BASIC TOMATO SAUCE

I offered to cook dinner at my place for the other dissertation interns -- three grad students and one honorary member who just graduated from college, all guys, all personalities and characters, they cover california, korea, india, greece, vienna, diplomats, brahmans, jews, the army, aspirations to be a stand up comedian, health nuts, and every day in our refrigerator of a shared office is like an episode from an oddball sitcom -- tomorrow night. I've been trying to simplify the cooking, so tomato sauce, meatballs, and garlic bread (with green butter) seems not too hard. I might also throw in a salad, we'll see. Right now the sauce is simmering away and hopefully will achieve the "hot cereal" consistency that will signal it is done. The tastes I've been licking off the wooden stirring spoon are getting sweeter and tastier. Hmmm.

My first tomato sauce:

My experiment of a sauce is a combination of a recipe from Orangette based on butter and onions and Mario Batali's basic sauce. I decided to use fresh tomatoes because how could I not? My subconscious inspirations (I later realized after taking my first bite of the sauce) are the dishes I've loved with large chunks of soft tomato in them. I'm thinking of pasta pomodoro in Venice and lasagna from Mario's on the Main Street in Lexington, MA.

First peel the tomatoes by placing in boiling water until the skin begins to break, then immediately transfer to a shocking cold ice water bath. Let sit for a moment, then peel off the skins. I used 19 bright red tomatoes on the vine. In a large pot, use medium heat to get a quarter cup of olive oil and five big spoonfuls of butter hot enough. Quarter two vidalia onions and add to the pot. Let the onions get sort of soft and start falling apart into individual layers. Add 4-5 cloves of mashed and sliced garlic and one small finely grated carrot. Stir and enjoy how good it smells. Add a fair amount of fresh thyme leaves. Stir some more. Then add the tomatoes. Stir and mash the tomatoes a bit (I also halved them using a knife) and bring the mixture to a boil. Then lower the heat to a simmer. Let the sauce keep simmering and stir occasionally. I also recommend tasting as you go along because the flavor really does change and develop. After the sauce has thickened, remove and throw out the onions. I plan on adding fresh basil as a garnish tomorrow.

Best prepared in a kitchen lit by the last of the day's sunlight that makes the ingredients simply glow bright red, orange, and yellow.

Update a few days later. My first bite into sweetly saturated chunky tomato gives me a pleasure like eating vegetable candy and immediately reminds me of a pasta pomodoro I ate as many times as I could one winter in Venice at the only humble restaurant in town that also had good food. The dish consisted simply of pasta and fresh tomatoes cooked in some way that retained all the best parts of a tomato and remains one of my favorite things I've ever eaten in Italy. Before that experience, I had no idea that a pasta dish could be so simple. I remember my skepticism and then wonder and admiration. I've been eating the sauce spooned over spaghetti with grated pecorino romano and a big pinch of a pink Himalayan finishing salt that Corina sent me from Chicago.