Pasta with Equal Sauce
For years my wife worked from home and took care of meals and kiddo scheduling while I went to an office all day. Suddenly, she’s working in a shop full time and I’m at home! I think we have a new empathetic layer of respect for each other now.
I’m a competent home cook. My parents both worked and my siblings and I got to be a decent kitchen crew. If I have a specialty, it’s getting a well balanced meal on the table fast. I think I can walk into most anyone’s kitchen, look around, and serve everyone in the house a tolerable meal in 30 minutes.
So, pasta with red sauce is a regular dish in our house. I don’t need to tell you how to make spaghetti sauce, but I can say that three things give character to the sauce we serve here:
Fire Roasted Tomatoes. Mark at the Mediterranean Market turned us on to Muir Glen’s fire roasted tomatoes. What an awesome product! It immediately made me a better cook. Hunt’s has a version that’s easier to find in supermarkets.
Worcestershire sauce. A dash of Worcestershire sauce smooths out the acidity of the tomatoes and gives an umami dimension. I read somewhere that Worcestershire sauce is the modern version of Roman garum, which was a flavoring made from rotten fish juice. I wonder if the original had as much sugar in it. I wonder if garum links etymologically to garam masala, or silkroadily to Asian fish sauces.
Aleppo pepper. I usually make red sauce with fennel and a little heat. Penzey’s Aleppo pepper is a magical ingredient -- a mild spice that sits back on the palate, not like the harsh “crushed red pepper” you get in pizza parlors. Aleppo is in Syria.
If it seems unfair to you that I can write this post as a male professional without worrying at all about the kinds of reader reactions a female professional might have to worry about, it’s because it is unfair. While you’re thinking about that kind of unfairness, why not call your lawyer to review your company’s compensation structure and achieve pay equity this quarter?