The confession

I’m gonna hate myself for doing this.

Months from now somebody may remind me what I have said here today. I will wonder what could I possibly have been thinking.

And yet here we are.

I was not the greatest son to my mother. An okay one, not a burden or an embarrassment, I don’t think. I managed to avoid getting arrested, for instance, or winding up in the ER after a gang brawl—neither an insignificant accomplishment where I grew up.

But nor was I the child that a person might wish for when contemplating a life of parenting. I never applied myself to schooling, failed to excel at sports, refused to participate in most organized social events. More hurtful to my mother, a devout and loving Roman Catholic, I rejected her church outright and generally did all that I could do to live by my own rules, not by hers—which is of course to say by no rules at all.

These are not the things weighing on me currently, however. It’s far worse than that. Recently I admitted—aloud and in front of more than one attentive dinner guest—that I believe myself to be a more accomplished cook today than my mother was when she was alive.

And it’s eating me up inside.

Go ahead and laugh if you want. Only don’t come crying to me when yourspiritual crisis comes. A man is not supposed to think such a thing, let alone share it with others.

It’s disgraceful. 

I blame two people for driving me to this crisis of character: the woman with whom I share a home (and a kitchen) and, to a lesser but still substantial degree, my friend Joe.

I’ll deal with my friend first.

Long before my recent public indiscretion, months ago in fact, Joe made it his business to irritate me—by insisting that I rate my own Sunday Gravy against the one that my mother so lovingly produced for her family thousands of times. We were, as often happens, lounging in his backyard at the time, drinking Sicilian wines and watching boats of varying size and shape sail slowly and soundlessly past his home overlooking the Hudson River.

“Leave me alone,” I barked at my friend. “What does it matter whose Gravy is better? Mine’s mine and hers was hers, end of story.”

Joe was once a fearsome, if perhaps hairless, wild predator beast in some past life, I’m sure of it. Tenacious does not begin to touch upon his manner.

“Of course it matters,” he prodded, uncorking one of the Nero d’Avolas that I had brought to him for sampling. “And you know it does.”

One of the great frustrations with being a friend to me, as Joe will no doubt attest, is that when a topic arises that troubles me greatly, my ability to quash its progression fully is unmatched.

“Fine,” I said to my friend, as he refilled both of our glasses, mine a bit moreso than his own. “Debate this with yourself for a while and let me know how things turn out.”

At this point I wandered inside Joe’s house, which he shares with his lovely wife Joel, and downed a couple of beers with Ev, Joel’s father and a man whose company I enjoy quite a lot. Joe and I never discussed my mother’s Sunday Gravy again.

Then the other evening, over—what else?—a meal of ziti and meatballs and sausage and pork skin braciole, which I had prepared for several friends who’d come to dinner, the topic arose yet again.

“I know you would never admit to this,” said the all too familiar voice from the far end of the table, “but your meatballs and gravy really are better than your Sainted Mother’s.

“I loved that woman dearly,” the voice went on, “but at some point you need to own up to the fact that you’ve surpassed her as a cook. It really is okay, you know.”

Here I will argue, however cowardly and unconvincingly, that a man who wishes his feelings to remain private has no business consuming alcohol while in the presence of others. This can only lead to heartache and, I would argue strenuously, woe.

“Yes, mine are better,” I heard myself say, a burst of red rushing to ears and face and neck, I’m told. “Are you happy now?”

I, of course, have not been happy since. And may never be again. I tell myself that the shame will pass, hope that confession will, as mom might say, heal the soul. 

But I don’t believe any of that. I’m just not the man I was before. 

I’ll have to learn to live with this.

How to make Sunday Gravy

It’s not as easy as it looks, okay.

Trust me. I’ve had a lot of mediocre Sunday Gravy (that’s tomato sauce to you civilians). Hell, I’ve made a lot of it myself.

Not lately, though. It appears that I have gotten the Red Sauce thing down pretty well. It is not the sauce that my mother prepared each week of her adult life, no. But it is a good sauce. Worth sharing, I think.

This is how I start most every Sunday Gravy these days: an onion, a couple celery stalks, two or even three small carrots, maybe four large garlic cloves, a little hot pepper, three or four anchovy fillets, and about half a dozen each of pork ribs and sweet Italian sausage.

You have questions, yes? I thought so.

Okay, about the anchovies. If I hadn’t mentioned them you might never have known they were in there. To me the fillets are like using salt, except they also add a little depth to the flavor. I still use salt in my gravy, just not as much as I would if the anchovy wasn’t in there. Just try it. It ain’t gonna kill you.

Next. This is not a spicy sauce, not at all; the amount of hot pepper provides only the slightest hint of heat, and so it is easy enough to not use if you choose.

What else? Oh, the carrots. That’s just my way of adding a little sweetness to the sauce. Many people add sugar, but I started using carrots some years back and like this way a lot better.

I don’t mess around when starting a sauce. I use a lot of extra virgin olive oil to saute the vegetables, plus some butter. The anchovies are in there too, and I used some fresh oregano and even a little fresh rosemary this time. (Just so you know, I’ve been known to add some diced pancetta or guanciale at this stage, or even prosciutto. I even threw in some chopped fennel a couple times.)

Once things have sauteed awhile you add the ribs and the sausage and let them brown a bit. You’re not cooking the meat here, just rendering some of the fat. As soon as you’ve accomplished this remove the meat and set it aside in a bowl or on a plate.

After the meat is removed I add maybe a cup of red wine and allow it to reduce by at least half, if not more. I don’t do this step all the time, but do think it adds a little complexity.

Then it’s time for the tomatoes. I use peeled whole Italian tomatoes (108 ounces here, as company was coming over), then break them up, first with a potato masher and then with my fingers. (Right inside the pot, yeah.) Turn up the heat to medium high and bring to a boil.

Once the tomatoes start to boil, add the ribs and sausage, along with whatever juices have collected in the bowl, then lower the heat to a slow simmer.

You made meatballs for your Sunday Gravy, right? Of course you did. Well, toss them in too. (If you didn’t make them, here’s my meatball recipe. I’m told they’re not half bad.)

At this point I toss in three, maybe even four tablespoons of butter. I find that this mellows the sauce a bit, plus it adds richness. Then I add salt and pepper to taste and let things simmer (using a very low flame, so that you barely see a boil at all) for a couple hours.

This is what was left of last Sunday’s Gravy at Casa Polpette, after the imaginary couple from Illinois, The McTinderdonks of Holy Loch (don’t ask), helped to lay waste to an enormous pot of the red stuff.

I am happy that my guests enjoyed themselves so much, of course. But my own Monday night dinner did not, shall we say, quite go as I had imagined.

Capeesh?