It's Better When Someone Makes it For you

I would like to say that I hate to generalize, but I don't. And I'm going to here. I'm an Italian American, and there is one thing that seems to be true for my "clan." It was true when I was a bambino, and it's true now. If you put two Italians, or two Italian Americans together, in a room, they will spend the first few minutes determining the ancestry of each other: where did the moms come from, where did the dads come from, and of course: "did your Zio Luigi know my Zio Pasquale?" After the first few minutes, the discussion turns to food. And it can go on. And on. And on. Politics? WHO CARES? Sports? BAH? One thing we Italians have gotten down right is what's important. And let's face it, food is important. If you didn't think so, you wouldn't be reading this, right?So, now this is a set up for a discussion that I had with yet another Venetian cook, an incredibly attractive, "woman of undetermined age" I met in a ceramics shop in San Francisco's little Italy." She had impeccable hair, impeccable clothes, and long, beautifully painted nails, which made it hard to believe that she cooked. For yours truly, who can't walk into the kitchen without spilling something on himself, these lovely women who can cook in silk blouses and full skirts, with perfect nails, and never mar themselves, are both awesome and wonderful. Of course, we started talking about families. And then about food. And I told her about one of my "quests." I learned how to cook from Nonna ("Nana" as we called her. You'll meet her a lot in this blog). And much of what I cook , I think, is as good as what she did. But not my "sauce." Tomato sauce is key to every Italian American. Even if he or she uses it out of a jar, there will be heated arguments as to which one is best. But most of us still make it. I always have, searching for that taste that Nana put into hers, and not succeeding. My new Venetian friend took me by the hand and said "I don't have to taste it to know it tastes just as good as hers, but you should know, everything tastes better when someone else cooks it for you, especially if they love you." I've never forgotten those words. It's an old saying that if you cook with hate, your food will taste terrible. If you cook with love, people will like it even if you put in too much salt, burn it, or do something terrible to it. Well, I'm not sure about the last part, but I can vouch for the first (and I will say nothing more than that!). Tomato sauce ('gravy', 'sauce' 'ragu', whatever you want to call it), is key to my cooking. I somehow feel that the fridge is empty if there isn't something there. So I make it a lot. My "formula" follows, because it's not really a recipe. Like with minestrone, talk to 200 of my people, and you'll get two hundred recipes. The lady who sells me my tomatoes, for example (Beatrice), doesn't use onions, only hot peppers. I have other friends who use carrots, and still others who use tomato paste. It's all good. Try mine as a basis, and then play with it. You can use this on spaghetti, on pizza, to cook meatballs, or even thinned a little with water, as soup, as we sometimes had it, when there was nothing else in the house to eat. Nana, if you're reading this, I hope you approve.You'll need olive oil, salt, onions, garlic, and (don't faint), dried herbs. This is the one time that I use them, because I think that the longer, high temperature cooking that I use here brings out what's good about dried herbs, and kills fresh herbs. I use a commercial Italian seasoning mix, from "Penzey's" but again, this is to individual taste.My ratios are a half a big onion to every large can of tomatoes, three whole cloves of garlic, peeled, to every can, and salt to taste. What you do, first, is open all of your tomatoes, and then, with clean hands, crush them in the bowl. Don't bother with canned, crushed tomatoes. There's something about them that just doesn't taste right to me. Chop your onions, peel your garlic, and then get a big pot, and put a good amount of olive oil in it (I use extra virgin in everything. Probably a waste of money, but if you want to see me go insane, tell me 'not that olive oil, the other one'). By "good amount, I want you to cover the bottom of the pot, plus a little more. Start heating it below the "medium" flame you're used to. Add the onions and start sauteeing them. You want them to lose their clear color and start getting white, and when that happens, toss in your tomatoes, and your garlic cloves, all at once. I use a tablespoon each of the seasoning and salt, right at the start, and I never make less than four cans worth of sauce. Keep the heat low, don't cover the pot, and let the mix just simmer away. How long? Hard to tell. I use the "bubble" test. When the mix comes to the boil, you're going to get a lot of little tiny bubbles. That's water going off, and the pot will be "noisy." As the sauce cooks down, the noise will drop and you'll get fewer, bigger bubbles. You'll also notice the "level" in the pot go down, and there will be a thickening going on. Stop the cooking before you think it's thick enough. It will continue to thicken when it cools. Normally, about thirty minutes is right. Then, take it off the heat and let it cool down. Nothing freezes quite as well as tomato sauce. I ladle it out in two cup measures, and freeze most of it, but I keep about four cups to make meat sauce, and two cups for "emergencies." I have a feeling that if Nana tasted this, she would say "Eh, it's not bad." That's the only thing I ever heard her say about food where she would take a second bite of it. And I would be proud if she said it.