Friday Friend Recipe #145 -- Fast Sauce (spaghetti sauce #10)

My Friday Friend Cookbook Countdown #145!

(#willreallyfinishthissomeday)

Theda's Fast Sauce (spaghetti sauce #10)

and you know all the whys and wherefores of this countdown, right? Homemade cookbook, friends contributed, Handyman said I couldn't/wouldn't do it, I'll show him, yadda yadda yadda....

...and the rest is cookbook history!

First of all, I must apologize to all my other Friday Friends who turned in a 'fast sauce'...because this is my favorite ever!!  It's because of the Italian sausage!  I love the flavor of Italian sausage.  It's Mmmmm---mmmmm good to me.

Fast Sauce

Theda Pansevicius

Tualatin, OR

Combine Pregro, Sliced olives, ground Italian sausage (cooked).  Mix with your favorite pasta and top with fresh grated Romano cheese.

Theda.

This summer is our 40th high school class reunion.

(neither one of us is going--it's just not working out)

So that means we've been friends for 45 years.  She might say 44 years, because one year was Junior High and we weren't friends then--but we knew each other, so, I say 45!

Funny how that works out when we are only 29.

We've hardly aged at all over the  years!

(and I didn't gain ANY  weight!)

I cannot find any photos of the two of us 'alone' from High School.... except once when we were skipping school and hung out down by the lagoon.

Theda and Me circa 1976

For my 50th birthday Theda sent me scrap book of memories.

One page had what I had written in her Freshman Yearbook...

so.... we began to be friends thru Algebra?  Something I've never used again in my life.  At least something good came from this class!

Then fast forward to our senior year.... I wrote this on the back of my senior photo--the one I gave to her....

In 4 short years, it grew from "it was fun having you in Algebra" to  "I love you" (still do)

BUT---what?  Please don't ever forget the good times we've had together, especially the summer of '76.

OMG!!  I've forgotten! 

What happened Theda? What happened the summer of 1976?

Then a  year out of high school...1978

3 years later....1981

The rest is history....forever young! (and skinny!)

 Theda and me circa 1994

Theda and Me circa 1998

Theda and Me circa 2000 

Theda and Me circa 2005

Once when we lived in Los Banos, California, Theda and John came to visit us on their way to Disneyland.  (from the Portland, Oregon area)

During their visit to us,  my middle son, Dustin took their Daughter, Sarah to lunch.  They were about 11.

There is a Federal Lunch program where they give out free lunches to kids during the summer.  We have one here in Winnemucca and the lunches are distributed by the Family to Family Coalition. No questions asked--any child who asks will be fed.

At the time this program was also going on in the park by our house in California and I did not know it. 

Dustin took Sarah  to lunch at the park and they came home and told us all about how they hand out food at the park!  I guess he had been eating lunch there all week.

What do I know, I'm just the mom?

He was so excited to have found free food! AND to share it with a friend!

  I didn't quite have the heart to tell him that the program wasn't for him and he would have to come home and have peanut butter from now on.

Theda is a planner and organizer--and I remember that she had a notebook (this was back before GPS and Cell phones), a vacation notebook, and in it she listed the towns they were going thru with "Spaghetti Factory Restaurants" in them and directions on how to get there.  

She liked pasta even then, as did her family, so why not stop at every Spaghetti Factory on the west coast?

Actually,  I like to eat at the Old Spaghetti Factory too!

We used to eat at this one in Stockton, CA when our son lived there. Every time we visited them, we would take them out to dinner.

Just recently I found out that pasta is not his favorite.

He is a weirdo.

WHO DOESN'T LIKE SPAGHETTI!?

******************************

That is my Theda Story!

(PS Theda...were we dating brothers the summer of '76?)

Recipe #145 COMPLETED

149 left to go!