Sauce and Balls

The number one Commandment for women of Sicilian heritage is: "Thou shalt know how to make-a the sauce."

If you can't make a good sauce, you're nobody, and God help you if you're ever caught passing off jarred sauce for home-made.

All good Sicilians know the measure of a woman is her sauce and balls (meatballs.) My tomato sauce sucks. Well, it doesn’t always suck. Sometimes it’s pretty good, but I think it was only VERY good once, that I can recall. Generally, it is either terrible or menza menza.

Put simply, I'm a disgrace in my ancestors' eyes.

I don’t know what it is, really, but my sauce never shows the same face twice, and I suppose, that's the crux if it right there, since everyone knows consistency is key.

Sometimes it’s way too spicy and sometimes it barely has any flavor at all. There have really been times when I couldn’t eat it for fear of it ripping a hole through my gastrointestinal tract. I have a sensitive stomach, but I like-a the spice, O.K.?

Some say I don’t use enough onions. Sometimes, I admit, I use less than I would like to, but it’s only because peeling and chopping them makes my eyes feel like someone just blew a burn-barrel full of hot cinders into them. Some say I use too many onions. Well, maybe sometimes I do (when they're not making my eyesockets scream holy hell.)

Some have even said I use too much garlic. (Obviously these folks are not of Italian descent.) Too much garlic? Um, OK, Vampires?

I've also been told that when I use fresh tomatoes, rather than canned (whole, chopped or pureed) that the sauce comes out too tomato-y.

OK, I have a confession to make. I don't like tomatoes. Never have and never will. In fact, my parents used to physically force me to eat them. So, it is quite possible that I was traumatized and developed my intense dislike for them as a result. Yes, this has been my secret, shameful torment. How many Sicilians don't like tomatoes? That's worse than an elf that hates making toys and wants to be a dentist. It’s a real big problem for me, wanting to be the best Sicilian-American woman I can be.

And if you’ve grown up in an Italian family you also know that once you can make a good sauce, you can start giving it your own personal style, making it unmistakably yours and yours alone. You know, you can brag to your friends and family that your sauce has a subtle hint of whatever secret ingredient you care to use, and isn’t it great when you can stump even the greatest sauce-maker who can’t be sure if she detects a hint of saffron or nutmeg or, quite possibly, both, in your most unique and intriguing creation. It's like a baptism of sorts, a "you know you've made it when" you are accepted into the community and your true identity as an integral link in the Sicilian-American lineage is created. My sauce was going to have the extra fresh flavor of organic herbs grown myself, but, alas, I’m no more than a laughing stock among my peers. For at my age, I should at least be able to handle the basics of life, right? And being Sicilian on both sides and failing miserably at it -- well, there's simply no excuse for that.

My meatballs -- ahhhh, there’s another problem for me. They are either way too big or way too small and way too hard or way too soft, burnt on the outside (every goddamned time) and many times, just way too mushy on the inside. Yes, I cook at a low temperature. I’ve tried frying and baking them and I do let them simmer in a pot of sauce for hours. I've tried various combinations and cuts of meat: pork and beef, angus beef, grass-fed beef, extra lean beef 80/20, 90/10, 85/15, 50/50 -- all of them. There’s just no reasonable explanation for it. Except that perhaps the severity of the sauce’s underachievement somehow interacts with the meatballs’ shortcomings and they together create an exponential effect -- not just bad, but super-bad to mushrooming degrees of extremity.

My kids are probably the only kids of Italian heritage that HATE meatballs, and cry when I (try to) serve them up, and I have no one to blame but myself. My bumbling inferiority as a woman of Sicilian heritage has created a childhood trauma for them that can never be erased. I may as well be Irish or (God forbid) a WASP.

Well, what I lack in culinary skills I make up for elsewhere, however. Did I mention I can juggle?

I’m actually a pretty good baker. But, then again, that may have less to do with heritage and more to do with the fact that I’m a RECOVERING junk food junkie sugar addict and chocoholic. Bread, cake, and cookies: psychologically speaking, if I’m making them I won’t be eating them (as much) and if I’m baking them for the kids, well, it makes me an awesome mom that bakes homemade treats, not a sad excuse for a Sicilian-American woman with a "problem."

[By the way, yes, I did end up eating a couple of pounds of fudge, myself, after the holidays, but only because I accidentally (I swear) left it in the freezer when I went to New York and I couldn’t bear to see it go to waste (the number one mortal sin to Sicilians.) That’s one of the only sweets (I came to learn only recently) that the kids don’t particularly care for. (How lucky for me, right?)

No, I’m not happy about my problem and I don’t think I’ll be binging on fudge for a very long time, anyway, since I discovered a very important thing: a great way to kick a bad habit is to overindulge to the point of absolute repulsion. I once drank too much Scotch and I still get the shakes if I so much as smell the stuff, now. Come to think of it, that happened more recently with Mojitos. Blrrrrrghhh….I just don’t like the mint, O.K?

There’s a very thin line between binging and barfing. It’s death-like. Peaceful (almost) complete immobility caused by sheer mental confusion -- you know you’re fucked, you did it, you went too far, and now you can’t figure out if it’s better to just die or try to do something (anything) to make it better. Although I didn’t actually vomit this time, I am still moved to nausea if I so much as think of fudge being in my mouth. (hehe) now I’m thinking about it so I’m getting sick. My mouth is starting to water (in a bad way.)

I guess that means I’m cured of at least one bad habit.

(I don’t recommend anyone try this at home, however. It has the potential to get ugly.)

So, apparently, at this stage of the game, there's little hope for me becoming a good Sicilian-American woman, but as I said before, I can bake, which almost, but not quite, makes up for it. And did I mention I can juggle? That's almost as good as having three legs, isn't it?