meatballs
lucy was a very easy baby. she was GIANT (one week late) … nearly nine pounds and VERY difficult to get out, but as soon as she started life outside my belly, she was really accommodating. all she did was eat and sleep. since she was super-sized, i think she had a lot of capacity in her own belly. she would stock up on milk and then take epic naps. she didn’t get cramps, she didn’t spit up, she rarely cried and when she woke, she would pop up like a little prairie dog (without the bubonic plague - they are carriers, FYI) and smile. she didn’t get flapped on the TWELVE hour flight when we moved from amsterdam to boulder, she didn’t get bothered when we moved FOUR times during our first two years in boulder, she wasn’t upset about frequently being off-schedule and dragged all around to her brother’s soccer games or swim lessons or playdates. she was pretty amazing. (i know this because theo WASN’T an easy baby - he had loads of gas, he spit up EVERY time he ate, often on me, he refused to nap except when being pushed in the buggy and he cried A LOT… so i felt like i deserved my cooperative lu.)
(prairie dog photo: lindell dillon)
on her second birthday, we went for a ladies lunch at her favorite italian restaurant. lucy ordered her usual: spaghetti and meatballs with panna cotta for dessert. oddly, they were out of meatballs so only the spaghetti arrived for my birthday girl. she looked at her plate in disgust and threw herself into her very first tasmanian devil like fit. she was absolutely beside herself (and VERY loud) so we had to leave the restaurant. she was flipping and flapping around like a freshly caught alaskan salmon… i had to use both hands to hold onto her. the waiter quickly packed up our untouched lunch and followed us out to my car with the to-go boxes. it took some force to get her strapped into her carseat and i was exhausted by the time we got home.
(lucy, the morning of her second birthday)
(lucy, when she realized the meatballs weren’t coming)
“lucy, i think you need a nap and you can have your lunch afterwards.”
“PASTA!” she growled at me (in a voice i had never heard before.)
“all right” i said warily as i settled her into her high chair. she started eating angrily and after about fifteen minutes paused briefly to hiss, “MEATBALLS!”
i couldn’t believe that the 86’ed meatballs had triggered such an enormous, terrifying reaction in her, but their importance to my girl had been made abundantly clear.
about a year later my girlfriend picked lucy up from preschool. she said she smelled something awful when she was packing up lu’s backpack, but thought it was the bathroom at school. however, the odor followed her into her car and finally into her home. she realized that lucy was the culprit. somehow lu had pooped her pants during her nap and none of the teachers had realized it (or chosen not to realize it?) so lucy had not been cleaned up. my superstar friend scrubbed her down, lent her clean clothes from her own daughter and bagged up lucy’s dirties. when she dropped lucy off, she told me the stuff in the bag was not washed… it smelled so fierce that i considered just throwing the whole thing away, except that it contained lucy’s VERY favorite pants. i didn’t know what was worse… facing lucy’s wrath when she couldn’t find those pants or dealing with the poop.
(lucy in her favorite pants)
ultimately, i was more afraid of lucy than the poop, so i carefully emptied the contents of the bag into the washer and put it on EXTRA SANITARY mode, which washes for two and a half hours. i figured that would be enough. two minutes later lucy ran up to me and said, “mama, there’s a MEATBALL in the washing machine!” sure enough, in the window ledge of my washer sat a big ball of FECES!… about the size of a plum. luckily, my washer has a pause mode and i could retrieve the “meatball” and flush it down the toilet. i was so grateful that lu had seen it and it didn’t spend two and a half hours banging all around the inside of my washer! when the cycle finished, i promptly set it again so that everything washed for a total of FIVE hours. lucy was amazed that a meatball magically appeared in our washer and for months the first thing she did every morning was check to see if another one was sitting there.
knowing how much lucy loved her meatballs, we never told her the truth about the one in the washer. many years later, when lucy was seven, the story came up while we were on a road trip and theo and i finally fessed up (while howling in laughter.) lucy was disappointed, but it has not effected her appreciation for a good meatball. radda, the italian restaurant, is no longer there (probably because they didn’t order their food quantities properly) so i started making my own. i make a quadruple batch and freeze them. but i am not above these carando guys from safeway or the ikea meatballs in a pinch! we love pairing them with rao’s vodka sauce.
MINI BACON MEATBALLS (from cuisine at home)
2 strips bacon, diced
1/4 C diced onion
1 clove garlic, minced
1 lb ground beef
1/4 C bread crumbs
2 T minced, fresh parsley
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 egg beaten
cuisine at home says to cook the bacon on the stove top in a skillet. i prefer to put a sheet of tinfoil in a cookie sheet and lay a cooling rack on top. i put the bacon strips perpendicular to the rack and bake them at 350 degrees until they are nice and crispy. this way i don’t get bacon grease splattered all over my range.
keep 1 T of the bacon fat and use that to sauté the onion in a skillet until it is softened. add garlic to skillet and cook another minute. combine beef, chopped bacon, onions, garlic, breadcrumbs, parsely, paprika, salt and pepper in a large bowl. stir in beaten egg.
roll into 1 inch balls and place on the cooling rack (like the bacon.) bake at 400 degrees for about ten minutes until nicely browned outside. i usually cut one open to check the insides. they freeze really well and can be used for spaghetti or stroganoff or served with mashed potatoes. ENJOY (if you are not too put off by the washing machine meatball!)