Flora's Pasta Sauce

My Aunt Flora was a chain-smoking, cuss-flinging, generous woman who had her share of misery. She was married to my father's brother Arthur, and had three children. Their middle child, my cousin Arthur, died suddenly at the age of seventeen, and after that Auntie Flora was never the same. She lost weight, developed a shake, but continued to curse and shout with the best of them. Before Arthur's death, however, Aunt Flora's second floor tenement apartment was the place to be on a Sunday afternoon when I was a kid, after church. The aroma of tomato sauce bubbling on the stove, enriched with all manner of meat like pig's feet, beef, sausages, made an lasting impression on me and which I came to associate with well-being, abundance and love. To this day I gauge the success of any tomato sauce recipe by how closely it resembles Auntie Flora's. As she lay dying, about 2 years ago, I left her a note she never read, telling her, finally, about how much I loved her sauce and about how Sunday afternoons at her house were some of my best memories of being a kid. I also asked her for the recipe. I left the note on her hospital bedside table. Later, after the funeral, her daughter Beverly, who was a little older than me and with whom I wasn't particularly close (she was closer to my older sister, Joyce), responded.

Dear Rosie,

I saved your note for last because of the special letter you wrote to my Mom. Your letter was written and dated on the day my Mom died and I saw it posted on her bulletin board, and read it after she passed. Your note was very special and heartwarming to me and I will keep it along with some of the other special things I have of my Mom's. Hope the sauce comes out alright. Enjoy it; it should be delicious. ...

I'm a little embarrassed to say I've never tried it; I just know it's good. And I'm sure Aunt Flora didn't use extra virgin olive oil, or fresh herbs, or organic, grass-fed pork, or DOP Parmigiano-Reggiano either. And I wish someday I might get to be the aunt or grandmother all the kids want to visit, whose Sunday dinners they'll remember.

Here is the recipe, so generously shared by Beverly, and which was written in her hand. The comments next to the ingredients are mine.

Auntie Flora's Pasta Sauce

4 large cans Tomato Puree
1 can Tomato Paste (I'm assuming she means one of those small cans)
1 large onion, chopped
4 cloves diced garlic
Olive Oil for sauteing
1 can water (from paste can)
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
1 tbsp. sugar
1 tbsp. Italian Seasoning
Meatballs (she doesn't say how many)
Sausage (again, no measurement)
1" pieces of pepperoni sausage, peeled
Parmesan cheese (no amount given)

Brown meatballs, sausage, pepperoni. Put aside.

In a deep large pot, heat the olive oil and saute the garlic and onion together. Add the water. Stir until smooth.
Add the puree plus 3/4 of a puree-can of water.
Add salt, pepper, sugar, seasoning.
When sauce begins to simmer, add meats.
Simmer with cover 1/2 on, stirring frequently for two hours.
During last 1/2 hour, add cheese and stir.

If sauce seems bitter, add more sugar. If sauce is too thick, add a little more water. Sauce should be thick not watery.

Here's to a house full of memorable aromas!

Figs Alice B. Toklas

"I absolutely must decline
To dance in the streets with Gertrude Stein
And as for Alice B. Toklas,
I'd rather eat a box of Fucking chocolates."

I didn't say that--Brendan Behan did. The Irish poet and playwright (The Hostage; The Quare Fellow) died in 1964. Alice B. Toklas (1877-1967) was a writer, artist and Gertrude Stein’s lover. Toklas and Stein lived together in Paris. It was the Paris of the 1950's, of the salon and bohemian coffee houses; the Paris that artists and writers even today idealize. In her 1954 book, The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook, a memoir with recipes, Toklas has a recipe for “Haschich Fudge,” which I assume is what Behan is referring to in his poem.

Anyway, I thought I had lost the fig recipe forever. I mean I really thought so, and in my obsessive way I ransacked my desk, tore through every Gourmet magazine I've ever held onto, fingered my recipe file pages repeatedly, only to have it turn-up where it always was--in an old recipe box, tucked safely under the tab labeled, desserts. I'll have to pay more attention to that old box, which used to be my only recipe repository. Now I have a folder, stuffed, with slips of pages falling out; and of course, the web. But I knew this recipe pre-dated popular web usage, so I had despaired. And it’s just quirky enough to never show up on Cooking.com

But there it was, a yellowing, stained slip of newsprint.

It's really just stewed figs. In this post-Gourmet era, I was so glad to see that I had dated the recipe “1985, Gourmet Magazine.” My oldest daughter would have been five and comfortably asleep on the couch when I was making this for dinner guests. I remember the look of surprise and a little puzzlement on a friends’s face when he tasted this dessert, with its deep, adult flavors. I secretly knew he thought I couldn’t produce anything this good, he (and his wife) being the staunch Francophile, who had spent a good deal of his youth sowing his oats (as we used to say) in France. He loved it and seemed to regard me with a little more respect after that.



So here it is. Bring it to the table in some kind of pretty tureen, and make it the day before you want to serve it.

Figs Alice B. Toklas
(Serves 12!)

2 lbs. dried figs
Two 3-inch cinnamon sticks
12 whole cloves
1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
½ cup firmly packed light brown sugar
½ tsp. grated lemon rind
¼ tsp. grated orange rind
4 cups Ruby Port
1 cup dry red wine
Whipped cream as accompaniment
1 cup hazelnuts, toasted, skinned and chopped for garnish (essential!)

In a saucepan combine figs, cinnamon sticks, cloves, dark brown sugar, light brown sugar, lemon rind, orange rind, Port, and wine and simmer the mixture, covered, for 1 hour, or until the figs are tender. Let the mixture stand in a cool place for 24 hours and chill it for 2 hours. Serve chilled or at room temperature. Serve the figs topped with the whipped cream and garnished with the hazelnuts.

Beef Stew on Playoffs Sunday

I'm almost embarrassed to tell you about an old cookbook I have called, Sunset Cook Book of Favorite Recipes, Copyright 1969. The cover price is $1.95--Ci Credi!? It was not an innovative or even very creative publication, but rather followed a conventional Betty Crocker school of cooking. I think the cookbook came along with us on a move (my husband and me), unobserved, inside an old glass-fronted upright oak secretary he picked up for 60 bucks at a second-hand furniture store in the 60's (yes, I mean 1960!).

You've probably seen a lot of them if you've frequented antiques shops in the past 40 years or so. The secretary is now an antique and although I didn't like it at first--I had seen too many of them and the wood looked tired to me--I can't imagine my kitchen without it now. I use it for so many things--sorting mail, tracking bills, storing recipes, correspondence (remember owning stationery?). Anyway, I've used the Sunset Cookbook for one and only one recipe (the cover of the book boasts "800 Recipes!"), and that is for beef stew which the cookbook calls "Favorite Brown Stew," which sounds gross. But I've come to rely on this recipe as a basic formula for beef stew no matter how you choose to flavor it.



Beef Stew
adapted from Sunset Cookbook
for 6 servings

About 2 lbs. stew beef, cut into 1-2 inch pieces
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons combo butter and evoo, or other fat of your choice
1 med. onion sliced
1 clove garlic, smashed
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp. paprika
1 tsp. fresh lemon juice
4 cups combo red wine (full-bodied, dry) and chicken/beef broth (either)
5-6 carrots sliced
6-8 whole boiling onions
4-5 stalks celery sliced
4 medium potatoes cut into quarters
Few twigs of fresh thyme (or a different herb of your liking)

This recipe is made entirely on the stove top, in one pot. Use a dutch oven or heavy bottomed pot.
Place all the meat in a bag with the flour and shake it around until the pieces of meat are all coated with flour.
Melt the fats in the pot and add the meat and brown it on all sides. This will take some time. Browning can't be rushed. Turn the pieces in the pot from time to time and don't crowd the pot with pieces; do it in 2 batches if you need to.
Add all the extra flour to the pot.
Add the onion, garlic, seasonings, and liquids.
Bring to boil.
Cover tightly, lower heat and simmer for 1-2 hours, or until the meat is very tender.
Add vegetables and continue slow cooking until veggies are tender. As is often the case, stew will be better the next day.
Serve with crusty bread, an arugula salad and a Montepulciano d'Abruzzo.
Enjoy!