In Honor of My Grandmother, My Culinary Mentor

My grandmother is/was the single most influencial person in my life when it comes to my culinary passion today.  As a child, she would let me help her roll homemade pasta on her wide kitchen table.  We'd knead impossibly thick biscotti dough together.  She would set up a stool so that I could gently stir an enormous pot of her famous "all day sauce".  My memories of these loving experiences and  the amazing flavors resulting are poignant and  extremely relevent in my kitchen today.  It's as if she places her hand gently on mine as I prepare ingredients and stir my own humble version of her sauce. 

When she passed away, I was honored to inheret a shoebox full of her handwritten recipes.  There must be hundreds of index cards meticulously written in her graceful script.  These recipes remain one of my most prized possessions.  It's slightly difficult for me to open the box 12 years later and my throat still catches every time but I simutaneously acknowledge that her memory is intrinsically entwined with the contents of this box.  Therefore, for the next two weeks, I will be posting for you her most memorable recipes.  I hope you appreciate these gifts as much as I have.