good meatball: the key to seducing your editor

it’s saturday and i decide i’m going to make a run at my editor. now seducing the person who washes your underwear, the person with whom you share a bathroom isn’t as easy as Dylan would have you think, “lay lady, lay / lay with your man a while”. the editor is beginning a fitness "boot camp" on the morrow and for the next six weeks our amour conjugal windows will be a scant half hour after getting the kids in bed at 8:35pm and her falling asleep on the couch at 9:02pm.

if the home fires are to remain burning, they will have to be stoked tonight, so how to lay the groundwork? i don’t have any money to buy flowers (a sure fire first step) nor am i all that accomplished of a romantic poet (Bukowski is of no use in the married home). i suppose i could just soberly point out that i’ll keep nagging her with sad, wanting sighs until she takes pity on me. but i dismiss the thought as less than masculine.

just when i’m running empty strategicallywise(1), a dark, manipulative plan hatches somewhere in the cold recesses of my mind. it so happens that during boot camp most of the food i make (that she loves) will be restricted. also on the restricted list, alcohol. it occurs to me suddenly, this will be my last chance for six weeks to get her drunk.

now my editor seldom over-imbibes, a certain company christmas party or anywhere there’s good tequila(2) notwithstanding. so i will need to create a menu that demands glassfuls of red wine (an approved household beverage for the next 24 hours). this will mean pasta, cheesy bread, and some kind of chocolate.

i decide on making some homemade meatballs. toss them with a simple tomato sauce and some mostacolli (recipe below). as a grand gesture i make the most fattening garlic bread ever to see the nether side of a broiler; conspiring with 4oz of parmesan cheese and an entire stick of butter the bread would be grounds for dishonorable discharge from boot camp. and for the coup de grace...undercooked brownies. the wine will surely flow.

however, as we eat (and i pour) my aim of bedding my editor falls into jeopardy as my true feelings about boot camp begin to stick up uncomfortably in our conversation like flakes of skin behind one's eyelid....

Am PoMo: i never said boot camp was lame. i just think it’s pretty silly that someone would be motivated just because they’re paying someone to yell at them.

Editor: it’s not like that. they’re supportive.
Am PoMo: what i mean is that you’re all adults who can choose to participate or not. so the “boot camp” is just a marketing ploy.
Editor: so what? i think it’s a great idea. why do you have to break everything down?
Am PoMo: i’m not breaking it down; i just want to separate what's happening. all i’m saying is if you don’t write in your food journal or you don’t show up one day what are they going to do?
Editor: they make the whole group do extra push ups. so you don’t want to let the team down.
Am PoMo: what i mean is everyone there is trying to get in shape. it still comes down to an individual choice to do the work or not.
Editor: why would it be important to point that out? why can’t you just support me?
Am PoMo: i do, you know i do. i just like to keep things pure. so you know what the truth is versus what is marketing.
Editor: you think i don’t know the difference?

ugh. inevitably my cursed postmodernist/deconstructionist tendencies have sabotaged my plan and now i’m in the kitchen looking for that bottle of tequila (read to mean Plan "B").

but the dinner was spectacular. and it just might have worked if it wasn’t for those meddling, faux military metanarratives....


music pairing: jackie maclean “nature boy”, the new pornographers "challengers".
brownie mix: betty crocker fudge brownie mix
wine pairing: any good chianti will do, even the $7 bottle in the basket in from your grocery store; columbia crest merlot(3) "grand estates"


meatballs

½ lb lean ground beef
½ lb lean ground pork
3 oz grated parmesan
2 cloves finely minced garlic
2 TB chopped italian parsley
½ cup fresh bread crumbs
2 TB whole milk
1 egg
lots of salt and grand black pepper




quick tomato sauce

1 28oz can of whole, peeled tomatoes
1 14oz can tomato sauce
½ medium white or brown onion
1 tsp crushed, dry oregano
¼ cup mozzarella and ½ tsp finely chopped italian parsley to finish

garlic bread

1 large loaf of italian bread (the squishier the better)
1 stick softened butter
4 oz shredded parmesan cheese
1 TB garlic power (or garlic salt if the butter is unsalted)
1 tsp finely chopped italian parsley
½ tsp paprika

although i grind/grate most of the meatball ingredients in a food processor, i always combine the separate ingredients by hand so the actual meatball is not "over processed". also, take some liberties with the salt and pepper......there's nothing worse than a dry, bland meatball.

1. combine the meatball ingredients by hand; roll 2 - 3 TB of meat between your hands, gently applying pressure to make sure the meatball is solid all the way through.

2. dredge meatballs in flour and chill in the fridge for about a half hour while you prep the garlic bread and pasta.

3. heat 2 TB olive oil in a heavy bottomed dutch oven; brown meatballs in batches until all sides are browned; when frying the last batch begin making the quick tomato sauce...add onions first and let them cook with the meatballs; add all remaining ingredients for quick tomato sauce.

4. simmer meatballs in tomato sauce for about 20 minutes. meanwhile cook mostacolli (per box instructions), strain. dump the past into a pasta server and add some of the tomato sauce so the mostacolli doesn't stick.

5. fire up the broiler. assemble the garlic bread by splitting the stick of butter between the halved loaf; sprinkle bread with garlic salt, parmesan cheese, parsley, and paprika; broil quickly, checking for browned edges every minute or so.

6. keep that broiler going.....arrange the meatballs on top of the sauced pasta and spoon remaining sauce over the top. now sprinkle a few ounces of shredded mozzarella, any remaining parmesan and some parsley over the top; broil quickly just to brown the cheese topping.

after the meatball extravaganza is over make sure you have some merlot left over. the under cooked brownies will benefit from some grape. just as there is an order with salt, tequila, lime i suggest the following....strawberry, brownie, merlot. trust me, it work(ed)s.

(1) kadigan #34.....for some reason my boss finds it perfectly acceptable to add the suffix "-wise" to any word whereby exacerbating it's already obvious meaning.

(2) the editor is a legend in tequila consumption. on a recent girl's boondoggle she emasculated several grown men consuming grande quantities of tres generations.

(3) i don't care what you picked up from the movie "sideways", merlot is good wine. the right bank of bordeaux will comply, canon-la-gaffeliere 1998 surely. on the value tip, washington's columbia crest "grand estates" has been making some of the most affordable and perfectly drinkable merlot for at least a decade. it scores in the 90's with the wine spectator and is almost always on the shelf in your local pedestrian grocery store for $8 or less. it is quite simply the best value you'll ever find in mass production.