The magic of pasta with meat sauce
One of my children’s favorite dishes is pasta bolognese, or pasta with meat sauce as we call it. It was a standard in my house growing up and while I don’t cook too many things (well or often), I take great pride in the fact that I make a mean pasta with meat sauce, which my kids absolutely love (recipe compliments of my mother). It’s become a family tradition, right down to the red bowl it’s always served in (also compliments of my mother).
Today at around lunchtime, as my son reheated some ziti with meat sauce from last night’s dinner, I was struck by the fact that to this day when I eat ziti I think of my ex-sister-in-law. I haven’t seen or spoken with her in over seven years but she used to do this thing with her pasta that fascinated me. She would slide the tine on the outer edge of the fork inside the tube of ziti and then slide it off with her mouth. What a funny thing to remember someone by I think with a smile. My daughter commented that she doesn’t have any aunts, which is essentially true, though she has many honorary aunts. A year after my ex-husband and I divorced, my ex-husband’s brother divorced, and a few years after that, so did my brother. So the two immediate aunts my children had, unfortunately dissolved with the marriages.
Late at night, while the kids were asleep, by the glow of only the fire and the Christmas tree lights, my brother and I sat in our childhood home playing Santa and pondering the beauty of staying true to ourselves and how amazing our kids and lives are, despite all of the changes. Inevitably, it comes back around to our childhood, which was steeped in a deep, deep love for the arts and special, loving family traditions, some passed down (such as always gathering at the dining table for dinner) and some invented as a young family when my brother and I were children (for example my mother would sew our Christmas stockings, which were then decorated by my father, each hung on Christmas Eve as The Muppets Christmas played on the record player).
My daughter turns thirteen next week. I bought her a copy of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which was given to me by my parents when I was her age. The book sits, hidden, next to a few other presents waiting patiently until next week to be opened. My daughter emerges from her room, buoyant after finishing a guitar lesson. She is humming “Yellow Submarine,” which is an intergenerational family favorite. She has a slight skip in her step. “Guitar lesson was great today, Mama,” she shares as she walks down the hallway, where the decorations from our New Years Eve celebration still hang. “Is there any pasta with meat sauce left? I’m starving!” I take a minute to reflect in the moment. The lost aunts, the re-heated ziti, the turning to a new year, our shared family love of music, the connection, the warmth, the pride. How in life some things change and others, not at all. How inevitably things may not turn out like we thought they would but in fact end up being even better. I get up from my beloved desk, perched in the cozy corner near the window and let the blanket roll off my shoulders as I begin to walk towards the kitchen. “I’ll make a fresh batch, sweetie. I feel like having more, too.”
Happy New Year to you and yours. Wherever and however your families are configured and whatever traditions you may have built, may you always find the comfort of each other, a familiar song and a fresh batch of your family comfort food when you get home.