My Friend the Freezer

Yesterday was a comfort food day if there were ever one. Not sure what was wrong with me, but by the time I got home, I didn't even want a glass of the wine I brought home to go with dinner. I didn't even care what was for dinner in the morning, so you know something was off. It might have been the icky cold gloomy gray rainy day; it might have been that I have been running so hard recently; or it might simply be that it's been a full year since I had any time off. Suffice it to say that I was a slug when I got home bearing a kilogram of strozzapreti and a bottle of Margaux.

Strozzapreti al Sugo di Maiale

God bless Ann. I don't know how she puts up with me on a night off when I am too bushed to even have minimal conversation. She suggested pulling our last bag of meat sauce out of the freezer this morning when I couldn't even summon a thought about dinner. And she did and had it warm and waiting when I arrived with the pasta. She even cooked the pasta, sauced it, and brought me a bowl as I sat in my chair by the fire, huddled under a blanket. God bless Ann and the Italian mother in her! She's a good woman!

I have to say that this dinner was just what the doctor ordered. The pasta itself is a fabulous artisanal product from Mercato San Severino in Campania, not too far from Gragnano where the bulk of our pasta is made. And Ann undercooked it slightly so that by the time I was four or five noodles in to my dish, it was perfect. (She can cook pasta too? Bonus!) And the sauce, just awesome! I made it back in November just days before we started this blog from a whole pork shoulder. It was a crappy rainy and cold day just like yesterday. How fitting!

What I remember most about this batch of sugo di maiale is that it was a spur of the moment thing on a Sunday and I hadn't planned for it by getting a pork shoulder from one of my restaurant suppliers. We went to the local grocery store and all they had in the case were some little slices of shoulder, so I asked the guy behind the meat counter for a shoulder. It was clear he didn't want to be troubled to go to the back to get one. "That's an awful lot of meat," he said. "It's OK," I reassured him, knowing that we cook 45-60 pounds at a time at the restaurant on a frequent basis.

He also didn't know that I planned to freeze the meat sauce for a future rainy day. I didn't know that yesterday would be that day. But I'm glad it was.