spaghetti-and-meatballs
I’ve been known to watch Bobby Flay’s Throwdown on occassion, mostly because few things delight me more than seeing fancy pants-trained Bobby beat down by little old ladies and their berry pies. It’s divine justice, it’s goodness prevailing, and it is the same principle that turns me into a crying fool whenever I see the cast of Slumdog Millionaire looking happily stunned and triumphant.
In the weeks after I saw the spaghetti and meatball episode (in which Bobby lost to Grandma Maroni’s 100-year-old recipe), I couldn’t stop thinking about the way the winning meatballs looked atop a twisty nest of spaghetti in a wide, white bowl, and topped with sauce. I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that Grandma Maroni’s recipe called for four eggs to a pound of ground chuck. Four eggs.
So finally, after weeks of pining, I found the recipe online, put on my pink apron, and made these during Sunday night’s snowstorm. But I’m never making these again. Not because they aren’t good, but because they are too good. Something about the combination of the winter storm outside, snow piled on our second-story window ledges, plus a big bowl of spaghetti and meatballs inside eaten on the couch, equaled a complete lack of self-control. I wanted to say no to seconds, but I was powerless in the presence of these meatballs.
And so, never again. Or at least, not for a very, very long time.
