Everything Else. We happened to fall into the Everything Else category, but being on the Italian side, we were very heavily influenced. Heck, my mother still occasionally swears in Italian, something which I've picked up in recent years. ^_^;
In any case, I suspect, therefore, that my grandmother got the recipe from an Italian friend or something. Either way, making it makes me feel like I should be shaking my wooden spoon and yelling at the kids to get down off that smokestack and come and eat their The Chekt.
A couple of things I have learned whilst making The Sauce:
--Damn that stuff's red. It also makes massive quantities. We halved the recipe, and it's still enough that we'll have enough for later in the week.
--Sauce retains a ton of heat. Seriously, you get the temperature anywhere towards 'medium', and soon you've become the caretaker of a pot of genuine lava, complete with bubbles that pop and spray scalding sauce everywhere--on the walls, on the stove, on the spices, on YOU. It got my arm at one point, though it didn't really even burn me. Still, I yelped in surprise and alarm enough to cause Arnold to come running, certain that Hottentots were coming out of the stove to kill us all. Apparently the best way to alleviate the bubbling is stirring it almost constantly. Thankfully, once it gets rocking and rolling, you can reduce the temperature to simmer, therefore avoiding Bubbles of Doom.
--The recipe itself is surprisingly simple; it calls for only a few ingredients. It does, however, call for a ton of spices. I'm thinking about maybe adding a can of chopped tomoatoes next time, because I love tomato chunks in sauce, but Dad has hinted that I will be Upsetting the Fabric of the Universe if I screw with the recipe. ^_^;;
--It does, however, smell way good whilst cooking.
--Apparently, if I burn the sauce, that'll be enough reason to sacrifice me to the Culinary Gods. Or at least a couple of toes.
And also for my own benefit, things to do today aside from watch the sauce:
--Email my aunt
--Email that other person
--Take care of other housey things
--Maybe find some time to knit
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Great, you leave for a week, and Ru's plotting to get her family sauced. You just can't leave town without this sort of thing happening...
By the way, I'll be doing my OWN plant update soon! Not anything that competes well with yours, but I had one of my flytraps actually get to the size of an african violet. Which isn't too astounding, but for a venus flytrap, that's HUGE.
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Right now, they're on a tree stump in the yard, in direct unfiltered sunlight. Most other plants would be burned to a crisp, but my little water-pot dwellers love it. I also don't have to feed them if I leave them out there. They get about two or three things a week each, which seems to work fine. If you do get some, please try to go for tissue-culture. Getting busted for endangered species violations is a real pain. I split mine at the base of the root when they get bigger, and by dividing them like this, make my own. That way I stay legal. Maybe I can split some off for you, there's several babies right now. They've flowered, too, but I've never got them to make seed. I'm considering putting a few in the swamp to see if I can re-establish them (they died out a while back due to cattle).
Oh, forgot! I've got giant bamboo now! A to-be-built road in my area's plowing right through the middle of their patch, so I'm going in stages and taking what I can before they get buried. Not sure how that's going to work, but I'm trying!