Ho-hum, winter doldrums seem poised to ensnare me and leave me encased in ice. At 14 °F it is too cold to contemplate simply reheating leftovers, let alone thawing any frozen meal. I must break free! Fire up the stove top; preheat the oven, because Tuesday night is now spaghetti night. Italian salsiccia sausage, fresh angel hair pasta, assorted vegetables and garlic, lots of garlic, then garnish it all with garlic bread (more garlic), these are my ingredients. I took just one little shortcut though, a jar of Rigazzi’s pasta sauce. It was on special, it is after all a week night and I do have this blog to write, don’t you know.

Choosing Rigazzi’s sauce was not without difficulty. It was just one of several brands; in fact a whole shelf full of brands of local Saint Louis pasta sauces. Mama Mia! Thinking globally and shopping locally, shouldn’t be so delightfully difficult. Saint Louis is blessed with The Hill, the Italian neighborhood in town. Baseball greats Yogi Berra and Joe Garagiola grew up on the Hill. Several of the players on the surprising 1950 US Men’s Soccer Team came from The Hill.

The Hill in turn is dotted with restaurants and seemingly every one of them is hawking their own sauce. I chose Rigazzi’s primarily because it was on sale. At home, I unscrewed the jar lid and turned the jar over to dump out its contents into the pan and nothing happened. I shook the jar and still nothing. Finally, I got out a wooden spoon and spooned out the jar’s contents, so thick were its contents. I thought of cutting the sauce with water, but at the table, I was glad that I didn’t. It was delightful. The garlic bread wasn’t bad either.

“It’s so crowded nobody goes there anymore.” This was said by Yogi Berra about a Hill restaurant where he and Joe Garagiola had worked as waiters, which had become so popular that his old friends couldn’t get in anymore.

Wednesday night will be a leftover night, spaghetti leftovers night. A warming trend should facilitate this. I’ll need to rejuvenate the dish, but I don’t want to add too much to it. I don’t want to make every night spaghetti night. I’ll have to be both selective and judicious in my choice of infusing ingredients. More garlic I think is in order, a little wine to moisten it some and a yellow vegetable for more color. I think that another batch of garlic bread will be required, because even though we also have leftovers of this too, I don’t think that they will keep.

A nice young vampire couple moved in across the street, last fall. We had them over for spaghetti night, but they didn’t eat a thing. They’ve been cold to us ever since. I don’t understand. Is it something that I said? Could it be my breath? 😉