After the great success of the pot roast dinner, one day I decided to cook spaghetti, and make the sauce myself. By this time, we were living in a trailer, with a full kitchen. Looking in the cookbook, I discovered a recipe for sauce that allowed you to cook the pasta in the sauce, thus saving a pot to wash, later. I must admit that I was born with a defective gene – that of cleaning up – and so this seemed like a great idea to me. It even had black olives in it, which I’d never heard of in a pasta sauce, so that seemed quite interesting. And the garlic was to be put on a toothpick so it could be pulled out later, so that pleased me, too, as at that point in my life, I didn’t find the taste of garlic particularly appealing.
I pored over the recipe, developed my shopping list, and went out to buy the ingredients. The only thing that confused me was the garlic, and so I asked the man stocking vegetables to explain it to me. He told me that it was full of individual pieces, and that each must be peeled before using them.Okey-dokey, off I went back home, and started preparations. All was going swimmingly till I started to peel those pesky little pieces of garlic. What a pain!* When I’d done seven of them, I decided to stop, as I didn’t want the sauce to be too garlicky. Throughout the afternoon, the sauce cooked, and just as my husband was due home, I put the pasta in the pot. The door opened, and from this point, there are two people telling the story:
Paul stuck his head in the door a second time, and, wide-eyed, asked, “What are we having for dinner?” I said, “Spaghetti, and I made the sauce myself! It only calls for one pot. You cook the spaghetti in with the sauce. Isn’t that interesting?!?” Now, Paul loves garlic, so he came in, we ate dinner, and no one would talk with us for days!Marti’s version: Paul opened the door, stuck in his head, and disappeared for a few minutes.
Paul’s version: he opened the door and was hit with such a solid wall of garlic that he landed flat on his back in the front lawn.
* Much later I discovered that what one buys in the store is called a bud of garlic, and that each piece is called a clove. My recipe called for 1 clove of garlic…
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