So, I am mostly Italian and come from a long line of Italians. I also have a lot of friends that are Italian. Maybe you are Italian like me or you have friends that are so perhaps you can relate to this. I grew up with very Italian grandparents that when we went to visit you spent an entire day dedicated to just eating (or at least it felt that way). It was a great way to get the family all together. We would sit down to the full 5 course meal that took hours to finish. We always started with the homemade Italian Wedding soup (which was my grandfather’s top secret recipe and which I am still waiting to get my hands on), then the pasta (oh, the heaping bowls of hot pasta), then the meat course (usually chicken), then salad (because the first 3 courses were not enough) and last but not least you had to have the final course, dessert. Oh, all the Italian cookies & pastries! It was amazing that after the first 4 courses you still had room to fit in dessert. By the end, you rolled yourself on out of there and into the car and somehow my dad got us all home a couple of hours later. I have no idea how we made it home, perhaps that was the food coma setting in, because I don’t recall the ride home after those visits. I can remember my grandparents always telling us to “Mangia, Mangia”. That’s “eat, eat” in Italian. That has stuck with me for years; I now say that to my family when I place a meal on our table. My grandparents spent all those hours prepping wonderful, homemade food and they wanted to enjoy watching everyone gobble it up. It was like a marathon so you had to remember to pace yourself. I can remember going to their house (both sets of grandparents) for visits and as soon as you walked through the door the first question was always, “are you hungry”? Followed by, “let me make you a sandwich”.

You always sat down and ate a sandwich, even if you weren’t hungry. And it was always a good sandwich. For some reason it always tasted better when your grandparents made it. It was fresh, it was delicious! If we stayed for an overnight, you just might get to try my grandfather’s spaghetti omelet using leftover pasta from the night before. My oldest sister loved that. I am making myself hungry for some Italian food as I remember these moments.

I think I was inspired to sit down and write this today after having a bowl of pasta last night which was covered in my homemade red bubbly stuff. Of course on top of that were my homemade meatballs and some sausage. I try to always have a batch or two of my homemade sauce in my freezer for quick weeknight meals. You never know when you might have a craving for some good home cooked Italian food. We still love to eat and lay out all the Italian food(s) on the table but can no longer handle all those courses. That 1 bowl of pasta last night was enough to send me into a food coma! There has been this debate for as long as I can remember; way back to when I was a little girl, over what to call that red bubbly stuff you cook ALL day long (and I mean all day) and put over your pasta. Do you call it sauce? Or do you call it gravy? Everyone seems to have their own take and story on this question. For years, I always called mine sauce. I do however always make my sauce with meatballs and sausage so some would argue that I should then call it “gravy”. For some reason, sauce just always stuck with me. It might be whatever you are used to hearing others call it over the years. I have Italian friends whose parents always call theirs gravy. Growing up, when I heard “gravy” it made me think of Thanksgiving and gravy was that brown liquid you poured over your turkey meat. So, to me, sauce was what I covered my pasta with and gravy was what I poured over my meat. So, here it goes. If you cook your red bubby stuff with meat in it, traditionally it would be called “gravy” and if you don’t put any meat in yours then it would be called “sauce”. I totally get it now and it makes sense! But, I have to be honest; I still call mine sauce and probably always will. Probably mostly because my husband and I have hosted Thanksgiving for about 14 years and I make homemade gravy for our turkey. So when people say gravy I think of the brown stuff and when they say sauce I think of the red stuff. What do you call your red bubbly stuff that you pour over your pasta?! Then there’s the debate of what type of pasta to make. My son loves Rigatoni and my husband loves thin spaghetti or an angel hair. My daughter isn’t quite as picky with her pasta and me, well I love them all. What’s your favorite pasta? As my grandparents always said: “Mangia, Mangia”! Now, go eat some pasta!

Click here to get my recipe for the Spaghetti Sauce:  Dee’s Homemade Spaghetti Sauce