Sauced

by Karyne Corum

Getting “made” by the Mafia was easier than gaining favor in the kitchen of Mama Donatella. True, the Mafia generally doesn't promote men who are only half-Italian, but at least they give credit where credit is due. If blood was shed on the family's behalf, then a soldier gained respect. Having blood cells that were fifty percent Italian was better than having no Italian blood at all.

Half was never good enough for Mama, and she made that very clear to me.

I had toiled at Meglio's restaurant for years, been subjected to menial tasks and Mama's tirades about anything and everything. I lovingly crafted every dish sent out to diners through the worn, swinging doors and let Mama take credit for my cooking. For all my hard work, I was forbidden to make the lifeblood of any Italian kitchen.

The sauce. Being a cook in an Italian restaurant was fine, but being responsible for the sauce was an honor. The lifeblood of every Italian restaurant is a signature sauce. Creating the right combination of flavors is a sacred act, and cooks guarded their secrets the way La Familigia guarded their money.

I was a great cook. I'd been told so since I was a child learning to cook by my father's side in the family kitchen. I learned through the multi-layered love that was lasagna, to the creamy rolled delight that was manicotti. I knew fresh ricotta from the mass-produced, salted commercial product; I could make a saltimbocca that would not only leap into the mouth but could easily make you beg for more.

To Mama Donatella, though, I wasn't fully Italian and would never be worthy of serving as anything more than an assistant. I tolerated her obsessive control over every act in her kitchen, from the selection of garlic cloves to the ripeness of the tomatoes that went into the sauce. I could put the ingredients in the pot but I couldn't craft them the way I wanted. Even though I did all the work, the sauce was never my own. She actually used a dried up ham bone, insisting it was crucial for flavor!

The truth about sauce is this: the ingredients are just the beginning. The woman who cooks her own special sauce flavors it with love and personality. Every time I made a batch of sauce, I remembered my father. His gentle good humor, the smell of his spicy aftershave, the way he hummed Frank Sinatra as he chopped tomatoes.

We were a small neighborhood eatery, once a beloved favorite with the locals and out-of-towners alike, now we hovered precariously on the edge of failure. It was all because of Mama's crappy sauce. The sauce is as essential to the heart of a restaurant as the cheeses' or bread. It flowed through every dish like blood through the veins. Mama's sauce tainted almost every dish and kept the restaurant from reaching the success it used to have.

These mutinous thoughts ran through my mind as I prepared sauce according to Mama's strict instructions, repeated every time I cooked. Slices of garlic sizzled in the olive oil at the bottom of the large pot, sending up waves of the sweet scent, familiar to me as my own face. The aroma took me back to my childhood and time spent with my father.

I watched to make sure the garlic didn't brown, but only slightly softened. I plucked the last of the dark-red plum tomatoes from the worn steel colander. My knife slipped rapidly through the tender skin and the juices spread on the cutting board.

“Julia, did you remember the bone?” Mama's voice barked over my shoulder and I nearly sliced off my pinky finger.

“Yes, Mama.”

Mama's four-foot-five frame and six-foot presence loomed behind me. She stayed close when I made the sauce, convinced I would add something unacceptable, like fresh herbs. She only used dried seasonings, a sacrilege to the purity of the sauce. That was like using cottage cheese instead of ricotta, or corn oil instead of olive.

When I first started working at Donatella's, I suggested we grow our own herbs or at least buy from the local greenhouse. Mama dismissed my idea with one snap of her stubby fingers.

“Julia, you think you know, but how can you? You're only half Italian, and half will never know as good as whole. Capisce ?”

Mama squinted at me through thick glasses, her eyes never missing a single movement as I dropped two small lamb neck bones into the sizzling garlic and oil. They began to brown up nicely. Behind me, Mama grunted her approval.

Next, I poured the bowl of cut tomatoes into the pot and added pureed tomatoes, several teaspoons of tomato paste and last, but least in my book, the dried spices.

I carefully stirred the mixture with a long, thick wooden spoon.

Once she was certain I wasn't doing anything subversive, Mama yelled, “Fingers, come take out the trash.”

Mama never called Dom by his real name. He once had a successful lounge act singing and playing piano in Atlantic City . He was headed for bigger and better things before his gambling addiction got him into hot water with people who don't forgive and make sure their victims never forget. They broke his fingers and cut off both pinkies.

Now Dom was the kitchen manager, which meant he did just about anything and everything. His love for Mama was even less than mine, and that was saying a lot.

“Tyrant,” I muttered when Mama was out of earshot.

“Be careful,” Fingers whispered. “That tyrant was almost Mussolini's girlfriend. Who knows what sort of friends she still has.”

“Was that before or after she was supposed to be the next Sophia Loren?”

“Around the time Fellini begged to make her life story.” Dom grinned wickedly and I laughed.

We were Mama's favorite targets. Dom had worked a series of menial jobs and this was the only one he'd been able to keep. I stayed because the restaurant was supposed to be mine. Ownership should have passed to me when my father died. When Mama and her parents immigrated to America , my father gave them jobs in his restaurant. Meglios, it meant the “The Best”, and once it was. Then, he got sick, Mama took over the cooking duties, supposedly just until he was better. Instead, by the time cancer took him, he had agreed to an arrangement where I would be an apprentice-in-training until Mama saw fit to grant me titled ownership.

My father was a man of honor, he did it out of respect for all the years of service Mama and her parents had given him.

His charity was now my misery.

Mama's husband knew I was unhappy. Joe interceded whenever he could, right up until the night he died.

His death was the result of Mama's insistence that he build a second bathroom in the basement. She didn't want him to touch her toiletries and towels. All those stairs night after night on a weak heart were too much for him. The story circulated that when the heart attack hit, Mama said, “Joe, get up. Don't embarrass me by dying on the toilet.”

To her everlasting irritation, that's exactly what he did.

Both men had tasted my sauce and agreed it was far better than Mama's. Knowing their opinion did me no good. Joe was dead, Dom was short two fingers, and I was as stuck as a snitch before the Don. Walking away meant losing any chance at ever having my own restaurant. I was already 42, with no savings and no official training to offer another restaurant.

Mama had me pinned like a snitch before the Don, and she knew it.

Monday was typically a slow day for the restaurant. As I gathered ingredients for the next batch of sauce, Dom hurried into the kitchen.

“Julia,” he hissed, “come here. Now!” He grabbed the ties of my apron and dragged me out to the alley.

“Dom, I don't have time for hanky-panky,” I joked. The look on his face made my smile vanish.

“Mama's gone crazy, crazier than normal.”

He took a deep breath.

I waved my hands to hurry him along.

“She's taken out a hit on you. She wants to make sure she keeps the restaurant.”

I didn't ask how he knew. I didn't care anymore. No matter what, I couldn't walk away from my father's restaurant. He'd joked more than once that he'd rather die here than sleeping in his own bed, and I'd come to feel the same. Here I was closer to my father than anywhere else. If she intended to take my life, I'd damn well make sure I left everyone with my taste on their tongues. Mama would never get anyone to eat her sauce again. And she'd lose her ill-gotten restaurant to boot.

Hours later, I was relishing the bitter taste of espresso when the swinging doors to the kitchen opened like the maw of a whale.

“You, strega!” Mama almost howled the word, eyes flashing fury at me.

“Yes, Mama?” I took another sip of espresso and smiled.

Her eyebrows came together like angry, black caterpillars. Screaming, Mama launched herself across the kitchen to the stepstool. She was too short to reach the top of the cook pot on the stove. Inside was the last of my sauce. All through dinner, patrons had been enjoying my sauce on every order.

Dom stood off to the side of the stove clutching a kitchen garbage can in his hands.

Hurling fierce Sicilian curses at me like arrows, Mama reached the first step. Dom moved slightly forward, just enough to graze Mama's leg as she bolted up the stepladder. Her momentum kept her going and she toppled forward straight into the pot of sauce.

We watched her stubby legs flail wildly as she tried to extricate herself. Her rotund waistline wedged her securely in the stainless steel.

Time seemed to slow as Dom and I watched her legs go limp. The dead weight of the limbs brought the huge pot crashing to the floor. Out poured Mama, covered with rich, red sauce.

My special sauce. Flavored with fresh herbs, ripe tomatoes, my father's love and more than a pinch of revenge.