Happy Mess

Homemade spaghetti sauce is one of the ten best things in life. All the fresh peppers, onions, garlic, and mushrooms melding into crushed tomatoes makes for tasty comfort food, and it's even better with herbs from the garden. Tonight I snipped flat leaf parsley, oregano, purple basil, and garlic chives for the sauce. Just a spoonful of sugar balances out the acid, and some slow simmering makes heaven on earth.

I never cook more pasta than we'll eat in one meal because I don't like how it gets sticky, rubbery, chewy in the fridge. But left over sauce doesn't really need pasta anyway. It's good on toast like a sloppy joe or in a bowl with tortilla chips. It's also good on toasted English muffins, topped with cheese, and put under the broiler for mini pizzas. Of course, I could just eat it out of the storage container cold, too.

Spaghetti seems to be a perennial favorite with kids and adults alike, though I never order it out because I don't want to wear it home. I've worn enough things home without tempting fate by slurping long strands of pasta in through pursed lips while the sauce splatters indiscriminately across any white blouse in a 10-foot radius. I have to say, I come by this rightly. Once, when I was kid, my parents took the family to a nice restaurant for dinner. Since we didn't eat out often, this occasion called for nice clothes and party manners. At the time, my mom had a lovely baby blue pant set with ultra suede slacks and a dyed to match top in some shiny microfiber blend. It was one of her favorite outfits (and later mine when she let me wear it a couple of times). However, the curse of wearing something light and lovely while eating Italian food followed our travels that evening. My mom ordered eggplant parmesan - a lovely dish with medallions of fried eggplant that is then baked with layers of cheese and accompanied by pasta and delicious red sauce. Unfortunately, one of the bites cascaded off of her fork and proceeded to dance its way down her shirt leaving a trail of marinara in its wake. Much to my tall, lanky brother's chagrin, when dinner ended and we made our way to the door, she held on to his shoulder walking closely behind him and holding her purse to her chest so no one would see the trail of sauce on her blouse. Once out the door, though, we all had a good laugh over the entire event, and happily the sauce washed out easily.

I have a habit of repeating this episode frequently, though in recent years I've been lucky enough to do it home more than out. As a matter of fact, these days I make it a point to wear an apron each morning while I'm fixing and eating breakfast in an effort to protect my work wardrobe from stains. This habit began the day I wore a new cream colored sleeveless sweater and ate berry yogurt which seemed to jump headlong from my spoon running south to freedom via the front of my shirt. Unfortunately, the blackberry purple never came out and the blouse was discarded without ever being worn out of the house (heavy sigh). My inability to keep a shirt clean as an adult started when I was a baby as evidenced by the fact that my grandfather referred to me as "Happy Mess" and the fact that there are several pictures in which I seem to be wearing food rather than eating it.

Recently my mother-in-law purchased adult bibs to combat this very problem. These are hand towels that come with a short chain bordered by clips (like the ones at the dentist). The idea, of course, is to protect clothing from stains and keep people from wearing their lunch back to work. However, I can't picture myself pulling out this contraption in a restaurant for all to see. Imagine the sneers from fellow patrons. "Look, little Johnny, that woman has a bib just like yours!" (No thanks.) On the other hand, the merits of one of these towels while driving might be worthwhile. After all, I have been known to slosh coffee on my slacks when the idiot in front of us hits his brakes because he's watching a coyote run across a nearby field or sees a roadrunner racing him from the ditch.

Ultimately, women seem to have more of a problem with this than men. Probably because not enough guys wear ties any more, which is the manly catch-all equivalent of a lady's silk blouse. My grandmother used to say the problem wasn't that she was messy, but that her bust was so big she had a built in shelf. I can still hear her now, "Why, you could put a coffee cup and a piece of cake up there, Jen!" Of course, this isn't really so bad as long as we're talking about dessert!