The Simple Life

When the husband and I were in London, we had dinner with an Italian colleague of mine, Cristina. She's really Italian, not Olive Garden Italian. Although, if she had one look at that endless basket of breadsticks, I think she might come to the other side.

After pluralizing happy "hour," we searched for somewhere to fill our bellies swishing with beer and stumbled upon an "Italian" restaurant. I can compare it to the Greek restaurants in Indiana where you can get anything from a full Thanksgiving feast to a chicken quesadilla. At that point in the evening, I didn't care. I could have eaten the sleeves off the husband's shirt. Cristina, on the other hand, would have rather starved to death than partake in such a disgraceful meal. We started talking about the difference between food made in Italy and Italian food.

Turns out, she doesn't unload a giant dump truck of useless ingredients into her sauce. She uses 2 ingredients - tomatoes and basil. Apparently, I didn't need to spend hours chopping and nearly burn down our apartment, like when this happened.

I made it this weekend and we already gobbled up half of it. It's actually delicious. I even put it in a jar - it just looks more homemade that way.

Thanks Cristina. For helping me on my way to becoming the real deal.

Sauce:

Heat a few tablespoons of good olive oil over low heat. Add garlic if you like, but you don't need it. Add a can of good quality, peeled whole tomatoes and about 8 leaves of fresh basil. Bring to a boil, then bring down to a low heat, add salt and pepper and let it boil for a few hours. I pureed it at the end in the food processor, but if you like it chunky, go for it.