Before an Important Dinner

You’re beginning to prepare an important dinner; a dinner that you hope will stay in the minds of your guests for a long time. It is a special spring day and you want to impress your guest of honor. You know just the perfect meal to make- one you have seen your guest of honor make numerous times herself. You know you need to nail this recipe.

Pans are sitting idle on burners waiting for you to finish prepping ingredients. Your first pan is heated at a medium-low heat, because you know that the sweet Italian sausage will burn quickly if it’s not cooked low and slow. You’ve specifically picked sweet mild sausage, because you know that your guest of honor doesn’t like her food too spicy. After you’ve placed the sausage links into the pan with some water and oil, you have a while to continue chopping and dicing.

As your other pots and pans are heating, one with water and one with olive oil, you start to prep other foods. While chopping strong yellow onions, your eyes begin to water and you drop your knife to run to the freezer. The icy air billowing out of the freezer onto your face is the only trick you’ve learned that actually stops your eyes from watering. You learned this trick from your guest of honor, one of many things you have learned from her. You can now finish chopping your onions and move onto garlic. You’ve decided to chop your garlic instead of mincing it because you know that your guests like larger pieces and don’t mind smelling like their food. Next you move onto ancient sweet red peppers and roma tomatoes- both hold their shapes well in this dish.

After all your vegetables have been prepared, you are ready to begin layering your ingredients into the olive oil pan. Your guest of honor has told you many times before that certain foods need cooked longer than others. So, you start with your onions- they serve as a bed for the garlic. Once an intoxicating aroma begins to fill the kitchen, you know that it is time to add some tomato paste along with the peppers and tomatoes. After all your veggies are added to the pan, you sprinkle in your spices. Not much though, because you don’t want to overwhelm the dish- just some red pepper flakes, sugar, salt and pepper. As soon as these ingredients are cooked down some, it is time to add some vodka. Yes, vodka! Your guest of honor always tells you, “When adding vodka to the pan, stand back!” In case the alcohol percent is high, you don’t want flames flying up into your face- although… that has never actually happened to either of you before. Next you add heavy cream to the pan and sliced sausages that you cut up, sometime awhile back. As everything cooks down, into the pot with the boiling water, you throw your last ingredient - penne pasta.

As your guests arrive, you toss together the cooked pasta and sauce, and top it with cheese and parsley- and just hope that you’ve made your guest of honor proud- not just with this meal, but in life as well.