Meatballs and Sauce

It is funny why we do certain things we do. How much of who we are and what we do is shaped by our parents. How we adopt different qualities and habits from them. Even ones we hated as children we find ourselves doing as adults.

Last night, my sister's family and mine sat down for dinner to remember our Daddy. Over the last 5 years we have frequented various restaurants in the area he enjoyed (the man loved a chinese buffet) but this year I decided to cook. For quite some time after I got married my daddy would have Spaghetti Sunday at his house. He would make sauce from scratch, roll meatballs and have some sort of pasta or spaghetti. He then would invite everyone he knew! You can after all always throw more pasta on the stove.

Sauce was a big deal to my daddy. He always made his own and he very rarely ate anything with a red sauce out. When we were visiting the venue for my wedding reception, he sat down at the bar to discuss some points with the owner of the club and promptly asked him to taste his sauce. This is something that had never been requested before but the owner graciously went to the back and brought out some sauce and bread. My daddy would deem the sauce acceptable and sign the contract for the venue. When we got outside I asked him what he really thought of the sauce and he said "Its pretty fucking good sauce."

One of my proudest moments was when my own sauce was declared "pretty fucking good sauce." But why would it not be I studied at the knee of the master. I loved cooking with and for my daddy. My pasta salad was called a taste adventure. I packed it so full of stuff that no two bites were the same. I was allowed to help with the preparations for La Vigilia (Feast of Seven Fishes) on Christmas Eve. And sometimes he would ask me to make him something I made for him before. (highest praise)

One afternoon I went over to make sauce and meatballs with him and while we were rolling the meatballs I asked him why he rolled his meatballs so big. When I say so big, I am talking a meatball the size of a regulation tennis ball.

Does it have to do with keeping them so moist? No
Do they hold their shape better in the sauce? No
Is it better for them when you are baking them in the oven? No.

Then why are you rolling them so big?

The answer was simple. He hated rolling meatballs. So instead of rolling 20-25 little ones, he made 10 big ones! And they were awesome!

He was also the pioneer of the Pink Scrambled Eggs and Poundcake and Pudding dessert, but those my dears are stories for another day.

Joseph Russo February 4, 1944 - October 11, 2008

It has been 5 years since you left us, suddenly and without warning. I don't think I will ever be used to the idea you are gone. I miss and love you. So lucky that I got to call you Daddy.

Death Is Nothing At All

Death is nothing at all.

I have only slipped away to the next room.

I am I and you are you.

Whatever we were to each other,

That, we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name.

Speak to me in the easy way

which you always used.

Put no difference into your tone.

Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed

at the little jokes we enjoyed together.

Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me.

Let my name be ever the household word

that it always was.

Let it be spoken without effect.

Without the trace of a shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant.

It is the same that it ever was.

There is absolute unbroken continuity.

Why should I be out of mind

because I am out of sight?

I am but waiting for you.

For an interval.

Somewhere. Very near.

Just around the corner.

All is well.

Henry Scott Holland ~ 1847-1918

Canon of St. Paul's Cathedral ~ London. UK 

Please stay tuned for more posts starting August 1.

A Camping We Will Go...

I am my daughter's Girl Scout Troop Leader.  It is a job that I love! I love the Girl Scout organization as a whole and everything it stands for. I love the confidence it instills our girls. I love the lessons it teaches and the principles it imparts.

I do NOT however love the thought of camping. I don't understand why this has to be part of the Girl Scout culture. I am not an outdoorsy person. I don't like to be dirty, I don't like bugs and in general I don't really care to be out in nature. I can appreciate the beauty of the world without getting all up in it. My general stand on camping is why when I have a nice little house and there are wonderful things in the world called hotels would I want to go out and pretend to be homeless.

Here at the foothills of the Adirondacks, camping seems to be a way of life. I have never encountered so many people who camp! And LOVE it. It seems to be something in their DNA. I am not talking slide out Class A RV camping. I am talking tent and pop-up camper camping.

I don't know if it because I am allergic to every type of tree and pollen in existence or because just the thought of campfire smoke sends my asthma into overdrive, the thought of camping makes me break out in a cold sweat.  I blame my mother for raising a girly girl who does not like to get dirty.  My one prior camping experience was when I was in college. It was a nice evening with the Sigma Nu's until I saw where I was expected to sleep.  I promptly walked out of the woods, got into my car, and drove back to Greensboro in the middle of the night. Back to my nice warm bed in my nice warm HOUSE.

Ok, so we get that I don't like to camp. The thought of it causes involuntary shudders to run up my spine. Well, this year...

 I took my girls camping. 

Here is a little bit of what my poor camping deprived child thought she would be doing.
Go ahead click the link. It is worth a good laugh.

I promised them we would go and we did. Two nights in the woods.  It could have been much worse. We were camping at a former Girl Scout camp called Camp Little Notch.  My troop was assigned to a cabin. So the big inconvenience there was that I did not bring an air mattress and we had to sleep on the floor.  But we did have power and running water, although no shower or bathroom.

My girls were in their glory. They loved every minute of it. We had lovely cabin mates who introduced me to something called a Banana Smore! The girls swam and sang and we had a dance.  In the week leading up to Encampment I cooked and froze 7 gallons of spaghetti sauce for our big spaghetti dinner in the dining hall on Saturday night. After which they had a dance.  There is nothing funnier than 75 little girls dancing Gangnam Style.

I know my Beauty had a wonderful time. On the way home in a very quiet voice I asked my little campers of they would like to do it again and was met with a resounding YES! I am not saying I will take them next year but I do have a tote of camping supplies and gear in the basement.

I found this recipe for Grilled S'more Banana Packets from Neighbor Food blog and I am totally stealing her picture so you can see it.

Ingredients

• 1 banana
• Handful of chocolate chips
• Handful of marshmallows
• 1 graham cracker
• Other additions, if desired: peanut butter, nuts, nutella, jam, etc.

Instructions

1. Heat a grill to about 350 degrees.
2. Using a knife, cut out a small strip of peel from the top of your banana, leaving one end intact. Pull back the strip, and use a knife or spoon to carve a shallow “canyon” down the center of your banana. Eat the piece of banana you carve out. 
3. Fill the canyon with chocolate chips and marshmallows and other mix ins if desired. Stuff it as full as you can! You can also smear some peanut butter or Biscoff spread on before you start.
4. Place the peel back into place then wrap a square of foil tightly around the banana.
5. Set foil packets directly on the grill, cover, and cook for 10-12 minutes or until marshmallows and chocolate are melted.
6. Remove from the grill and carefully pull away foil. It may take some marshmallow with it…don’t worry! Pull back the peel and dig in!

You call yourself Italian?

I am proud of my Italian heritage. In someways I am very Italian in others, not so much. I love pasta. I talk with my hands. I have an overwhelming desire to feed and mother everyone I come across.  

On the other hand, I don't drink coffee of any kind (latte, espresso, cappuccino me no likey). My cousins called me the hairless Ginny and....

I am not a big fan of pizza per say.  It is a little too bready for me and I never seem to get a take out pizza that has enough sauce on it for my taste. (I like a very saucy pizza!)  Often I am expecting one thing and receive a version I would not have anticipated. Burned broccoli on a white pizza. Sausage that looks more like rabbit pellets than sausage.  Crust burned on the bottom.  These are things that will ruin my night. 

This being said. I do enjoy making my own pizzas at home. I can control the ingredients and the sauce content.  I like a thin crispy crust but not burnt.  I also like to fool around with non traditional pizza ingredients on my pies.  BBQ chicken, Chicken Satay, Ruben, BLT.... 

One of my favorites is BBQ Chicken Pizza.  I love Sandra Lee's concept of semi homemade. Ingredients prepped for you by the store that you can then pull together to make your own dinner. 

On a recent trip to Florida I stocked up on Curly's Sauceless Pulled Chicken. I am not sure why but they stopped selling it up here by me.  I love to make myself little White BBQ pulled chicken sliders on King's Hawaiian Sweet rolls. But I digress.  I realized I had room in my cooler for more of the sauceless pulled chickens and sent my wonderful husband to Publix to get more.  HE came back with Curly's Pulled Barbecue Chicken. (I guess the universe was saying 9 packs of pulled sauceless chicken was enough!) No worries, I can use that too!  One of the things I can do with it is my yummy Almost Homemade BBQ Chicken Pizza. It is a favorite in our house. A little bit pizza, a little bit bbq summer. 

Almost Homemade BBQ Chicken Pizza

1 Pillsbury Thin Crust Pizza Crust

1/2 cup BBQ Sauce

1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1/2 cup shredded cheese pizza blend

1 container Curly's Pulled BBQ chicken

Pre heat oven to 350 degrees. Open Pizza crust and spread onto pizza stone or greased sheet pan.  Bake crust for 5-7 minutes until top is firm but not golden.  Remove from oven and spread BBQ sauce onto crust.  Next evenly spread BBQ Chicken onto crust in thin layer.  Sprinkle with cheddar cheese and then shredded pizza blend.  Return to oven for another 10-15 minutes watching so cheese does not form a hard crust but remains melty and bubbly. 

My Funny Gemini

Today we had my Beauty's birthday party. It thrills me to take a little peek into her social life.  I love to watch her with her friends.  In my eyes she is a true Gemini there is a duality to her that is so intriguing.

She is an incredibly social child. She has many friends and lots of acquaintances.  Much to the dismay of her father, she seems to be a magnet for little boys. It has been that way since nursery school. I wonder sometimes if it is because she does not talk, and there for does not talk back and is not bossy. Today at her party she had boys on either side of her at the theater four seats in each direction.  She was in her glory.

She is also a little person who needs her space. She has no problem entertaining herself and will sometimes even remove herself from a social situation for some alone time. I have no problem with that, in fact I have been known to do it myself. I love people and entertaining but there comes a time for me when that becomes overwhelming and I need to excuse myself for a moment.

I often joke about my delicate flower and her favorite movies and cartoon characters. They are not princesses... she had an extreme love for all things Avengers and Transformers.  On the other side of the coin, she does love horses and ponies. My Little Ponies and Horseland are a nice alternative to the Transformers Prime show that dominates our television.

Pink sparkly Christmas tree surrounded by Avengers

She has an affinity for technology and video games. Loud crashing racing games.  She also loves books. 

She loves to dress up. A twirly dress fills her with joy and pride.  On the other hand she has quite the collection of superhero t-shirts and has no problem getting dirty. (shudder) When asked what she wanted to be for halloween she chose... 

yes, Captain America. I asked her if she wanted me to make a tutu for her costume. She indignantly and quite clearly told me "Captain America does NOT wear a tutu".  (imagine that sentence spoke with a mouth full of marbles)
Just a couple years ago she was happy to be Pinkalicious. After that Penny from Bolt. In between I got to dress her as Hit Girl from Kick Ass.

As we come up on her tenth year I can't wait to see what my little Gemini has is store for me.  She is impulsive but set in routine.  She is dramatic and yet comedic. She is unique and yet just like every other third grader I know.

It is amazing to me that this bright, vivacious, social butterfly, as the doctors have repeatedly told me, never should have opened her eyes. She is a miracle on earth.

It's Kimsmas Day!

So I totally did not plan this but my 42nd post just so happens to be falling on my 42nd birthday.

Forty-two 

42

XVII 

Quarante-duex 

Cuarenta y dos 

I don't know how others feel about their birthdays but I love mine. I love it not in the way that I want the world to stop and celebrate with me. Ok, who am I kidding. I call my birthday Kimsmasday. And when Mother's Day falls on my birthday it is a Mother of a Kimsmasday! I don't mind aging. I freely tell people my age, much to my mother's dismay, mainly because I don't look my age. I love hearing how old people think I am and will kiss anyone on the mouth who guesses under 30.

So in order to celebrate my 42nd post on my 42nd year on earth, I thought I would post 42 things about me.  Think of it as a peek inside my brain.

1.  My favorite color is purple. 
2.  It was a good thing my favorite color is purple because it is the color of my sorority Sigma Sigma Sigma. 
3.  I have one sister who is younger than me. 
4. My sister and I live on the same block. 
5. I have 2 tattoos. 
6. I love to read, always have. 
7. I love to cook.
8. I am a terrible baker.
9. I read cookbooks like people read novels.
10. When my husband gave me my KitchenAid mixer for our first Valentine's Day after we were married, I kissed it. 
11. I have a degree in Social Work. 
12. I went to college in North Carolina.
13. If I could live anywhere in the world it would be in the South. 
14. I took sign language in college. 
15. My daughter is functionally non verbal and communicates with sign language and a communication device. (who knew?) 
16. I have a pathological need to return my cart to the cart corral. I NEVER leave it loose in the parking lot. Even in the rain.
17. I hate to get caught in the rain. 
18. My favorite Muppet is Pepe the King Prawn. 
19. I can't ever pass up Coal Miner's Daughter, Barefoot in the Park and Grease 2 when I come across them on television. 
20. If I had to choose between something sweet or something savory. I will always pick savory. 
21. Something sweet when eaten must always be followed by something savory. 
22. I love sushi. 
23. I hate spicy food. 
24. I am allergic to raw onions and strawberries. 
25. I love babies dressed in black. 
26. I also love skull prints especially on babies. 
27. I am very tactile. 
28. I won't eat Jell-o because of the texture. 
29. I won't eat bananas for the same reason but I love banana flavored food. 
30. Contrary to that, I love my Yonanas machine which makes ice cream out of frozen bananas. 
31. I don't eat foods that look like they need to shave. 
32. I only eat scrambled eggs I have cooked myself. 
33. My daughter is the greatest thing I have ever done. 
34. My biggest fear is losing my husband or my daughter. 
35. I have a one eyed Pekingnese named Leo. 
36. I have a love/hate relationship with my rescue dog, Brownie. 
37. I refuse to give up on him and return him to the shelter. 
38. I am a cynic at heart but my daughter has made me an optimist.
39. I make a mean gumbo. 
40. I love cartoons. 
41. I lost over 100 pounds. 
42. The last thing I do before I go to sleep at night is touch my husbands face.