THE
LAMENTABLE
LASAGNA
As I mentioned earlier, I finished college as a married senior. My husband graduated a couple of years before me, and we were married at the end of my Junior year. We rented an apartment in Yonkers, Westchester, NY, close enough to my Bronx campus that I could walk there. This time I DID walk in the snow/ice/rain etc. We had only one car, and it was my husband’s company vehicle.
We were not a very large senior class in the small women’s Catholic college I attended, but there were about three of us who were married that year. We’d become good friends with one of the other couples who lived a few blocks away, and since we were all going to be there for Christmas Eve, I thought it would be fun for the four of us to be together.
We were not a very large senior class in the small women’s Catholic college I attended, but there were about three of us who were married that year. We’d become good friends with one of the other couples who lived a few blocks away, and since we were all going to be there for Christmas Eve, I thought it would be fun for the four of us to be together.
Menu planning consisted of my picking something that I could make ahead of time and either bake or reheat during “cocktails” before dinner. Appetizers also had to be planned before, too. So, unwrapping a bar of cheese and piling Triscuits on a plate would work as far as being "make ahead of time" for the first "course."
Being Italian, as was the other bride, I decided that lasagna, which I had never made before, would be festive and fit the bill as far as my criteria of “made ahead and baked.”
I called my Mom, who didn’t make lasagna very often and was a TERRIBLE cook, to ask her how to make it.
That was my first mistake.
She began by telling me what to buy at the store: lasagna noodles (no one called it “pasta” then), ricotta cheese, mozzarella, eggs, etc. After double-checking my list, she said, “Make sure you only put the noodles in one at a time because otherwise, they will break.”
I took this literally, so when it came time to prepare it, I put a pot on the stove, brought it to a boil, and placed one noodle into the boiling water. It took about ten minutes for it to cook. I removed it, and put another in, and repeated this exercise for close to three hours when it finally occurred to me that I should use more than one pot!
Being Italian, as was the other bride, I decided that lasagna, which I had never made before, would be festive and fit the bill as far as my criteria of “made ahead and baked.”
I called my Mom, who didn’t make lasagna very often and was a TERRIBLE cook, to ask her how to make it.
That was my first mistake.
She began by telling me what to buy at the store: lasagna noodles (no one called it “pasta” then), ricotta cheese, mozzarella, eggs, etc. After double-checking my list, she said, “Make sure you only put the noodles in one at a time because otherwise, they will break.”
I took this literally, so when it came time to prepare it, I put a pot on the stove, brought it to a boil, and placed one noodle into the boiling water. It took about ten minutes for it to cook. I removed it, and put another in, and repeated this exercise for close to three hours when it finally occurred to me that I should use more than one pot!
I went to bed, thoroughly exhausted, and vowing that it would be a long time before I made lasagna again.
When my Mom called to see how things went with my first try at this quintessential Italian dish, I told her that it was exhausting, and now I understood why people don’t make it very often. She seemed puzzled and asked what I found so difficult about it? So I retold my story of boiling each noodle for ten minutes. She laughed so hard she had to put the phone down to catch her breath. When I asked her what was so funny, she explained to me that her instruction to put only one noodle in at a time meant that I should not just dump the entire box at once because they tended to break apart.
It was a lamentable lasagna.
When my Mom called to see how things went with my first try at this quintessential Italian dish, I told her that it was exhausting, and now I understood why people don’t make it very often. She seemed puzzled and asked what I found so difficult about it? So I retold my story of boiling each noodle for ten minutes. She laughed so hard she had to put the phone down to catch her breath. When I asked her what was so funny, she explained to me that her instruction to put only one noodle in at a time meant that I should not just dump the entire box at once because they tended to break apart.
It was a lamentable lasagna.