Red Sauce.

My family didn't pass down recipes. I didn't have enough connections to matriarchs or even patriarchs in the family to be handed some tomato stained trove of papers with scribbles. I was not taught the difference between a marinara and a bolognese and a ragu until my own research. In my family it was simply sauce, if it needed a title, spaghetti sauce. However, I'm too particular about the type of noodles to call just any sauce spaghetti sauce. So instead, when you walk through my door, you find red sauce.

I'm not entirely sure I could call my sauce traditional, but I also don't find it very innovative, as far as sauces go. It is, though, always flavorful and comforting. Which is really what you want when seeking out comfort from ancestors. Vibrant flavor to remember you're alive and comforting familiarity to remember you're home.

Reconfigure these ingredients and a few extras to make any of the sauces mentioned above. No matter what sauce you're making, be sure you get ingredients you love. They don't need to be the most expensive, just ones you know you actually enjoy. Also, for the sake of people like my dear mother in law I will add measurements. If you want the full Elair experience, though, throw those out and let the ancestors tell you when it's right.

Buon gusto!

Olive Oil

Salt

Pepper

1 White or Yellow Onion

3-5 Cloves of Garlic

1-2 Medium Carrots

1/4-1/2 C Balsamic Vinegar

2 24 oz Cans of Crushed Tomatoes

Parmesan Rind (I like to buy parmesan in a triangle and hold onto the rind for sauce.)

1.5 T Dried Basil

1 T Dried Oregano

1 t Red Peppers Flakes

Roughly dice the onion, grate the carrots, and mince the garlic. Over medium high heat coat the bottom of a heavy pot, I prefer an enameled Dutch oven, with olive oil and heat until it glistens slightly. Drop the onion in the oil, salt and pepper, then stir for a few minutes until slightly transluscent. Once the onions are ready, add the shredded carrots as well as more salt and pepper to the pan and sauté, likely only needing about a minute to incorporate. Add a small amount more oil to the pan and add your garlic, you'll want to work quickly, and perhaps reduce the heat, you want the garlic fragrant but not burnt. Minimal brown edges to the garlic. Add the balsamic vinegar and scrape any fond (brown bits of flavor) off the bottom of the pan with the liquid. Carefully add the crushed tomatoes to the pot now, stirring to incorporate all the beautiful vegetables. Add the basil, oregano, and red pepper flakes and snuggle the parmesan rind into the sauce.

This sauce can simmer for ten minutes, for twenty minutes, for six hours, or immediately have pasta added to it. Enjoy.

A few notes...

ALWAYS SALT YOUR PASTA WATER. A rolling boil, then add salt. This will keep your pan from rusting. If you're unsure how much, ask my ancestors to come tell you, they'd love to let you know.

I beg of you, do not add olive oil to your pasta water. This does nothing but keep the sauces from being able to adhere to the pasta properly. Just water and salt, as if from the Mediterranean.

Start your pasta in a rolling boil, not a simmer, a rolling boil.

Make sure you have enough water for your pasta, it wants to swim, give it volume, space, and a few stirs to do so.

Your pasta will most likely only need 7-8 minutes to cook perfectly. Test at about six to be sure, but really don't listen to the box it came in. It rarely knows what's best.

If you use a strainer get out a coffee mug and reserve at least a mug full of pasta water.

Add the noodles directly to the sauce, not just poured on top. This is another one of the most forgotten tricks in the game. Stirring your pasta into the sauce full coats and saturates the pasta.

Add the pasta water at this point to help the sauce thicken, stick to the pasta, and give it a more luxurious flavor thanks to the starch.

If you're vegetarian or vegan or just can't stomach dairy (ehem, my dear partner, Kristen) adding nutritional yeast will mimic that parmesan flavor.

On serving you will find the partially melted shape that once was a parmesan rind. It's not terribly chewable, so you can easily remove it or leave it in and tell anyone who finds it they're surely in for prosperity, how can you not be when a humble rind has turned into such a gorgeous meal?