Grandson Jack, who is nearly thirteen, came to stay with us last weekend. Amid the weekend activities I asked him what he would like for dinner on Sunday. I gave him a list of options and he chose spaghetti and meatballs. Our meatballs and sauce recipe comes from my Italian mom. I recall my mom and Aunt Katherine both making their sauce the same way so I assume it came from their mother, my grandmother. Grandmother Irene was an immigrant to the United States from Italy. My mom did not have this recipe written down. She dictated it to me and I typed it on a recipe card in the early 1980's. It has endured a lot of wear.
Recipes for meatballs and sauce are as varied as Italian regions. Every Italian family has their own sauce and meatball recipe. If you have been raised eating a particular sauce and meatball, (eating it at least once a week throughout childhood), it is hard to accept the taste of any other. So, I am not offended if this recipe is not to someone's liking. It does benefit from adding the red wine. The only change I have made is to the meatball recipe. I make breadcrumbs from the bread slices and sprinkle those with water. This makes a more uniform consistency. My least favorite part of making meatballs is frying them in olive oil. It is time consuming and I dislike standing at the stove frying things. In the past I have tried baking them instead. I thought the taste was not the same. They need the olive oil for flavor.
We cooked in a chaotic kitchen setting because we are in the midst of painting the kitchen cabinets. I procrastinated this job because it requires all the cabinet contents to be removed in order to sand the wall and base boxes. The cabinet contents were scattered between the living room, dining room, basement, and our bedroom. Once we finished the sanding, we washed all the shelves and replaced the shelf liners. Now it feels like move-in day, all fresh and clean! I purged a lot of unused items and then put everything else back in place. The next step is to prime and paint all the sanded doors and drawer fronts. This will take another week or so. The last time we painted these was about fifteen years ago. I used a paint sprayer that time. I did not like using a sprayer. Aside from having to create a spray "room" with plastic sheeting, I was not adept with a sprayer and I hated the whole process. This time I am rolling the paint on with a four inch roller. The finish is uniform and lovely. I also feel that I am much more in control. We are using Benjamin Moore Advance for cabinets, doors, and trim in a satin finish. We are using the same color as before, Dove White.
The kitchen is nothing fancy but it is highly functional. We bought the refrigerator in 1991 when we built our house in New York. The thing won't quit. We are ready to upgrade it and the laminate counter top to granite but that's for another day. Steve and I were both brought up with the mindset, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." So, we tend to wait until something needs doing rather than doing it just for the aesthetic. I cannot say if this is sound advice, it is just the way we are.
