Red Sauce Week

There is, somewhere in the upstairs freezer, a package of meatballs that I mixed up and baked up a couple of weeks ago. And today, with a morning so cool I needed to pull on my jeans jacket, and a schedule nicely uncluttered after my early morning haircut, seems the perfect day to brew up a red sauce. The meatballs will be perfect long-simmered in bubbling, tomatoey goodness on a cool late summer afternoon.

But Jim has been buying pints of frozen treats—-ice creams, sorbets, sherbet, non-dairy desserts. When I pull open the freezer door, happy little pint-sized sweet treats tumble out. If I am to find the meatballs, I can’t just shove them back inside and quick, quick, slam the door.

So. It’s time to sort the freezer out.

I pick up the rolling frozen sweeties, put them on the counter, and start unloading the rest of the freezer.

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When I am done, when the freezer is completely empty, and when I have scrubbed its chilly, speckled floor with Windex and a nubby cloth, I have discovered many things. I have the meatballs, of course. And I have thrown away two archaeological artifacts, purchased frozen meals from the Neogene era or thereabouts, hard little blocks that we have been stacking things on and ignoring for yea, these many years.

Today was the day Self said to me, “No one is going to eat those aging cheddar potatoes chunks.”

“Right you are,” I answered Self, and the ancient frozen convenience foods hit the bin.

I have unearthed ingredients for several batches of hash…a container of roasted new potatoes and a Tupper-full of abandoned French fries; a hard little lump of cooked pork; a container of baked boneless chicken (which could also, I think, go in red sauce…)

I sort all the varied lumpy packages and plastic containers on the counter. Hash ingredients go into the freezer’s upper left neighborhood. Right below, in the lower flat, I slide in all the sweet treats, including a Cool Whip container that holds the last two scoops of vanilla ice cream. Last week, I remember, I kept trying to reach around the 5-quart ice cream tub until finally, I grabbed it and looked inside. Not enough left to justify that kind of freezer space, so I scooped out the remains, re-housed them, and washed up the plastic tub.

I forgot about that ice cream until today; today, it will be my reward for cleaning out the freezer.

I found a ziplock bag of fat beef hot dogs and a little container of tiny Italian sausages (those will work in sauce, too; I put them on the counter on the other side of the sink), and a package of four slices of cooked bacon.

There are two packages of applesauce. I could make an applesauce spice cake.

I find some meatloaf I saved for Mark to make lunchtime sandwiches with. I put it in the refrigerator.

And I find bones…bags of poultry bones, a hambone, two packages of beef bones. There are stalky ends I saved from green onions in the freezer, too, and I decide it is time to make a big batch of chicken broth, so I keep those bones and the greens out, too.

When everything else is stashed back into the freezer, the contents live in clean, uncluttered little zones.

I will enjoy this organization for the two or three days it lasts, but, still. We’ll have hash for Saturday morning breakfast and a big batch of broth to make soups with.

And I’ll have a nice little sundae for Friday lunch dessert.

It’s not exactly what I had in mind when I opened the refrigerator’s freezer this morning, but good—and some kind of order—has come of it.

Come to think of it, the whole week’s been that way.

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We thought we’d be tumbling home from visiting Matt and Julie, Alyssa and Kaelyn, on Labor Day Monday. Instead, this past weekend, the boyos both got sick, with fevers and chills and sinus-y things, with coughs and headaches.

“Oh, no,” we said. “It finally got around to us.”

But home tests were negative and, when Jim was tested for THAT and the flu by the doc, those tests were negative too.

Colds, said the doc; they had colds. But after years of NOT having colds, this hit them hard, and we stayed home, and the shape of the weekend changed, and that new flavor seeped into the Monday holiday and spread its change-aura into the new week.

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I dump the poultry bones into the old white speckled Dutch oven, and I add the greens and carrots and the limp, sad end of a bunch of celery. I pour in dried herbs from the kitchen sink garden and toss everything in olive oil and stick the pan in a hot oven. Soon, the baking, herb-y bones begin to have a wonderful smell; the aroma scents the house.

I think that I’ll sit down to start my post, but before I do, I’ll get my 10:00 steps. I clomp down the basement stairs to put the cleaned ice cream tub on the shelf, and I notice there are clothes in the dryer. I tumble them into a basket, and while I am there, I start a load of whites, and I knock down some of the bigger cobwebs with the broom, and then I go up to sort and fold the clothes.

When they are folded, I carry them upstairs—may as well get my steps doing useful things, I decide—and put some things away. Downstairs, I take the long way through the family room, and I notice the seeds drying on the broad windowsill, some still stuck to the thick membrane-y cord that anchored them to a pepper.

There are different kinds of seeds here—all pepper seeds, but some are sweet peppers and some are hot peppers, jalapeno peppers, spicy red peppers… We figured we’d save the seeds, mixed, and plant them next spring and surprise ourselves with the results.

The seeds are dry now; I pluck them off the membranes, scrape them into a little glass pot, toss the membranes in the trash.

A little later, after I have cleaned up the kitchen counters and set up my IPad, after I have blown my nose and rubbed the tired space below my eyes, I begin to feel a creeping fire on my face. And suddenly I realize those must have been HOT pepper seeds I handled so cavalierly, and that I’ve transferred their fierceness to my cheeks. (Didn’t COVID teach me not to touch my face???)  I run upstairs, wash my hands four times, put cold washcloths on my cheeks, dig out soothing ointment, and think that this morning has been a long road to take to making red sauce.

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I had some very specific goals this week too, that dried up, turned wispy, and floated just out of reach. I wanted to get THESE things organized and THOSE things finished and filed, and I was intent on cleaning out my work email inbox.

The week played games with my plans. Every time I settled down to work, it threw something, gleefully, up on top of my desk, right onto my keyboard, and by the time I’d dealt with that little intruder, it was time to Zoom or print agendas, or meet the afternoon visitors, and my good intentions were squashed and flattened.

That was work, and at home things were much the same. If I didn’t know much better, I might almost have thought it was my own fault. I’d planned majestic lists of things to accomplish at both places, and, at each, I was chagrined to get to only one or two per day.

It was a rainy, sodden start to the week. I had to miss my strength and core class, and I had to squeeze walks into little, drip-free time zones to get my requisite steps in.

And Jim’s ride didn’t connect on Tuesday, and he needed an unexpected lift home, so the dinner I had planned to bake for  long hours needed to be rethought. Schedule deviations and unplanned-for surprises…these make me stomp my dainty size-elevens and pout. Where, oh where, has all my lovely control gone to?

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I finally settle down to type my post, broth now simmering on top of the stove, laundry chugging away below, when Jim comes in. He is bubbling with something that just occurred to him; he has a short (“Just ten minutes!”) video to illustrate his new thought; he has finished his morning keyboarding exercises, and he needs a little human communication.

I close the IPad and watch the video, and we talk about Jim’s inspired new project, and then it is lunchtime. We sort through the refrigerator; Jim lights up when I find cold pizza. I find a container of lovely little roast pork medallions, and those will be heaven in a red sauce. I take that container out and put it next to the meatballs and the Italian sausages and the chicken…and I decide the chicken will be better in soup than sauce, given all those other meaty sauce-volunteers.

I skim the top of the bubbling broth, find some leftover gluten-free pizza in the fridge, too, and I nuke up my lunch.

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I felt, this week, like I was making plans and some big beast was chunking along behind me, stomping on them.

But other things happened, too, besides goals gone awry. One morning when we went out to the cars, a monarch butterfly fluttered helplessly in a gossamer web on the garage door. We, each of us, sucked in a breath; Mark pulled the web apart; the butterfly dropped down toward the ground, and we sagged. But then it seemed to take a moment and regroup; it began to flutter, and its fluttering became soaring, and soon it was high above us, headed for the trees.

Some symbolism, some unformed lesson, settled into the bony chamber of my mind as the freed butterfly disappeared.

And this week, I had lunch on a shady green verge with trusted colleagues, on a day not too hot and not too cool, and I went, with Mark, to a concert where strings played popular music and evolved those songs, already whole and full and rich, into something even more.

And the tomato plants, out in the pigpen, are huge. They seem to grow bigger by the day; their bright yellow blossoms morph into hard little green fruits. This afternoon, the sun beams down on them and they shake their stems and reach skyward.

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Jim just remembered that we have a bag of cheese ravioli in the downstairs freezer. I will go out to mow the back forty while the broth finishes bubbling, and then I’ll come in and strain the broth and clear the stove top, and put a pot of red sauce on to simmer for the rest of the afternoon.

I love red sauce because it’s so adaptable, because it has a standard, basic core, but it is flexible enough to say, “Sure, of course: pork! Gimme those meatballs, too. And Italian sausages will work just fine. Bring it on!” And it will be good, that sauce; we’ll serve it over cheese ravs, and over gluten-free pasta, and we’ll appreciate the unexpected flavors.

Just like we contemplated, coped with, and sometimes savored unanticipated ingredients of this cockamamie week.

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The Universe keeps tell me I can’t control everything; I put my hands over my ears and shake my head. Not listening, not listening…

Try this, then, says the Universe, and It throws a week like this at me—a red sauce week, with unusual ingredients, unforeseen events, and unexpected joy-times.

I take one hand away from my ear, and I think, Okay. Maybe I’ll try to listen, just a little.

Some Principles of Broth

Antique dealers may respond hopefully to dusty bits in attics, but true cooks palpitate over more curious odds and ends: mushroom stems and tomato skins, poultry carcasses, celery leaves, fish heads, and knucklebones.

 —The Joy of Cooking

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I clip the leash on the dog and we march out into a balmy January day. Over the river, the sun is rising, a beautiful band of liquid gold poured gently onto the horizon. It is almost sixty degrees out, and my jacket swings, jauntily unzipped, as Greta and I head out for a long sniffing walk. We wander past Sandy’s house; we meander up the drive by the Helen Purcell Home. The snow has melted, and the old dog, blissfully energized, chortles up wonderful scents.

But there’s an undercurrent to the breeze, and clouds begin to gather as we wander, and by the time we are back in the driveway, drops are falling. It will rain all day, the weather app tells me, and, along about four o’clock or so, the rain will turn to snow, and the streets will freeze, and travel will not be a smart or easy thing.

I think that it’s a day to make broth, and, after tending to the little dog’s need for treats, I turn the oven on to warm. I hunker down, refrigerator door open, searching.

I pull out the carcass from the turkey we roasted this week. In the crisper, half an onion waits in a baggie, nestled next to celery and carrots and the end of a bag of salad. I pull all these out, swivel them up to the corner and turn back to search through shelves.

I uncover a little container with a scant serving of green beans. I find a little bit of broccoli, and, behind the milk and the plastic jug of orange juice, I discover the end of a bag of spinach.

I gather these things and stand up, stretching, and I lay everything on the counter and survey.

Then I pull the old black roasting pan, its bottom raised and indented to form its own built-in roasting rack, from the top of the cupboard. I rinse and dry it, and then I begin.

First, of course, the turkey bones, which I crush slightly. I cut up the onion, and three celery stalks and two fat carrots, and I put them, too, into the pan. I scrape the leftover veggies into the mix and consider. Then I cut up another small onion and add it to the mess, and I throw in three peeled garlic bulbs. I drizzle it all with olive oil and sprinkle on a generous helping of dried herbs—herbs that Terri sent me, herbs that were grown and harvested and dried and blended on the farm of her dear friend. I believe, I really do, that all that care and attention comes out in a delicate, decided flavor.

I throw in a bay leaf, a teaspoon of pepper, enough coarse salt to make a one-inch pile in the palm of my hand. I toss it all together, and I slide the pan into the warming oven.

Rain, now, is lashing the windows. The scent of the roasting veggies and bones begins to rise almost immediately.

Jim stomps down the stairs, still sleep-stippled. “What’s cooking?” he asks. After I tell him what’s in the oven, he says, “It smells GOOD. People should bake that up when they’re trying to sell their house.”

He’s right; the roasting bones and veggies smell like warm and homely comfort. I wait fifteen minutes before I pull them out and stir.

The veggies begin to caramelize; the shards of meat and the bones turn a beautiful brown. In an hour, I pull the pan from the oven and take it to the sink. I let the water run steadily until the pan is almost full, and then I stagger beneath its weight back to the stove. I set it down in the center of the stovetop and turn the middle burner on. I adjust seasonings and walk away, letting the alchemy begin.

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I can’t remember when I discovered that I didn’t have to buy broth to make soups and stews and gravies: I could use the homeliest, most neglected of orts and bits to make a wonderfully tasty stock. I pored through cookbooks, gathered recipes, sought advice. I tried and I erred, and I learned, finally, how to concoct a workable, tasty, effective broth.

The process pinged with me. I learned that many neglected items—veggies and bits of bony meat—scorned as leftovers or snacks, are welcome ingredients in a pot of broth. I learned too, that broth is not a place for the moldy or the spoiled, for things I wouldn’t serve to others or eat myself in the condition in which they now existed. Broth is a place to bring together misfits and healthy outcasts, but not a place to hide the flavors of unhealthy companions.

Broth is a living representation that sometimes, the resulting whole is bigger and better and more robust than the sum of its parts.

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There are principles to making broth, I think as I settle back in my reading chair, letting the contents of that burgeoning pot warm and evolve and grow hot enough to simmer.

Like, “Don’t overlook anything, no matter how tiny or inconsequential.” Those little bits of green bean, that lonely clove of garlic—they don’t look like much, for sure. In fact, you might pass them right by, be inclined to discard them. But the broth would not be quite the same without their contribution—each player, no matter its size, adds something—zing or zest or depth or freshness.

Like, “Sometimes the things that seem obnoxious on their own are perfect and essential in combination.” I mean, onions, really—who wants to take a big bite of a raw onion? Who really likes to chop them, tears streaming, fingers getting pungent and tangy? An onion is not always a refined dinner pal. But we need onions in our broth; we need their pungent, earthy flavor. Overpowering when solo, onions rock in company.

Like, “It’s not going to happen in 15 minutes. Patience is a necessary ingredient.” I like to make the time for the roasting step, although it’s not absolutely essential. The caramelization, the roasty brown bits: these add deep rich color, and deep rich flavor, to the broth. And the long simmer is the learning process, where the flavors leave their own little spaces and merge, blending, extending, exploring, accepting. This cannot be rushed.

Like, “You must have some common denominators, but every batch of broth will be different in some way.” The bones, of course. The onion, a given. But I’m not always going to have the same stuff in my refrigerator. What goes in the pot will depend on season and feastings, appetites and energies. Every broth I make will be the same in some ways, and it will be different in others. The complexity makes each meal exciting.

Like, “Use the end result adventurously.” This broth, with chopped kale and orzo and tiny meatballs, could give me Italian wedding soup. It could also be the base for chicken tortilla soup, or build a roux for a pot pie. A few tablespoons of that tasty broth could flavor the next batch of homemade hash, and the rest could go into the white sauce for Alfredo pasta. Broth is a base, a beginning. And the end results can be excitingly varied.

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I was naïve; I thought the process was nothing more than putting leftovers in a pot, heating them with stock or water, and—voila, soup! Eventually I realized that it’s necessary to learn some simple techniques for maximizing flavor: how to make a good broth; how to begin a soup with a base of softened vegetables and herbs; and how to add either a single vegetable, for a pure and simple soup, or a combination of many vegetables (as well as pasta, meat, or fish) for a more complicated soup. The variation is endless.

 —Alice Waters, The Art of Simple Food

 

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My son James loves to watch shows—Friends, How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, even The West Wing—in which oddly fitting individuals come together, perhaps against great odds, to form a wonderfully cohesive whole. So the stunning blonde former cheerleader adds life and humor to a group of introverted physicists. The popular girl winds up, years later, with the geeky archaeology doc. Jocks and intellectuals, extroverts and shy guys, wealthy types and penny-pinching strugglers, all contribute to the wonderful whole they create. Quite often, the loss of a character, even a seemingly minor one, will change the show’s whole flavor.

Maybe some of those brothy principles apply to the congregation of people, too.

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My cell phone bounces,  jangling. It is my partner in crime, Becky, calling to sadly say she thinks we ought to cancel our first class meeting tonight. I check the weather. The temp is down to 34 degrees; there’s a brazen red banner across the weather website. All this rain is going to freeze. And then the snow will come.

I can hear it happening already. The rain drops that were gentle, then lashing, are pecking now, crashing against the bay window in metallic waves.

Becky and I divide up the list of participants, and we each make calls.

The news channel tells me local schools all dismissed early. Mark pops in from work at 2:55, sent home by his boss. I drag the reluctant dog outside to take care of business before ice glazes her pathways. She sticks her snout skyward, blinking,…wondering, I bet, what happened to our balmy morning weather.

And inside, the whole house is broth-perfumed. Jim is right: all other things being equal, the wonderful scent might sell a house.

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The light wanes and the temperature dives and we start the fire. The dog curls up, snoring, in one arm of the couch. We light lamps and pull out books and settle in. I think that a family has some things in common with a broth, disparate characters coming together, creating an unexpected, essential whole. The principles, above, apply.

The rain is morphing. First comes the sleet, and the world is glazed. In the neighborhood, the cars are pulled into the driveways; the lights are on. No traffic sullies the quiet.

And then, abruptly, the sleet becomes snow; the icy world turns white and silent. And inside, the fire snaps; a dog and a boyo snore, cozy in their perches. And on the stove, a deep, rich broth simmers.