Nana's House of Sauce

Tomorrow is our "stockholder" dinner at church - a thank you to all the folks who helped to underwrite the mission trip and summer camp experiences. A few people have been hinting around about trying my family red sauce, so I decided to make it for the dinner. As I type, batch #3 of 4 is simmering on my stove, and probably won't be done until after midnight. #4 is going to have to wait until tomorrow to get going - good thing this is for dinner!

I have not had a marathon sauce-making day like this since preparing for my ordination party, when Nana and I pulled both a marathon sauce day and a marathon meatball day. It was a lot of work, but we had so much fun cooking together and hanging out, I wouldn't trade that time for anything. I could get to the phone faster than she could, so whenever it rang, I would run to grab it and answer "Nana's House of Sauce," which would make both her and the person on the other end of the line chuckle.

In the middle of the first day, she was asking a lot of questions about my new call, what the congregation was like, and the area I'd be living in, and how much vacation time I got, and then all of sudden she blurted out, "Do you think they'll let you come home to bury me?" I was kind of taken aback, and after a little pause to let the request sink in, I asked, "Nana, is that what you want?" "Yes, I think so. Yes." "Then yes, I will come home to bury you."

Hard to believe she's been gone for a year and a half already. Marathon sauce days are certainly a lot less fun when you're working alone. . .