As a half-Italian kid, I regarded sauce as a mystery. (It was always “sauce,” never “gravy.”) My grandma made sauce in her kitchen. We took large amounts home with us in Tupperware. End of story.
Now, with a little help from my wife Elaine, I’ve started making sauce. It is ridiculously easy to do. Sauce from a jar? Not in my kitchen, as a commercial once said. Here’s my recipe:
1 28 oz. can Cento Tomato Puree
olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, smashed and finely chopped
2 tsp. dried basil
2 tsp. dried oregano
1/4 tsp. sea salt¹
20 turns of a McCormick Black Peppercorn grinder (between 1/8 and 1/4 tsp.)
20 turns of a McCormick Italian Seasoning grinder (between 1/8 and 1/4 tsp.)²
1 tbsp. sugar
3 oz. red wine (Cabernet Sauvignon, says I)
Brown onions in oil. Add garlic. Add basil, oregano, salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, and sugar, and stir. Add wine and stir.³ Add the tomato puree and stir. Reduce heat, cover, and let simmer for one hour, or two, or more.
Thank you, Elaine, for encouraging me in this adventure in cooking (and for everything else). Yes, today would be a good day to hit the sauce.
[January 2023: I’ve made minor revisions, doubling the salt and adding optional hours to the cooking time.]
¹ This recipe has a fraction of the salt found in jarred sauces. You won’t miss the extra salt. Promise.
² If you choose a different brand of Italian seasoning, make it one without basil and oregano. The McCormick grinder is mostly rosemary, black pepper, and red pepper.
³ It’s Elaine who suggests adding the wine after adding the spices, for maximum distribution of flavor.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Hitting the sauce
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Rosanne Cash, John Boehner
Roseanne Cash to John Boehner: “Stop using my dad’s name as a punchline, you asshat.”
Recently updated
Five sentences about clothes (Carhartt!)
Semi-mysterious J.D. Salinger Boxed Set (Nothing new after all)
David Foster Wallace on voting
David Foster Wallace:
In reality, there is no such thing as not voting; you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard’s vote.[In context, these sentences concern young adults and primary elections. I am taking these sentences out of context to suggest the urgency of voting in any and all elections.]
“Up, Simba: Seven Days on the Trail of an Anticandidate,” in Consider the Lobster and Other Essays (New York: Little, Brown, 2007).
Monday, November 1, 2010
“I Can’t Find My Phone”
More fun that using a landline (assuming you have one): I Can’t Find My Phone.
(Found via Coudal)
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Virginia Heffernan on the telephone
Virginia Heffernan mourns the disappearing analog telephone call:
You’d endure the long brrrings with a pleasant stirring of nerves, a little stage fright. As many as 10. To give the household a chance to rally. On “Hello?” you’d identify yourself and ask after the person whose voice in your ear you, having waited, now profoundly desired. In the absence of the grammatical spasm of “This is she,” you’d learn whether your friend was “in” or “out” or somewhere in between (weird parents sometimes said “indisposed”), while your patience was casually requested (“Hold on a sec; she’s in the den”). You’d express thanks for the answerer’s good offices. More waiting. Offstage noise. Voilà. Up would come the voice.A telephone memory of mine, c. 1969–1970: spending hours on the line with my friend Chris, trading particularly ludicrous bits of commercial art from the Yellow Pages: “Page 347!” “Page 562!”
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Friday, October 29, 2010
Hi and Lois watch
“‘What?’” is right.
Has the kitchen sneaked into the living room, or is it the other way around? (’Cause that is indeed the dang living room in the first panel, and that is indeed the dang front door.)
Related reading
All Hi and Lois posts
The all-in-one room
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