Home Made. 05/29/26

Simplicity. You want to judge a brand of ice cream? Try the vanilla. Italian cooking? Try spaghetti with tomato sauce. If an ice cream maker can churn out a great vanilla and a chef can make a great pasta pomodoro, sign me up. If they can do that well, they can do anything well. My wife and I went to Scarpetta, and tasted the most amazing spaghetti with tomato sauce I’ve ever had. We went back a couple times and it was always great. Then one night, some good friends were coming over to dinner and I decided to try to recreate it myself. In fact I found a YouTube video of the chef, Scott Conant, describing step by step how to make his “simple’ sauce. You start by cutting an “x” in top of 20 plum tomatoes, putting them in boiling water for 5 seconds, then plunging them in an ice bath. Then removing the skin of all 20 tomatoes, halving them and removing the seeds from each. And that’s just the start. By the time our friends arrived I cried, “Helllllp!” and they pitched in. Including making the basil infused olive oil which must be drizzled into the tomato reduction bubbling on the stove at just the precise time, and that ain’t even the half of it. So imagine my surprise when just a week later, I walked into our local grocery store and there was a presentation Chef Scott Conant himself, promoting his new cookbook and line of pasta sauces. And there it was, for just $6.99, the exact same sauce I sent four hours making, in a glass jar labelled Martone Street. Now you tell me?! By the way, the only part I could not do by myself was flipping the pasta up in a pan so it turns over. The chef did this repeatedly without spilling a drop. Show off. I knew if I attempted one flip, there would go 4 hours down the drain, or more precisely, into the grout of the backsplash. But as John and I often say, when life throws you a lemon, make a comic out of it.

While tomato sauce inspired our first comic, the other strip was all about John. John is a collector. I am a chucker outer. John has shelves and shelves of mementoes, collectibles, and miniature versions of everything including a 1/2 inch log harmonica that plays “Oh Susannah.” I barely have shelves. So we combined our two views into the comic. Where John sees whimsy, creativity, and fond memories, I gasp at the overwhelming amount of stuff and think, “When are you going to clean that up? Do you really need a squeaky dog toy that is a replica of Ronald Reagan, an Oscar Meyer Weinermobile whistle and a Mr. Softee Hot Wheels truck? My thought is, “Hell no,” where John would reply, boastfully with, “You wish you had a Jacob DeGrom Rookie-of-the-Year 22-ounce souvenir Pepsi cup.” Having said all that, I must admit it is a very impressive collection. I’m just glad it’s in his house.

Have a great weekend and I just wanted to point out that my slightly muddy softball, commemorating the Idle Minds winning the 1981 New York City Parks Dept Manhattan Championship, THAT is worth keeping.

Andy and John