spaghetti

English: Polish spaghetti pasta with sauce (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Via Lori L.
Subject: spaghetti

A wealthy man was having an affair with an Italian
woman for several years. One night, during one of
their rendezvous, she confided in him that
she was pregnant. Not wanting to ruin his reputation
or his marriage, he said he would give her a large
sum of money if she would go to Italy and
secretly have the child.

If she stayed in Italy to raise the child,
he would also provide child support until the child
turned 18.

She agreed, but asked, "How will you know
when the baby was born?" To keep it discrete, he told
her to simply mail him a post card, and Write
`Spaghetti` on the back. He would then arrange for
child support payments to begin.

One day, about 9 months later, he came home to his
confused wife. "Honey, you received a very strange
post card today," she said.

"Oh, just give it to me and I will explain it later,"
he said. The wife obeyed, and watched as her husband
read the card, turned white, and fainted.

On the card was written: Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti.
Two with meat balls, one without.

..
.ero
.

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Grandma's Cooking

My maternal grandmother was born on Christmas Day, and so was named Noelly.
She passed away about two years ago.

She wasn't a fantastic cook, but she did successfully feed 4 children and 8 grandchildren, sometimes all at the same time, and she did this with very little money.

Thinking back now on breakfasts where I had to swipe the last piece of toast before another cousin woke up, or on dinners that were obviously a mix of the previous 2 or 3 dinners' leftovers, I have come to understand that my grandmother was the ultimate frugal cook. I wish that I had discovered my financial sensibilities (or my relatively recent interest in cooking) long before she died. I would have liked to have shared with her the recipes I am discovering on frugality blogs, and environment-friendly cookbooks.

I'm guessing she may have rolled her eyes at some and point out the obvious: that she had been cooking these dishes for years, and not for some noble cause, but rather out of what she had available to her. But there are many ideas that I think she didn't think of, and I would have liked to have had the chance to mull over with her the pro's and con's of the (incredibly cheap meals you can make with a) crock-pot, or the cool idea of using day-old cooked rice as the bottom pastry layer of pot pies.

Well, for all of the conversations I didn't have with her, and on the eve of my grandmother's birthday, here is proof of the conversations I did have with her. While my cousin collected these recipes (written in my grandmother's hand), I do remember watching, and sometimes helping, her make every single one of these recipes many, many times.

Happy birthday, Grandma! I miss your rice and hope to taste it again someday.

PS. Click on each image to get a close-up look at the recipes.