Saucy

One of the things my beloved really loves to do with me is cook.

You totally thought that sentence was going another way, didn't you?  I know.  I did too when I first thought it.

He loves to be in the kitchen together, which is actually really sad for him because I rarely let him in the kitchen.

He tends to be one of those controlling, over my shoulder, "You sure you know what you're doing?" types of cooking partners.

And it sort of pisses me off, but in a quiet, passive aggressive kind of way.  Most often I turn into a psycho Ghostbusters demon floating four feet above the stove, growling

"You want a piece of this?"

and then I shove a hot spoon in his mouth.  Backs him right up.

We haven't been together over the stove since right after Thanksgiving when we spent all day making 47 gallons of stock from the leftover turkey carcass.

A couple of weeks ago he came home with 153 cans of diced tomatoes.

"You know.....I don't know...If you feel like making sauce or something."

So, I put them on the shelf in the garage and waited for my Pizan inspiration to hit me.  Good sauce takes all day and I have to be in the mood.

Then he brought home a three pound wedge of parmesan.

"Look at the rind!  I thought it would be great for the sauce!"

It was.  It was a beautiful rind.  I cut it off and put in a plastic baggie in the fridge, then ate the rest of the wedge for lunch.

He kept asking me about it.

"Sooooooo.....what do you think?  Sauce?'

And then my mother made sauce and it became abundantly clear that I hadn't broadcast any new episodes from Mama Lisa's Kitchen in a while,

and he said,

"Okay...tomorrow.  We're making sauce."

He was very excited.  He prepped all the fresh ingredients,

and set our pots side by side, like they were holding hands,

and I showed him how to make sauce.

It took all day, and we ended up with two gallons of sauce.  He was happy.

And full.

And for the record, the only person I've ever heard call sauce gravy is Tony Soprano. 

There's regular tomato sauce and there's meat sauce.

You can get fancy and call it Marinara or Bolognese.

You can forget what you're doing and write "Meet Sauce" on the container.

You can pour in a bottle of wine and make it drunk sauce.

Just don't call it gravy.  It's dumb.

Buon Salute!