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.