feelin' saucy!

happy september, hungry readers! 

while many of you have been groaning while watching the calendar all too quickly tick down the days until school, i found myself eagerly awaiting the arrival of september and embracing the decline of summer. 

not for the return to school. get real. 

for tomato sauce. 

now, before you roll your eyes or have me committed, you must understand that a big part of being italian is family traditions centered around food. 

in my family, celebrating christmas means eating the feast of the seven fishes. fall means wine-making. spring means sausage-making. and those are just the big ones. at least one night a week is pasta night. sunday is icecream night. and in between, we have quite a few pizza nights. 

but the most important out of all of my family's food related traditions is sauce day.

sauce day: (n) a joyous holiday of the autumnal equinox observed by those of italian heritage. rituals associated include: gathering of families for the creation of a heavenly tomato-based concoction in a large ceremonial cauldron followed by a grand feast of carbohydrates slathered in said concoction. known to cause euphoria, italian pride and excessive consumption of pasta. 

in plain english, sauce day is the one day a year when all us wops get together to make several dozen jars, an annual supply, of tomato sauce. 

i know this may be hard for some of you plain jane canadians to understand exactly why we do this on such a large scale. but let me explain further, as i did to my friend jasmine who's first thought upon hearing i made nearly 100 jars of sauce this year was "i hope you sold all that sauce!" 

as a 50% italian household, the bellevegas based cesareos consume pasta or some tomato sauce-based dish at least once a week.  that means at least one jar of sauce a week. times that by 52 weeks a year. and add a few extra dozen for the inevitable family gatherings complete with 30 hungry italians demanding (with emphatic hand gestures) to be fed. that averages out to about 75 jars needed per year. and at $2ish a jar at walmart for the equivalent - that comes out to a savings of exactly one pretty penny. so to avoid bankruptcy by tomato sauce, we cesareos make our own. and in addition to being the cheaper option, the taste and quality are something you could never get out of a store-bought sauce. 

in summary, a win-win situation. 

SO! now that you know my life story in regard to tomato sauce, let's get on with the actual preparation. 

welcome to tomato sauce 101!

step one: obtain a quantity of roma tomatoes suitable for feeding a small country/italian family. cut the ends off and half them. 

step two: set fire to the house to cook your tomatoes. or use a propane fueled element in your garage, like so:

step three: wittle down an old pizza paddle to create the world's biggest wooden spoon. use this to stir your tomatoes until they're soft. check softness using mouth. 

step four: plot your wife's death. laugh about it. 

step five: remove tomatoes from pot and place in a straining apparatus to remove excess juice. suggestions: a table cloth in a pizza pizza crate sitting on the lawn.

step six: round up trusty sidekicks and prepare other pasta sauce ingredients:

red peppers, onions, garlic, olive oil, salt, italian seasoning, basil, etc.

be sure to use protection ;) for onions, that is. 

also, be sure to strike a pose. 

step seven: cook the sidekick ingredients. 

step eight: go back in time 20 years and have your grandfather construct a machine that removes the skins and seeds from the tomatoes while simultaneously crushing them into sauce. return to the present day and run all of your drained tomatoes through it. 

step nine: add all the sidekick ingredients and have each family member stir and/or taste the sauce. 

family friends may also stir the sauce only if the friendship exceeds 10 years. 

the use of pasta is encouraged for tasting.

please note: the cesareos do not endorse or recommend this sauce to pasta ratio. 

step ten: prepare for glory! also, prepare your jars. start by sterilizing them and putting basil in each one.

step eleven: have your mother pour sauce into each jar. you can use a ladle, we have something a little more practical: a pot. 

step twelve: seal jars and pose with them. 

ensure maximum family enclusion, like so:

step thirteen: boil jars in water to make them air-tight. 

step fourteen: retire to the kitchen and cook some pasta. 

step fifteen: ladle glorious tomato sauce on top. 

step sixteen: serve alongside meatballs; check all items off Italian Stereotype List.

step seventeen: enjoy!! 

 useful tip: avoid being called a mangiacake and impress your italian friends by utilizing a spoon to spin your pasta neatly onto your fork to eat. let frank demonstrate:

there can be no review or rating for this sauce because A) i'm incredibly biased in this matter and B) it's something you have to experience to understand. like 'nam, man. 

but i invite anyone all the extended cesareos or anyone who has tried the infamous cesareo tomato sauce (what we call sugo pronto) to leave a comment to attest to its greatness.

 now, i know this is a long process if you're a student or some other form of lazy and i can sympathize with the temptation of effortless store-bought sauce. 

but to you lazies i say this: cook, my little puppets, cook! 

you've can't say you've truly eaten italian until you've tried a homemade sauce. 

there are so many things you can do with it!

 add meat to it to make bolognese, add fish to it, add hot peppers to make arrabiata, add cream to make rose, add beans to make pasta fagioli, cook meatballs in it, cook veal cutlets in it for sandwiches, spread it on your pizza or use it as a dipping sauce, add vodka and make a bloody mary out of it, bathe in it, use it as hair gel. the uses really are infinite. 

while there are some things about being italian that i am not entirely fond of, such as the constant battle to keep my eyebrows apart or the inability to control the volume of my voice,  the food-based traditions like sitting down to a bowl of pasta with the fam after sauce day make the rest bearable. 

thanks for reading :)