Jar Gravy Is Not the End of the World

By Josh Resnek

I am not Italian but I love gravy, and especially, home made gravy.

I often make my own gravy, skinning the tomatoes, carefully boiling them down, adding spices and garlic and Basil leaves for special effect.

Making gravy is an art form.

As a non-Italian, I don’t go waving a flag that I’ve made great gravy.

When I don’t have time to make real gravy, I am going to make an admission that horrifies most Italians.

I buy bottled commercial gravy.

I know. I know. This is totally unacceptable behavior for those Italian people used to their mother’s homestyle, home made gravy.

But what is a Jewish man to do when I am hankering for spaghetti?

I’ve experimented with many commercial brands bought at the supermarket.

Many of them are horrible. Some of them are decent.

A few, I believe, are quite good considering they are commercially made.

Recently, for my spaghetti jones quick fix, I have been using a Pastene product called “Chateau Restaurant Tomato Sauce” – supposedly all natural with no preservatives.

Truth be known, I generally buy fresh hand made pasta products.

However when I have the yen for spaghetti and gravy and I am really hungry, I crack a bottle of Pastene tomato sauce, heat it up and boil Pastene Linguine 6.

In a matter of about ten minutes, I can be seated at my din- ing table eating what I consider to be delightful gravy and spaghetti.

The Pastene sauce is about $4.50. The Linguine 6 is less than $2.00.

With an accompanying salad, well, to me it is very, very good.

The Pastene sauce is sweet and rich, not too thick, and not too watery – although I prefer my homemade sauce to be loose and to be consumed by the spoonful while cooking it.

Let’s face it, the world is not a perfect place.

My Jewish mother cooked gravy. Truth be known, it was terrible! But I loved it.

Maybe that’s why I am able to get down commercial gravy and spaghetti by Pastene.

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