Kathleen Flinn | author | The Kitchen Counter Cooking School

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“Standing on the stage delivering the graduation speech at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris is not the optimal time for an existential crisis.”

So begins The Kitchen Counter Cooking School from award-winning writer Kathleen Flinn. Whereas Flinn’s first book tells her tale of earning a diploma from the world’s most famous cooking school, her second commences two years after she’s left the hallowed kitchens of Paris. She’s back, standing in an opulent ballroom just off the Champs-Elysées, rows of graduates before her, a line of chefs in tall toques behind her, about to address the crowd. Everyone is waiting to hear what she has to say–including Flinn, who finds herself wondering what wisdom she can possibly impart to to others when she still wasn’t certain what to do with her degree.

I sat down with Kat after her grueling two-month-long book tour to find out exactly how she went from the hallowed halls of Le Cordon Bleu and the cobblestone streets of Paris to garishly lit supermarkets and crowded Seattle kitchens that were in most cases overstocked with processed foods. She explained it all began with a chance encounter with a hapless, harried mom in a market. After seeing all the packaged foods in the woman’s cart, not mention wasted money on overpriced meat cuts, Kat rifled through the groceries–replacing some, ditching others–and helped her make better shopping and cooking decisions. In less than an hour, the woman walked out with healthier foods, several recipes, and kitchen confidence–something she always lacked. Kat no longer wondered what to do with her tony degree. And we’re all the better for it.

Read an excerpt from The Kitchen Counter Cooking School.

Note: You can enter one time per e-mail address per day. Deadline is noon (12 p.m.) ET 5.28.12.

Are you a DIYer (do-it-yourself-er)? Whether thanks to a bum economy or an increasing desire for local, handmade foods, there’s a huge surge in the homemade pantry. To get you started, try out Homemade Strawberry Jam, Duck Prosciutto, Concord Grape Jam, and Homemade “Ricotta.”

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I really don’t like candid photos. Whenever people want to take a picture of me, I a.) make them sign a contract that gives me full PhotoShop approval–in perpetuity–over any image of me they publish, and b.) insist on spending an inordinate time on my hair and teeth. Once contractual obligations as well as buffing and fussing are out of the way, I give the go ahead to take that sparklingly spontaneous shot.

But when I saw this little moment of supper loveliness tonight, I grabbed my iPhone and just snapped. I didn’t even have enough sense to remove the Costco salt grinder or fluff the spaghetti. This was our supper table, unstyled. But to me, it sums up everything about outdoor dining: casual, simple, unpretentious, and, yes, bounteous. (It’s The One and me we’re talking about here. That man can polish off three-quarters of a pound of pasta in a single sitting.)

Dinner took as long to put together as it took the spaghetti rigati to cook. What–15 minutes, maybe? Meanwhile I sautéed tiger shrimp in a lake of brown butter and a bit of oil, then tossed in a big-ass handful of chopped garlic. I had about 1 1/2 cups of leftover homemade tomato sauce and spooned that in, too, for good measure. I dumped the drained spaghetti into the skillet and the sautéed it all together for another two to three minutes.

As I began plating, our frequent dinner companions, whom we haven’t seen since last October, dropped by for a visit. I mean, of course, the backyard bats and mosquitos. To prevent The One, a long-suffering chiroptophobe, from letting loose with his 12-year-old-girl shrieks that blow like a train whistle, I demanded he don a baseball cap and keep his eyes on his plate. Me, I’m just a great big flashing neon sign that sputters on and off “All You Can Eat Buffet!” We haven’t yet bought bug spray this season, so I wore thick wool socks with my pant legs tucked in and a dirty dish towel over my head. Lucky for us, the paparazzi didn’t know we were in town. Do you know how hard it is get them to agree to that PhotoShop contract?

Bear with me because I’m a little excited. Okay, a lot excited. See, this week I’m the guest host on the Martha Stewart Living Radio program “Cooking Today” on SiriusXM channel 110. Join me Monday, March 26, Wednesday, March 28, and Frida,y March 30 from 3 pm to 4 pm EDT as I chat with an incredible lineup of guests and divulge all kinds of recipes, tips, and topics. If you’re already a SiriusXM listener, you know what to do. If you’re a satellite radio virgin, fear not. To listen, either on the radio (do they still make those?) or online at your computer, sign-up for a free seven-day subscription that gives you unlimited 24/7 access to more than 100 of the country’s best radio stations.

Monday, March 26

We couldn’t have started the week off with better guests. First we chat with legendary food writer, editor, author, and a crush of mine ever since I read the first chapter of her memoir, Tender at the Bone, Ruth Reichl. We’ll talk a bit about Gilt Taste, which Reichl currently oversees, and then delve into details ’bout the 2012 International Association of Culinary Professionals’ annual conference held this year in New York City. We’ll also chat about all things ice cream and gelato with the King of Custard, the Sultan of Swirl, David Lebovitz, coming to us live all the way from Paris, France.

During our “Food Finds” segment, I’ll be talking favorite new kitchen tools, so call in and share your newest finds. It can be grand or gaudy, as long as it’s something you’ve recently discovered. As you know, I’m a sucker for romance, so if your truest love is your 18-year-old white KitchenAid stand mixer, as is mine, well, that’s fine, too. I want to hear it all.

Then we’re drawing a line in the sand(ing sugar), taking on the madly contested topic: Do nuts have a place in brownies? I won’t divulge where I stand until tomorrow, but trust me, I have very, very strong feelings about this. Beth Kujawski, a longtime reader of LC and a terriffic baker, has been kind enough to ship brownies with and without nuts all the way from Chicago to the studio for my producer, Lisa, and engineer, Steve, and me to try. I need you to weigh in here and support me.

I’ll also let you in on my favorite new cookbook as well as a bunch more tried and true resources for recipes. Who knows, you may even win a free copy.

I can only imagine all the questions and comments you have for Ruth and David, not to mention your philosophy on the role of nuts in baked goods and what sorts of gadgets you find essential, so make sure to call in at 866-675-6675. I’ll be waiting.

Wednesday, March 28

Every year we get a ton of emails at LC asking for help with making the most perfect, flaky, buttery, golden pie crust. So I turned to none other than baker supreme Rose Levy Beranbaum to answer all your questions in our ”Pie Crust Demystified” segment. Beranbaum has been making pies (and, of course, cakes) for decades, and she has the books, awards, and following to show for it. (After all, she is the author of The Pie and Pastry Bible. In addition to giving you every last tip you’ll need to stand facing the stove more confidently, she’ll talk about the brand new Rose’s Perfect Pie Plate that makes elegantly fluted pies every single time.

Afterwards, The Pioneer Woman, aka Ree Drummond, will stop by to talk about her new book, The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Food From My Frontier (Morrow/HarperCollins), which just hit the number one spot on The New York Times best seller list. Not too shabby. We’ll also chat about her new Food Network TV show, her favorite recipes, and what it’s like to give up a home on the range for a country-wide book tour.

Then I’ll take you “In My Kitchen” for a step-by-step  description of The One’s and my  favorite Sunday supper. I’m not revealing what it is right now, but I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.

Call 866-675-6675 to share a story, ask a question, or swap a family recipe.

Friday, March 30

As we slide into the weekend, famed food writer, author, and bon vivant Molly O’Neill will be joining us to talk about “Food News in Review.” We delve into some of the top stories–big and small–that have affected the food world, and you as cooks, in recent days. If you read something interesting, infuriating, delightful, or unnerving about our world of food this week, call in. Molly–a veritable font of culinary knowledge and kitch–will love to hear from you.

Then I’ll have to bid you a final farewell, which is why I invited the temptress Kara Newman, author of Spice & Ice, to serve up a few cocktails to ease my separation anxiety. (Yes, Momma Leite, I’ll be drinking on the job.) Kara will share with you all manner of intoxicating ideas for entertaining guests or just kicking back on your own on a Friday night.

My advice (besides slurping back anything Kara suggests) is to mark the date in your Blackberry, iPhone, or old-fashioned paper calendar and make a note to call in at 866-675-6675 so you can regale us with your questions and libation inventions.

Quick. What comes to mind when you think of stock?

Sadly, a lot of us think of tin cans or waxy boxes. From their shiny, happy faces, the packages shout “All-Natural,” “Lower Sodium,” Rich-Tasting.” But then I take a swig–yes, I swig broth–and the truth is revealed. Sure, some are, indeed, lower sodium–when compared with a salt lick. But the murky liquid inside is a flatliner, one with nary a pulse of flavor despite being riddled with octosyllabic ingredients that sound as if they belong in automobile lubricant.

Shame, shame on us.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Homemade stock, simmered for hours with as many bones as you can cram into the pot, isn’t only trés facile to make, it’s a thing of beauty, filling the house with the unmistakable scent of nostalgia. Standing in front of that burbling pot, the steam opening your pores and filling them with its animal essence, you have a sense of purpose. You feel like one of those earnest people in wartime posters, wrench in hand, ready to defeat the Axis Powers and be back at the table in time for dinner.

In my case, dinner is our annual cassoulet party. A casual affair, the party was started years ago by friend and LC recipe tester Cindi Kruth after one of those cloud-parting, angels-singing epiphanies in France when she first tucked into a crock of slowly simmered beans, sausage, and duck confit, all melded together by, of course, stock. Since then The One and I have had the pleasure of being invited several times to sit at her table, shoveling bowl after bowl of her marvelous creation–a recipe she’s been perfecting since her Divine Intervention–down our gullets. This year, though, thanks to dwindling numbers of guests and her dwindling waistline, she handed the duck fat-slicked baton to me. “Your turn,” is all she said. Fine, I thought. Imaginary wrench held high, I vowed to make a cassoulet for the ages. And that’s how I got the crazy idea to make homemade duck stock.

Ah, but not just any homemade stock. A stock that was intensely flavored, rich, and gelatinous. A stock so lovely, it would be a shame to cook with it. An über stock. That meant getting a hold of a hell of a lot of duck bones. Meaty duck bones. (Both meat and connective tissue contain collagen. When gently heated in water, the collagen dissolves, causing the stock to turn into shimmying jellied gold.) Not having a freezer filled with duck parts meant one thing: a call to D’Artagnan. Although mostly sold to restaurants, meaty duck necks–the prima ballerina of stock ingredients and soooo much better than strip-mined duck carcasses–can be had for a reasonable price. Call and say, sotto voce, David sent you. The only problem? The duck necks come exclusively in 25-pound boxes.

Nothing tests your stock-making resolve like a 25-pound box of frozen fowl. I was worried that the hardest part of my endeavor would be justifying to The One why I bought a box of duck necks the size of a library desk with our joint credit card. He just shook his head when he saw me stumble into the house, the resigned shake that only years of slamming into an immovable object can wrought, and slumped out the kitchen muttering. But that was phiffle next to figuring out what I was going to do with all those necks.

After seriously questioning my deductive reasoning, I ferreted out my dusty canning pot that has doubled as a washtub at times. Then I heaved it and a pasta pot onto the stovetop. Those, I was sure, would be big enough to accommodate all the bones. I decided to first ratchet up the flavor quotient by roasting the necks in a hot oven. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but found myself dancing a happy jig when I noticed crusty, caramelized bits forming in the roasting pan. That drew The One into the kitchen, just like that giant animated aroma finger beckoning Sylvester the Cat. Suddenly, my credit card charge wasn’t so foolish after all, was it, mister? I loosened up the cracklings with a splash of water and dumped all that browned goodness into a waiting pot of cold water. He grew more curious, moving in closer, but I pretended not to notice. A little punishment never hurt anyone.

I resisted the urgings from cookbooks and chefs to add shallots, leeks, and onions to the pot. Or tomatoes, tomato paste, and tomato purée. Or handfuls of sage, thyme, rosemary, and marjoram. Too much trumping up, thank you. I wanted a duck flavor so unadulterated its feathers seemed to flutter on your tongue. I settled upon onions and carrots for an undercurrent of sweetness, garlic for the wee-est bite, and a tiny, tiny amount of tomato paste for a hint of umami. Fini. Acabado. Done.

Then came the simmering, which isn’t my bailiwick. I do few things at a simmer. It’s just not fast enough. I don’t even simmer at a simmer but rather at a moderate boil. Patience, darlin’, thy name is not David. But I knew that anything more than a slothful burble, the kind that sends up bubbles so infrequently it forgets what it’s doing, would cloud the stock with a foam of impurities from the meat and bones. So down went the heat and up went the spoon as I stood there, waiting, waiting, waiting for the scum–such an unfortunate food word, scum–to form to get all that grossness the hell out of there. Fidgety, I contemplated cranking the heat to a boil more than once, but that would only defeat the purpose of skimming for scum. So after watching almost all of the new Jane Eyre film on DVD, I was finally in business.

Add another six hours, almost all of it unattended, and I was rewarded with eight quarts of a stock so flavorful, so rich, so “watch it wiggle and see it jiggle” that even Cindi, the sitting Queen of Duck, deemed it the best she’d ever tasted.

It seems a coup d’état is brewing.

David’s Wriggle-riffic Duck Stock

Makes 6 to 8 quarts

Fear not, dear reader, the length of this recipe. It’s just me blowing a gale of hot air. All you have to do is roast, simmer, skim, reduce, chill. I just wanted to make sure every “i” was dotted and every “t” crossed. I don’t need you shaking your fists to the heavens because I was anything less than thorough.–David Leite

LC Watch it Wiggle, See it Jiggle Note: The image you see may seem to resemble a bowl of duck Jell-O more than duck stock. But actually, they’re one and the same. Sort of. Behold, the glory of an über stock whose every molecule is imbued with collagen, that gelatinous substance that makes gelatin, or Jell-O, if you will, wiggle, jiggle, quiver, and shimmy. (This wiggling, jiggling, quivering, and shimmying is much like what happens to your thighs when you, like David, bust into an impromptu happy dance over the superlatively rich, ducky smack of this stock.) Worry not, the wobbly blob of stock turns liquidy when subjected to mild heat. All the better for you to make a ducky take on pho or toss in some carrots and turnips and potatoes and deem it a duck pot au feu. The sort-of-solid stock freezes well, too, which gives you ample time to ponder what to do with the rest of your stash of duck stock. Er, über duck stock.

Active time: 30 minutes | Total time: 12 hours, most of it unattended

Duck Stock Recipe

Directions

I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, but after more than seven feet of snow pounded us last winter in Connecticut, I miss it. Sure, the entire back of the house was destroyed by ice and took weeks to repair. And, yes, it’s true, the bushes out front still haven’t recovered. But I miss snow. So does The One. We’re snow freaks. I think it comes from a cellular-level aversion to humidity. He grew up in the steam oven called Baltimore, and I, the South Coast of Massachusetts, where Narragansett Bay is fond of making it near-impossible for clothes to dry on the line in August. The minute the weather gets sticky, on goes the central air conditioning and in the freezer go our heads.

But our utter adoration of all things cold is more than DNA deep. Part of our snow fetish is what we do while it’s piling up. That’s when we pad into the kitchen, The One in his saggy plaid pajamas, his rooster hair sticking up, and I in my baseball cap. I grab a cookbook and languorously flip through it while he roots around in the fridge and the pantry. What we really want to make, though, is what I’ve dubbed Blizzard Beef. It’s a dish that we tackle only when the three acres of woods out back turn into a swirling wall of nature’s equivalent to Wite-Out. In other words, true to the recipe’s name, a blizzard. Sadly, with the exception of a marvelously freak storm in October, which I missed because I was in Indonesia, this year we’ve had nothing more than mere pathetic dustings. Our brand-new KickAss 14,000-watt generator never got a workout.

Still it’s hard not to get hopeful when weather forecasts grow fantastically ominous, causing ripples of anxiety that send our Roxbury neighbors to Costco for bottled water, rock salt, and 100-ounce bags of Doritos and tubs of hummus. While other people cancel plans, we make menus. Lots and lots of menus. Deep-dish French toast for breakfast. Coq au vin for lunch. Daube for dinner. After all, you never know when foolhardy friends, sans generator and facing empty shelves at the supermarket, just may need food, lodging, and some measure of civility and frivolity for a few days.

Blizzard Beef, on the other hand, is something we reserve for us. No sharing. Ever. It’s our tradition. I don’t even know the dish’s real name. All I can tell you is the recipe is from The One’s family and owes much to Pennsylvania Dutch frugality. It calls for three ingredients: beef chuck steak, Worcestershire sauce, and water. The beef is seared almost black on all sides, then water and several very healthy glugs of WS are poured into the pot. It’s left to its own devices to slowly, gently burble away over the wee-est of flames for hours–usually three or so in all. (Here’s a video we made several years ago on the eve of a real storm.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n80VHgp-js8

Those hours when we’re puttering around the kitchen, singing to Dream Girls and waiting for the Blizzard Beef to be done, are when the meat and liquid start to tango, Argentine style. The beef begins to break down, giving itself over to the charm and wiles of the sauce. Emboldened, the Worcestershire begins to concentrate, leaning in with a sharp vinegar-y tang which the beef can’t resist. And if you close your eyes, you can detect the impish scents of lemon, cloves, and pepper, each of which also seduces the meat–and me, for that matter. After several hours, the beef’s resistance is gone. It can be skewered with sharp objects and makes no objections. The Worcestershire sauce has claimed another lover.

(Excuse me while I take a moment to gather myself.)

This past weekend, The One and I were snuggled under the quilt on the couch, with Chloe, our Persian, burrowed somewhere in its folds, watching TV when the local weatherman interrupted  to warn of us of a “storm of potential significance.” The way things have been going, we knew what that meant: at best a heavy frost. The One looked at me. He didn’t have to say it; I knew he had Blizzard Beef on his frontal lobe.

But could we, really? In such undistinguished weather? It felt as if we were breaking some time-honored tradition, like wearing white after Labor Day. Or watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade and not yelling at the Broadway production numbers. Blizzard Beef without a blizzard. It was now or never. So with the temperature hovering in the mid-50′s, we toasted the spoilsport that is global warming and tucked in.

I wasn’t going to bother posting this. But maybe somewhere, someday, you’ll be lucky enough to get caught in a blizzard with only beef chuck steaks, Worcestershire sauce, and water and will need to do some kind of MacGyver cooking. If so, here’s your dish. It’s so simple, there’s not even a recipe. We always serve it up with over-the-top (read: tons of butter, cream, and love) mashed potatoes and some kind of green as an attempt to feel virtuous.

P.S. This morning I woke up to six inches of white happiness on the ground–the most I’ve seen in a year. The forecast says rain this afternoon. But for now, I’ve got my chuck searing, so let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

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Maybe it was discovering that just about every musical and movie reference I knew was lost on anyone under 30. Perhaps it was passing the half-century mark and seeing that not only had some of my dreams gone missing, some even remained unpacked. Maybe it was the arrival of my complimentary copy of AARP Magazine and knowing I could now get discounts at movie theaters and select restaurants such as Olive Garden and Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. (I saw The One and I, slumped in a booth in Denny’s, gumming our Grand Slamwiches on Valentine’s Day when we’re in our 80’s.)

Whatever the cause, late last year I began having what life coaches—and Cosmo Magazine—are fond of labeling a midlife crisis.

The One handled his crisis a few years earlier by buying a 2005 Mustang (white with red interior, which he coveted ever since he bought the Matchbox version back in the ’70s). Driving around metaphorically created distance from whatever was haunting him.

I didn’t have the money to buy back two decades of my life, so my “situation” followed me around in lockstep. This wasn’t a sitcom kind of crisis, where after 22 1/2 minutes the salve of comedy makes everything better. Try as I might, my humor failed me. Even I couldn’t joke my way out of this one.

So I did what I always do when I’m confused. I started making lists. As you know, I’m fond of them. They clarify and comfort. I struggled through “What makes me happy?” and “What legacy will I leave behind?” Yet I had a significantly easier time with “What am I depressed about?”, “Where did I fail?”, and “What didn’t I accomplish?” That damn half-empty glass again.

As I mulled over these lists—something I suggest you never attempt with a bottle of wine by your side and Edith Piaf on your iPod—I began to understand what I was really trying to do. And that was come to terms with the fact that one day I will [clears throat here] cease to exist. Will no longer be. The world of David Leite—the good, the bad, the self-centered—will be gone. What will I have left behind? Will I be missed? Will I even matter?

Then I had that inevitable, horrible thought—the one that’s so easy to keep at bay in your 20s, 30s, even 40s. What if The One goes first? A part of me would also cease to exist, would also no longer be. The part that is me around him—and only him. The part that no one sees, the part that has been cobbled together and burnished by spending the past 6,702 days with him.

What I did then surprised me. I wrote a kind of list I’d never written before. I wanted something that would remind me, in thick ink lest my eyesight started going, of what I would’ve missed out on had he not answered my personal ad in New York Magazine all those years ago. (Yes, that’s right, folks, he was my mail-order partner long before online dating became commonplace—or even chic.) Here it is, my inside-out Valentine’s Day wish to him.

What If I’d Never Met The One…?

1. I would still covet milk chocolate instead of dark chocolate.

2. I would never have whispered intimacies to him on Paris’s Pont Neuf at night.

3. I would still be wearing shoes that were way too tight for me. (The One was a shoe salesman decades ago.)

4. I wouldn’t have the pleasure of gazing at views north to the Upper West Side, east over Central Park, and south to the Chrysler Building every single day from our apartment, because it was The One who convinced me the place was a great investment. And it is. (After shoes, he started selling real estate.)

5. I would never, ever, ever deign to use endearments such as “tateleh,” “lovie,” “mon cher,” “poppie,” or the amalgam “pussycake” with anyone. Nor would I allow anyone to call me “Dave,” as if I were a gas station attendant.

6. I wouldn’t have a home in Connecticut. (Full confession: It’s The One’s, as he paid for it entirely. He also insisted that I keep my half of the profit from the sale of our first home to use as seed money for my career.)

7. I wouldn’t have had an escort to the James Beard Awards, where all he did three years in a row, bless his heart, was act like a human Xanax and talk me down from a panic attack for two hours straight.

8. I wouldn’t have had the chance to fall irrevocably head over heels for the kids, the cats, which he rescued through a bulletin board at work. And who have made me supremely happy.

9. I wouldn’t have someone constantly, incessantly making fun of my singing. (Come to think of it, I really wouldn’t miss that.)

10. I would have never discovered Martha’s Vineyard. Well, at least not the private and stunning Hancock Beach.

11. I wouldn’t have ever come to appreciate Jackson Pollock, whom The One teases that he’s the reincarnation of. (Honestly, I’m not so sure he’s kidding…)

12. I wouldn’t have Our Song, which, to be fair, in my typical Type-A fashion, I thrust upon him. He accepted graciously.

13. I wouldn’t have visited a very funky yoga retreat on Paradise Island—and later escaped from it in the of middle of the night to a nearby Marriott—because, well, I’m just not that type.

14. I wouldn’t have spent two incredible summers in East Hampton, just 40 feet from the water, watching the empty wine bottles and clam shells pile up.

15. I wouldn’t be intimately familiar with the entire oeuvre of Kenny G.

16. I wouldn’t have this website. After all, it was he who kept me afloat for three years in my 40s, which I unaffectionately call My Decade of Debt.

17. I wouldn’t treasure the fact that when he was nine years old and rode through the underwater Baltimore Harbor Tunnel for the first time, he was devastated he couldn’t see fish.

18. I wouldn’t have had the example of someone who started with nothing and built a life for himself exactly where, when, and how he wanted.

19. I would have never stumbled onto my love of baking, all because one Sunday he made a cake and let me lick the bowl. Boom! I was back in my grandmother’s kitchen on Brownell Street in 1965.

20. I wouldn’t be me—with this fabulous constellation of qualities—because there would have been no The One with whom to fight, laugh, cry, scream, insult, make up, learn, travel, complain, control, joke, love, and, ultimately grow old with. Denny’s, Bubba Gump, cheap movies, and all.

I come from stirring stock. That is to say, my people are stirrers. It’s how my grandmother, avó Costa, cooked. She stood facing the stove for hours in her pink housecoat and pink slippers, her tiny pink hand planted on her hip, singing in her thin, reedy voice. She stirred all kind of Portuguese comestibles: spicy stuffing with chunks of homemade chouriço sausage; her famous pink (of course) chicken, rice, and potato soup; and vats and vats of kale soup.

When she grew too old to stir her soups and stews for long, I’d do it for her. By then age had stolen a few inches from her, but she still managed to peer over the tops of the pots and instruct, “Mais devagar, queirdo, mais devagar.” Slower, sweetheart, slower.

I think it’s genetic. When the temperature nosedives, all I want to do is hover over a simmering pot and stir. And what I’ve been craving lately is a long-simmered, deeply flavored Bolognese sauce recipe. The kind that takes no prisoners. The kind that makes your guests plead for the secret. (Are you reading this, Kate Jackson?) The kind that leaves you on the couch unable to move because you didn’t have enough sense to stop after your second helping of seconds.

I’m certain if vovó had discovered ragù Bolognese in her lifetime, she would’ve petitioned the Pope to make us Italian. It’s her kind of dish.

So my hunt was on for a Portuguese-grandmother-approved Bolognese sauce–rich, meaty, slow-cooked, constantly stirred–to quench that nagging craving. This narrowed the field exponentially. Anything from a 30-minute-meal proselytizer was clearly out of contention, as were recipes from ADD TV chefs and hosts. I found–and promptly rejected–a recipe in Cook’s Illustrated that got the job done in a two hours. (Two hours? I can’t find my way out of our pantry in two hours.) Then, while sitting in front of my cookbook collection, I was reminded of another short, sturdy woman who also comes from stirring stock: L’Imperatrice–The Empress–Marcella Hazan.

I immediately downloaded The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. (Why I didn’t already have a copy is a question for another day.) Flipping through the book revealed a woman who spoke her mind, knew right from wrong, and, if you disagreed with what she had to say, well, that was your problem. (Not unlike Momma Leite, if you ask me.) I knew The Empress wouldn’t let me down. And she didn’t. Her Bolognese sauce clocks in at a whopping six hours. That’s longer than some relationship I’ve seen.

As I leaned against the stove with my iPad in its kitchen condom, a gorgeous sauce burbling down to sweet goodness in the pot, I was connecting to my past–to my stirrers. And to a craving even deeper, to be with my avó just one more time.

Ragù Bolognese to Appease the Grandmother Within

Adapted from The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking | Knopf, 1992 | Makes 4 cups

Marcella, in her inimitable fashion, offers the home cook plenty of suggestions to create an authentic Bolognese sauce recipe, the kind my grandmother would approve of. First, the more marbled the meat, the sweeter the ragù. The most desirable cut of beef is the neck portion of the chuck. You may have to call up and order it from your butcher. It’s also important to salt the meat as soon as it hits the pan; it extracts the juices and flavors the sauce. Last, use a heavy pot that retains heat. (I use my Le Creuset 5-quart Dutch oven.) Avoid a cast-iron pot, as the acid can interact with the metal and turn the sauce an unpleasant blech color.–David Leite

LC Time is Not of the Essence Note: Rush this recipe, and you’ll miss its most important ingredient. Time. Time to ponder. Time to make lists. Time to sing the entire soundtrack of “Evita.”

Special Equipment: Patience

Active time: 20 minutes | Total time: 6 hours, most of it unattended, except for making lazy eights with a wooden spoon

Bolognese Sauce Recipe

Directions

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