ArcaMax

Editor's Note: We hope you enjoy this previously published Zola classic.

How Bad Was It?

I thought I was the biggest weather geek. Now I find out I have met my match.

I am one of those people who cannot get through a day without watching the weather at least once. I read about it in the paper most days too. They give out five day forecasts and I’m a quick learner, so why would I need an update every day?

Every day? Sometimes I’ll watch the weather included in News at Five and then watch it again during the 6 p.m. news. Nothing has changed, believe me, yet I do it anyway. I even ask those around me to be quiet so I can listen. The second time around I act like there will be a news flash update. Not bloody likely.

During storms there is a reason to check in often. This summer we had one evening where we got golf-ball sized hail for 45 minutes. That resulted in 22 cracks in our roof that had to be repaired. Another time we got 7.5 inches of rain in less than an hour. It’s been a summer of weird storms. The weather reporting helped me be prepared for those events. Or at least the best I could.

As Hurricane Irene approached I watched the weather extra closely for a few days, looking at their prediction models as the storm formulated in the southern Atlantic. I looked at the potential paths and I looked at the predicted wind speeds and made my decision. I decided this was going to pretty much be a non-event. Bad storm, yeah but REALLY bad storm? No. Hurricane and tropical storm, yeah. Category three and a repeat of Hurricane Katrina? No way.

Well, my friend and I debated. He was here visiting from out of town and kept tuning into the weather reports. He’s got a ship captain’s license so he knows a whole lot more about isobars and the paths of weather than I do. He used to live in Baltimore so he’s likely seen more hurricanes than I have. I’ve only officially been through one. That was Hurricane Gloria and I was visiting family with my husband. We were in Maine. We did the fill buckets with water thing and got all the candles, etc. ready. What a snoozer that was. I’d been in bigger thunderstorms in Wisconsin than that turned out to be. By the time it got to us it wasn’t any big deal at all. We didn’t even lose power for long. My feeling was this hurricane was going to be about the same as Gloria.

But the question is, if there is a chance for disaster do you take chances? I say no. Did the media need to hype it as much as they did? Probably not. But on the contrary if they had not, maybe not so many people would have listened. Being prepared is much better than getting caught and ending up in peril.

Did the hurricane do as much damage as it could have? Probably not. But if you’re living in the path of the violent flooding in Vermont that’s not the issue. And it’s not water over the dam. It’s water everywhere. Dangerous unrelenting water. Everywhere.

You can’t fool Mother Nature but you can’t really predict her very well either.

I whipped up some spaghetti Bolognese over the weekend. I was not ready for a seven hour sauce so I just came up with this quick version. It was made even quicker by the chopping help my husband offered.

Spaghetti Bolognese (EASY)
Serves 2 to 4

Spaghetti Bolognese is just a simple meat sauce to serve with spaghetti. Yep, those of you who know how I feel about too many carbohydrates might be scoffing about now. Spaghetti? Yes, I say. If you serve it in the right portion. 1 cup cooked. That’s an amazingly SMALL order of spaghetti compared to what you get at an Italian chain restaurant. But there you have it. ONE cup.

What I do is concentrate on the sauce. I don’t limit myself on sauce. And by the time I eat the sauce off the top there’s plenty of spaghetti on the bottom and I’m no longer hungry. I have stopped that thing where I stir the sauce all into the spaghetti before I begin eating. I just put the spaghetti in the bottom of the bowl. Add the sauce on top. Put parmesan cheese on top of that and begin to eat. It’s amazing how quickly I become full. I hope you do too.

Ingredients:

1 lb of ground sirloin
3 Tbl of olive oil (divided)
½ cup of chopped red onion
3 cloves of minced garlic (Jar garlic can work for this one)
28 oz of crushed tomatoes
15 oz of tomato sauce
1 cup of red wine (or if you don’t cook with alcohol, use water)
2 tsp of Italian seasoning blend
A dash of cayenne (optional)
1 cup of cooked spaghetti per person. Or if you want to be even lower carb you can serve this over cooked zucchini.
Parmesan cheese for sprinkling on top.

Put 1.5 tablespoons of olive oil in a large sauté pan. Add the meat.

Begin to break it up as it browns on medium. My feeling is the secret to a true Bolognese is to break the meat up really fine so there are no lumps. Cook the meat until no pink is left.

While this is happening you can put the other 1.5 Tbl of olive oil in a large sauce pan. Add the onion and cook it on medium until it begins to loosen. Add the garlic. Stir. Add the tomatoes, sauce, red wine, Italian seasoning and cayenne (if you want it). I like my spaghetti sauce to have just a teeny bit of zing. That’s why I add the cayenne.

Now, many an Italian grandmother will tell you this sauce has to cook for up to 10 hours on very low heat to develop the flavor. I say humbug. I’m hungry. So I cook this for about 45 minutes on medium – medium-low and get the flavors to meld. Stir often. This is enough time to get the taste of spaghetti without having to suffer while you smell it all day waiting for the final satisfaction of getting to eat it.

Enjoy!
Cheers,
Zola

Send email to Zola at zolacooks@gmail.com.