In general, Jawja doesn’t really count.
When I lived up Nawth, I heard sauce and gravy pretty much interchangeably (word?). Here’s how I make mine. First I put three large cans of Hunts crushed tomatos inna big pot with tomato paste, about as much red wine as Welby [del]drinks[/del] uses, some parmesan cheese, some romano cheese, some sugar, and spices consisting of bay leaves, oregano, majoram, and a few shakes of generic Italian spices for good measure. I set that to simmer and commence to saute several cloves of garlic with a large yellow onion in some good olive oil. When onion and garlic are browned, I ditch them and pour the olive oil into the simmering tomatos, etc. Stir it up good and continue to simmer. Then I make meataballs and toss them in, too, and continue to simmer till din-din. My meataballs have ground beef (and sometimes ground sausage), eggs, bread crumbs, romano and parmesan cheese, Italian spices, and garlic powder. They are tres nummy. I’ve also found some organic “homemade” pasta that goes swell with my “gravy.” 
I have a whirlpool tub. It would not fit in my kitchen.
Okay, I stayed up to late watching Terminator III on TV last night. I don’t know why. It was really stoopit.
Tupug
Hello!
- the “gravy”–if I didn’t have an Italian friend (dad came OTB!), I would have no clue what you are talking about. The red meaty stuff that we Midwesterners put on top of pasta? They call that chili. (I know, I know). But, I hark to my Anglo-Saxon roots–gravy is meat drippings, flour (mebbe cornstarch) and water and seasonings. Yorkshire pudding is the above, with eggs. Now I’m hungry.
- Dunno bout Bill Cosby, but Robert Petrie says much the same thing in the Dick Van Dyke Show–Laura is eating chocolate cake with coffee, which squiks him out no end–so he goes to the kitchen to look for “grape juice”. Blech.
- Gawja is like going to Indiana–it doesn’t count as travel, unless you have never been there before. Is so–it’s in the Rule Book. Didn’t you get one?
Today is parent visiting day at school-well, sort of. My daughter (different district) has the day off. My sons are in different schools and I thought I would have to split myself in half, to see both of them–but my husband has the day off (federal holiday and all) and is not going in to the office anyway like he usually does. So, I am going back in time to middle school and he is going to elementary. I can feel the anxiety attack coming on already! (hated middle school).
Work tomorrow. Blech-I got used to being off (I am made for a life of leisure). It’s warmer today–all of 17 now. whoopee!
One night when I was a wee lass, my father unexpectedly brought home a chocolate cake for one reason or another–my brother and I sang the “Dad is great” song for hours.
Morning, everybody. I completely forgot today was a holiday for some (see, here at Fifth Circle of Hell, Inc., we’re lucky if they give us Christmas off) until I got to work in fifteen minutes with no traffic. Then I sat in the car and read a book because my private time is more valuable than ten minutes of overtime. And all my friends I usually e-mail with all day are still home, asleep in their beds. Bastages.
On Saturday, I did a lot of work on my Ugly Blanket. This is a large, misshapen, fuzzy blanket I’m making with crocheted squares that aren’t always uniform in size and certainly don’t match worth a damn. I told my roommate last night that I was two-fifths of the way through. She looked at me and said “How’d you figure that?” I said “Well, I want forty-nine squares, and I have twenty, so I figure it with math.” It was hilarious to us at the time.
We spent a great deal of the weekend on the couch, watching moobies. On Saturday, we watched The Corpse Bride, Resident Evil 1 & 2, Hercules, Doom, Constantine, and Shaun of the Dead. Which one of those doesn’t belong?
And yesterday, I finished unpacking the library. Or, at least, most of it. There’s still a corner filled with empty boxes that need to be taken to storage, but all my books are shelved, my desk is stocked, and the printer’s even hooked up. Then I vacuummed and everything, so I had a place to lay out all my sweaters after I washed them. 
I know … it’s so damn glamorous being me. I can’t even begin to imagine how much you must all envy me.
And yes, using “gravy” to mean “spaghetti sauce” is a northeastern Italian thing. I may be northeastern, but I am not Italian, so I still think of gravy as brown lumpy stuff I don’t eat, anyway.
The midwestern thing I don’t get comes from my husband’s paternal grandmother (although I think all of his Indianapolis relatives do this one) - green peppers are called mangoes. No, really. I heard it with my own ears.
These are the same people who say “store-boughten” which makes me cringe every time I hear it. They’re very sweet, down-to-earth people, but the language thing always gets to me.
Morning all!
I got a lot to tell (busy weekend), but since I took Friday off, don’t have a lot of time. But I did want to get a post in before the deadline.
Have a good trip, VBob. Don’t take any of our snow with you.
Deadline?
Dang, I meant to tell Bobbio to check out Greektown while he’s in Motown. I stayed in Greektown back in December and it was fun. There’s a casino across the street from the hotel I stayed in that has an excellent Greek restaurant. They can pile on the food let me tell ya! Guess it’s too late now.
I’ll have the roast duck with the mango salsa.
My last batch of, er, spaghetti gravy, had canned tomato sauce in it because someone gave us 5 cans of it. I can’t recall why, but my husband had them in his car.
I didn’t like it as much as when I make it with two cans of tomato paste. That stuff is nummy. Although when we bought some more on Saturday, it was noted that instead of being called “tomato paste”, the cans said “paste made from tomatoes”. Hm.
Sauteed mushrooms are just lovely in it. I don’t add sugar, because I like it more salty/savoury.
Extra lean ground sirloin, browned in olive oil. Diced onion, and lots of it. Garlic, and the Italian herbs, and lots of 'em. Two cans of tomato paste. Cooked sausage if you got it. A little water to make the right consistency. I no longer put diced celery in my spaghetti sa-- gravy.
I have been known to shred zucchinni and put it in there, too. Extra vegetables, and you can’t tell it’s there. I think I put diced black olives in once, too.
The longer it simmers, the better it is, and it’s definitely better the next day. (Maybe because with all the tasting along the way one is sated by the time it’s dinnertime?) Also better after being frozen.
Now, gravy-gravy involves putting the roasting pan on top of the stove, high heat, salt, pepper, flour and water and lots of fast whisking.
Can’t believe it’s Monday already. We had a very lazy Sunday, and now it’s oooooooooooover. (Plaintive wail.)
I do that at lunch. I get in my car, drive until the office is out of sight and I’m at a park, and then read and eat my lunch. You can’t stay at the office during lunch, or else people will a) discuss your food b) ask you work-related questions c) ask about your book d) ask you more work-related questions e) not even notice when you go back to work 30 minutes early because you’re already there and lunch is eaten and your desk is only ten feet away from the file/copier/lunch room.
Almost everyone at my office eats in, and no one seems to bother anyone. Which suits me fine - I pack my own lunch and I take advantage of the time to eat and read the news on line. So far, the only times I’ve gone out for lunch has been for occasions that the boss has sanctioned, thereby not requiring leave or comp time.
I do that a lot. We cal it the Contractor’s Stall. Say we’re supposed to get there at 8:00am (Home Depot rules, no getting there before 8:00), and traffic allows us to be there by 7:45. Well, we sit in the truck, sipping the last of our hazlenut coffee, listening to Paul Harvey’s improbable twang, all with the truck still running for A/C or heat. It’s even funnier when we realise at 8:02 that we’re still a block away and the guy looking out his window at us never does know what’s happening. til he goes outside and sees the house down the street getting worked on that is.
Guess what? The Powers That Be here at Fifth Circle, Inc. just gave me another job to do. Another thing that I’ll be responsible for. Another thing to check on five to six times every day. Another set of customers I can’t call because I have to be the receptionist.
You know … I do believe that these people are beginning to take advantage of me. If they’re going to screw me like this, the least they can do is buy me dinner and maybe some flowers first.
Upon taking a better look at the layout of Hell, I’ve discovered that I work in the Fourth Circle (with the Hoarders and the Spendthrifts), not the Fifth. I apologize for any confusion this may have caused.
Well, it’s good to know what part of the inferno you’re in, Drae. It makes it easier if we want to mail gifts, sucha as a nice wheelbarrow for carting that rock around.
Morning. Winston, you did a great job. MMP newbie to completely rambling weirdo in one week.
I have read of calling meat sauce gravy, but I’ve never actually heard anyone do it. Now I feel inspired to teach Mr. Lissar how to make spaghetti sauce. We usually start with canned sauce and diced tomatoes. I also want to go get sausages. What i should cook today is chicken. I could do a red sauce for it, with lots of garlic, and have it with spagetti.
FCM, some of Driving Husband’s family (not him) say “I seen”. Drives me nuts.
Today is laundry/a bit of grocery shopping day. Also my last day off. Mr. Lissar is off for one more week.
Gooood morning [del]Vietnam[/del] MMP! :: stretches :: Ow. See, I’m sore. Very sore. As I mentioned, I went to Hartford this weekend, and although there wasn’t any great hair sex or great sex hair ( 
rigs ), there was a massively jumping and thoroughly amazing dance party at which I danced for hours. Hence me being sore. Mostly it’s my shoulders that don’t work properly at the moment. Any recommendations?
Y’all are making me hungry with these recipes. Oh, and may I just say that
and
both sound like euphemisms for getting drunk?
Sounds like you need a massage…
Boom chicka chicka wow wow chicka chicka
Well heack, if that’s all it takes, here’s some flowers and here’s dinner .
I’ll expect to see you nekkid within the half hour.
-welby, who’s all about showing a lady a good time.
Add me to the Puzzled About Gravy crowd! I do love making both gravy and pasta sauce. I’ve never added wine, though. To either. Although my emergency McCormicks envelope of brown gravy says you can add wine, which I think is hilarious. Add wine to powdered gravy mix? It’s like making your cup o’ soup with heavy cream and real butter.
In other cooking news, I invented a fabulous recipe Saturday morning for pumpkin Belgan waffles. Mmmm were they good! We ate them with applesauce and cinnamon on top. I am also here to report that Lawry’s Jamacan Jerk 30-Minute Marinade is excellent on chicken breast. I sort of combo broiled and baked them, i.e., put on the broiler, set the rack a level lower, and cooked 'em about 30 minutes. Quite excellent.
swampy inspired me to dust out my own jacuzzi bath and treat myself to one! As some of you may recall, last week in the MMP, it was dusty from disuse. On Saturday I cleaned it up and insisted poor hubby hop in, as he was achey from some sort of virus/crud. He felt much better! And since it was all clean, I got in myself on Sunday. Heaven! Although I felt partially poached when finished. I always get the water too hot–I have a horror of a too-cool hot tub.
Mangoes? That MUST be a Hoosier thing–never heard of that–here, mangoes are mangoes and peppers are peppers.
spats -you need a nice hot tub. I know of one in Gawja-it’s not that far, really.
“I seen” is illiterate and I don’t care who say it. It’s like “winda” to me—ARGH!
Much as I hate to say this, the level of ignorance and stupidity in my son’s classes is frightening. I went to his music class, which is not honors (he’s in all honors except for gym, music and art etc). Ye gods–how is anything taught to these kids? :eek: It was a good teacher, who had control of the class, but still!
<need shaking head emoticon here> We are all doomed.
I am bookmarking that site re Hell–I’m the type who needs to know where I am on a map. Thanks!