Sixty Shades of Love. Darlene Matule
to Lydia’s in Butte.”
“Would you like me to teach you how to make my Sicilian grandmother’s recipe?” Clara offered.
I jumped at the chance.
“Do you have a big pot?” she asked. “A grater? An electric fry pan?”
I nodded. We’d gotten lots of kitchen gadgets for shower and wedding presents.
Clara wrote out my grocery list. “That’s it, except the cheese. I get a big block of a special Romano at Tito’s once a month. I’ll share enough for your first batch.”
The next Saturday morning Clara arrived at 9 a.m., and the two of us got to work in our dollhouse-sized kitchen. (It was so handy you could stand in the middle of the room, cook at the stove, set the table, and wash dishes in the sink without moving more than a couple of feet in any direction.)
“Open the puree first,” Clara directed. “Next, add the tomato paste. Fill one empty puree can with warm water, swish it around, and add to the mixture. Then peel a clove of garlic and put it—whole—into the sauce in the pan.”
I must say, as I peeled that garlic I was glad my mother wasn’t there. She’d have been horrified. “Only poor people eat garlic!” she told me in no uncertain terms when my home economics teacher in ninth grade cooking class recommended halving a clove of garlic, squeezing it gently, and rubbing it on the entire inside of the salad bowl.
“Never in my house,” my mother said in her I’m-the-boss-and you-better-know-it voice.
Finally, Clara had me put a handful of commercial parmesan cheese in the tomato mixture. “Turn the burner on low and let it cook.
“Now it’s time to make meatballs.”
At Clara’s direction, I got out my biggest Pyrex bowl, the yellow one. She had me put in the two-pound package of hamburger I’d gotten at the IGA grocery store, two slices of grated white bread, and one whole egg.
“Now grate the Romano cheese.”
I almost died as she handed me the round ball. The cheese was green!
Clara saw me flinch—and explained, “Just the rind is green. Cut off a chunk. Grate the white part and put into our mixture.”
Finally there were only three unused bottles on the counter. One filled with dark green flakes, another with medium, and a third labeled powered garlic. (I’d have to hide that at Christmas time when my mother came to visit.)
Clara proceeded to teach me how to smidge. Fingers were used instead of measuring spoons. She demonstrated on a piece of wax paper. Had me practice a few times. “You’re a natural smidger, Darlene,” she said.
“Now—two smidges each of the sweet basil and oregano. One of garlic powder.”
Then we hand-mashed the meat/herb combination, tweaked out enough for individual meatballs, rolled the meat in balls, and browned each sphere in oil. That finished, we slid them into the tomato mixture on the stove.
“You’re done. Great job, Darlene. Stir every fifteen minutes. Simmer all day (it was only 11 a.m.). Follow the directions on the package of spaghetti, make a little salad, and you’ve got a meal.”
Right then I decided, I’m going to take a fresh clove of garlic tonight, slice it down the middle, squeeze it good and hard, and roll it around the entire inside of my salad bowl.
As she was getting ready to leave, Clara produced a loaf of French bread and said, “Bart got this for you and Steve. Enjoy.”
As she was leaving, Clara said, “Remember, next Saturday night I’m making veal and peppers. Come about five, and we’ll have a glass of wine.”
Minutes later—standing alone in my kitchen, I had the most amazing thought. Why, I’ve just been given Clara’s family-secret spaghetti recipe.
It was hard to believe—here was Clara, an almost-complete-stranger from Troy, New York—treating me like her own daughter.
I felt very special.
Thanksgiving loomed. We only had enough money to buy hotdogs. “They’ll be fun cooked over the flames in our own fireplace,” I encouraged my husband who longed for turkey.
The Saturday before the holiday, John and Margie invited us up to their place. When we arrived, we found the plan was for John and Steve to go to the St. Charles annual bazaar. Margie and I were going to stay home with the kids and make cookies.
I wasn’t prepared for the whooping and hollering three hours later. Steve came in waving a five dollar bill. John followed saying, “Look what else Steve won.” It was a 25 pound turkey. Happy is an understatement.
We ate turkey for ten days. I swear. Thursday was just us. I cooked the gravy—my very first attempt. It didn’t thicken. I poured in more flour. More. Got dumplings. It was wonderful!
Friday was a no meat day—pre-Vatican II. Saturday we invited John, Margie, and their three kids over for leftovers. We pulled our kitchen table into the living room. Lifted up the two leaves (we couldn’t fit the expanded version in our tiny kitchen). We had lots of food (thanks to that extra five dollars). Had lots of laughs.
Steve took a picture of the whole Donoghue family, John, Margie, Mary Kaye, Jimmie John, and Mark—with me sitting in the middle.
Jimmie John looked the situation over and asked in his three-year-old logic, “How come you don’t have a TV? What do you sit and watch?” (We bought one—on payments—immediately after.)
The next Monday, my childhood friend Gail arrived. We ate turkey. Had a wonderful reunion. Although not related, I considered him my twin brother. I’d cried when the Navy hadn’t allowed him a furlough to come home for my wedding.
Steve and I continued eating turkey until it was rancid. He never got sick. I did. He said it was because I was pregnant. (Note: it was a good forty years before I really enjoyed eating turkey again. Hmm!)
Even then, Christmas was my favorite holiday of the year. Both Steve and I had grown up in homes where there were only two decorations: a three-foot Christmas tree sitting on top of our mother’s sewing machine and two red cellophane wreaths, each with an electric candle in the center, placed in the middle of our frosted-over front windows.
The second Sunday that first December we drove over to Idaho, getting wet in snow up to our armpits in our search of the perfect spruce. We came home with our hand-cut tree—a tree Steve had to supplement by drilling holes with a brace and bit and inserting extra branches. Perfect? Maybe not—but beautiful to us.
A dozen glass ornaments, a string of multi-colored lights, and a couple of boxes of aluminum icicles—each strand painstakingly put on separately—decorated the evergreen we’d gone to such efforts to obtain.
Five plaster-of-Paris choirboys, each three inches high—just purchased at Sears, held the place of honor in the center of our mantle. (After sixty Christmases, we still have two of those keepsakes—displayed in a special place yearly. Our daughter Stephanie hangs the remaining colored balls on her tree.)
It was almost Christmas—our very first Christmas together. Snow fell outside—big, saucer-like flakes.
Steve made a fire with wood we’d scavengered in our Christmas-tree-cutting Sunday. Neither of us had ever lived in a home with a fireplace. We soaked up the warmth, the ambiance.
“Let’s go for a walk so we can see the smoke come out of our chimney,” he suggested.
The beauty of the night was breathtaking. Our love surrounded us like a warm blanket as we stood a block away, watching the smoke curlicue from our chimney. Holding hands through mittens on the way back was as sensuous as our first