I am under 75 recipes now--I must get this done! At least to prove something to myself if not the Handyman...
because...
...about 21 years ago, 50 of my closest friends and family, who had been on an
e-mail forum with me, sent in recipes in different categories and we compiled a cookbook.
I decided to count those down!
Why?
because one night I was looking thru the cookbook and I said, "I should make every recipe in here for my blog."
The Handyman, who thinks he knows me better than I know myself, said "you'll never EVER do that."
Well, maybe I will! Maybe I'll show him!
Which brings us to Eva's
Spaghetti Sauce
**********************************
I just need to hurry up and 'get 'er done'
Then I'll show him!
And as always, it's not about the quality of the photos, it's about the family, friends and fun we have all had together!
Before I talk about this awesome spaghetti and Eva, one of my favorite sisters-in-law, I have to confess.
I stole something from the Handyman's mother.
I stole her recipe boxes and all her little notebooks with menu ideas.
I'm gonna give them back.
I mean she has 3 daughters who should rightly have them, right?
I just wanted to look thru them at my leisure.
And make a cookbook with photos and stores with their mom's recipes, as presents for the Handyman's siblings.
That's right!
Anyway, I took the photos of Eva's spaghetti sauce surrounded by her mother's stolen recipe box.
I just outed myself!
Lots of people ask me what I am going to do once this cookbook countdown is over (60 more recipes to go!) and I say 'nothing'.
But...remaking all of the Handyman's mother's meal plans from the 60's, 70's and 80's might be fun.
Might be.
(a quick aside--The Handyman and I always disagree about what goes with meatloaf. My mom had meatloaf, baked potatoes and Waldorf salad. Yum Yum!
As you can see below, his mom had meatloaf and MASHED POTATOES. Yummy too, but not right.
The right way to meatloaf is a baked potato. *sigh*)
Let's meet Eva, one of my favorite sisters-in-law.
She is the Handyman's little sister. Next in the sibling line--in the house they grew up in.
6 of them grew up in the same house. Sometimes 7 of them.
But he has 12 brothers and sisters.
His mom and dad were married and had 5 children.
They got divorced and each married someone who had 3 children and then they each had another child.
Eva. This is her first, last and only recipe in the Friday Friend Cookbook Countdown.
So---hooray, we get to meet Eva and boo hoo, saying goodbye is hard.
I have all the emotions for Eva. LOL
The best story about family for me, is one time the 6 siblings (who grew up in the same house) were trying to get a photograph for their mom and were having trouble getting together, since they all had to come from various places and timing was always an issue when you had a lot of people.
Once when we thought we had a date, Eva wasn't sure if she could make it and said, "if I can't make it, Debbie can sit in for me. She's been part of this family for forever and is like a sibling."
Ohhh Emmm Geee!
That's like the sweetest thing anyone has ever said about me!
Now on to the spaghetti sauce!
The best sauce ever!
Sorry to all of you who make a good spaghetti sauce too.
(except my brother, who makes his sauce exactly like my mom's. The more I think about it, it's a tie. My mom's and Rich's mom's-the best ever!)
My spaghetti story for Eva is this--
I was there the night she followed her mom around the kitchen trying to write it all down--the directions and ingredients to the sauce. My mother-in-law didn't really use a written recipe and Eva was trying to recreate her sauce. (even tho the written recipes don't look alike, because eventually my mother-in-law did write her version down, they taste alike. Weird)
So, Eva was following her mom around looking over her shoulder as she cooked and chopped and stirred. Practically bumping into her at each turn.
My much beloved mother-in-law was not known for her patience.
Let that be known.
But she put up with Eva all afternoon, so Eva could write this sauce recipe down for future generations.
The family loved her spaghetti sauce, and she was very proud of it.
And they were worried, because (and this was before I married into the family), she was dying.
She actually lasted another 42 years, before passing in March of 2020.
She was actually never really dying until she died. She might have been a bit of a hypochondriac. 😐
Her children and husband were used to her--complaining and took it all in stride, (Eva wanted the recipe just in case) but I was young and unused to such (how to put this....) dramatic displays of acting.
For the record, she really did have heart issues, but her family didn't react much when she would grab her heart and say, "just a minute--I need a minute". I, on the other hand, would be bringing her water and asking if she needed to sit, trying to help her from NOT dying, while they were used to her overreacting.
Methinks, I meander too much.
So, Eva got her recipe, and everyone was happy.
Until Eva went back into the kitchen at dinner time and was helping her mom get the last minute stuff together. I was raised to help, so I was making my way to the kitchen, wondering why Rich's other sisters were not helping, when all of the sudden I heard this:
Mom: will you cut the garlic bread?
Eva: Sure. Do you want it cut across or diagonally?
Now in hindsight, we all should have seen this coming.
The house was full of people, in and out, running about, My Mother-in-law had been cooking all day and was tired and a bit grumpy.
She had used her last bit of patience.
So, then I heard:
Mom: I DON'T GIVE A DAMN HOW YOU CUT IT--YOU CAN BITE IT OFF IN CHUNKS FOR ALL I CARE!
Then Eva stormed out of the kitchen and I too, turned right around and went back to the living room where LeAnne and Cherrie just smiled at me with an "I told you so" look upon their faces.
Here they are many years after the garlic bread incident.
LeAnne, Cherrie and Eva at Cherrie's wedding in 2004.
One more quick little Eva story (because this is her first, last and only appearance in the cookbook countdown.)
I was trying to think of a story to tell about Eva and
I asked the Handyman--didn't you hit Eva in the head with a dart one time?
He answered--yes, but it didn't do any good. 😄
I said, no, really tell me what happened.
He said, she was being nosey like she always was.
I said: is that why you threw a dart at her? Because she was nosey?
He laughed and said, "no. I was just throwing darts up and down the stairs when I wasn't supposed to, and she stuck her head around the corner as I threw a dart and it got stuck in her forehead.
And then she went running to mom and I got in trouble.
A photo of Eva and Rich circa 1981, a few years after the garlic bread incident and many years after the dart incident.
She forgave him.
and because it's cute and so--nostalgic.
A photo of the 5 original kids begot by Theresa and Dick Stone.
(as soon as this photo was taken, their family grew to 13 siblings!)
This is just a random photo of my 2 fathers-in-law at Cherrie's wedding in 2004. It looks like Phil is about to shoot Dick in the head with a squirt gun.
But he didn't.
I love/loved them both. So lucky to have them in my family.
So, that's my Eva story--or 3 Eva stories.
And this my friends is
recipe #306
Only 61 left to go!
I can do it!
WOO HOO! I am below 100 recipes now. Yay! Yahoo! Whoopie!
Altho.... do you remember when I counted wrong before? I think I did it again.
I keep counting what I have left by recipe AND by person and it does not add up to 61- it's more like 55.
Which would make me very happy, but for now.... I'll stick to the 61 until it gets closer to the end, and I'll recount what I have left.
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