Sorry for the extended absence. I’m moving! The bundt pan and pasta machine are in Berlin already, and I am still here.
I thought I would tell you about some tomato sauces. When we were little Lucy and I used to beg our mother to buy Ragu brand sauce that came in a jar. I don’t know why, but we considered it a serious treat, on par with the Martinelli’s apple juice that came in the apple-shaped jug, and Quaker peanut butter chocolate chip granola bars. I cannot explain this. We loved it.
But spaghetti sauce was one of the first things I learned to make, and it’s a lot cheaper to make it than to buy the bottled version. So I used to make it the same way, always: a little butter, a little olive oil. A couple of cloves of garlic, some rosemary, some fennel seed, pepper flakes, and a big can of whole peeled tomatoes. Some people used to eat the tomato chunks and leave the spaghetti behind. When I started buying alcohol got more adventurous, I’d add a glug of red wine, maybe a half teaspoon of sugar. Salt and pepper, too, obviously.
Once I made tomato sauce Marcella Hazan’s way, with carrot and celery and onion, diced. Lucy yelled at me and then admitted it was pretty good.
Several times I have made it Marcella Hazan’s other way, the famous version: a can of tomatoes, half a stick of butter, and a peeled onion, halved. Tastes exactly like what you think it does, but better.
And then recently I made it a la Scarpetta, with a basil-chile-garlic infused oil. Echt kompliziert for spaghetti.
Last night I made puttanesca. I’m cleaning out the fridge, so I didn’t get olives–just used capers and a can of sardines I had lying around from an errant visitor who claims to love them. C. didn’t like it, so I had to eat all of it. Oh well. At least he had truffles.
