The stuff of life

Just about everybody can name at least one, if not more, “comfort food” they remember eating while growing up. It’s amazing how many ideas related to food can formulate one’s identity. For instance, there’s the “waste not, want not” concept. My mom never had to use the “starving kids in [pick a country]” strategy to get ME to clean my plate, but my sister Cynthia was a master of concealing food she didn’t want to eat – which goes a long way toward explaining my lifelong weight issues vs. her lack of same.

When we were kids, we lived just outside of Versailles after my father was transferred to France by IBM. I don’t remember meeting any food over there I couldn’t manage to polish off. But Cynthia had all kind of methods for hiding food she didn’t like (which was practically everything – her only real fave was crème brulée). She’d hollow out a perfectly good chunk of baguette in order to stuff it with Brussel sprouts, because she knew my mom wouldn’t force her to eat bread.

My dad would often come home from work and say, “We’re going to Germany this weekend”, or “we’ll be spending next week in Spain”. We spent a lot of time in those years visiting other countries, which gave Cynthia a chance to use many different types of bread as a hiding spot for various vegetables. I can pretty much tell a food story for each vacation – the time we went to Mont St. Michel, and my mom ordered a lobster that cost $64, which made her so sick she threw it all up later. Or the time my dad dragged me around the golf course at a resort on the Costa del Sol. I developed the absolute worst sunburn I’d had to that point (or ever would again), and all I could think of the very tasty gazpacho I had ordered was how good it would feel to pour it all over my sore, baked chest. My dad, naturally, spent the meal rhapsodizing over a perfect long green shot he’d made.

Of course, even in Paris there was the main restaurant at the Hotel Intercontinental, where I developed a lifelong friendship with rack of lamb and Bearnaise sauce. But my favorite Parisian restaurant was called “The Great American Disaster”. The menu consisted of good old U.S. of A. favorites, like fries, burgers and grilled corn…but the walls were decorated with framed prints of headline stories from the New York Times – rather macabre stories, like the Hindenburg disaster, the sinking of the Titanic, and the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh’s son. For some reason, though, I loved the place. In my defense, I was only seven years old when we moved there, and eleven when we came back to the States.

Nobody cooked like Mom, of course. Almost all of my favorite dinners were home-cooked, and I learned to make them myself in my early teens. Unfortunately, I haven’t yet tried to modify any of these recipes for a diet that decreases me instead of the reverse. But I sure feel comforted after eating ‘em.

Mom’s Lasagne

4 cloves garlic, minced
1 small onion, diced
1 lb. ground beef
2 60z cans tomato paste
Ricotta cheese
2 lbs grated mozzarella
1.5 T sugar
1 egg
3 cups water
1 box lasagna noodles
Olive oil
Salt & pepper to taste
Dried oregano

Heat enough olive oil to coat the bottom of a large frying pan over medium heat. Add onion, garlic and ground beef. Season with salt & pepper; cook until beef is browned through. Drain. Put beef mixture into a large pot with tomato paste, water, sugar, and oregano; stir until all ingredients are combined. Simmer for at least half an hour, stirring occasionally.

Cook lasagna according to package directions; drain. Preheat oven to 375▫F. Whisk the egg into the ricotta in a large mixing bowl; season to taste. Spread a little olive oil & sauce on the bottom of a large (at least 13”x9”) casserole pan. Layer lasagna as follows (from the bottom up):

Lasagne noodles
Ricotta mixture (cover noodles)
Shredded mozzarella
Sauce

You should be able to get three layers out of the sauce; top the final sauce layer with mozzarella. Bake for 25 minutes, loosely covered, then uncover and allow to bake for 5-10 minutes until all cheese is melted and lightly browned. Remove from oven and allow to stand for at least 10 minutes to set. Serve with salad and garlic bread.