Mother's ground beef pasta sauce
It was not without apprehension that last Saturday I set off to go visit my mother in Italy. She had been ill for a while, was taken to hospital for six weeks of tests last spring, but they could not find anything wrong. She was ill again recently, and this time the local hospital sent her to Bozen, a lovely German-speaking town where a little Austrian efficiency must have seeped through the border, helping doctors find what was wrong with my mother and fix it.
Once back from hospital, she sounded in great shape on the phone. As I arrived to her place, I was expecting the usual pasta salad she feeds me when I get there (recipe: overcook pasta, mix with jar of pickled carrots and olives, do not refrigerate so that the warmth makes it all coagulate - serve lukewarm with fork and knife). Instead, my brother had talked her into cooking proper pasta (cooked in advance of course, then kept warm on a plate placed on the pot of hot water it was cooked in) and a bolognaise sauce.
Now, you must be aware that her bolognaise sauce is pretty much the only edible thing she prepares. So un-bad that even I use her recipe when I make it.
Only thing, this time she forgot to add tomatoes. That's alright, since even the original recipe only calls for a couple of tablespoons of tomato concentrate. But she made a lot of it. My nephew was staying with her and my brother, and the four of us ate tomato-less bolognaise overcooked pasta for lunch and dinner on Saturday, for lunch and dinner on Sunday and for lunch on Monday. I peeked at the pot and there was still a fair amount of sauce left. Mother wanted me to take it back to London. I silently thanked the authorities for the ban on liquids on board and politely declined her offer.
She's obviously in form and back to her hopeless cooking ways. I can't wait to be eighty-two and get away with anything.
Leave a Reply