Ginger’s main most thing was spaghetti sauce. She would always say that was her best dish. She bought all the ingredients, the little cans of tomatoes, the spices. She would slave over the stove for nothing else but her spaghetti sauce. Other than that, she really couldn’t care about cooking. Salt and pepper were optional ingredients, it was tough to find ketchup in the house, and all paper towels were torn in half, prior to issue.
We had three small kids at the time. All wonderful, rambunctious little girls. Anything that Ginger could do to save on meal prep or cleanup, that was definitely more important. We didn’t even have a dishwasher. She and I spent hours cleaning up. I would wash and she would dry then we would both put away. She would then do all the detail cleaning that had to be done. I wasn’t the best at worrying about that stuff.
For some reason one day, Ginger got caught on the shorts about her spaghetti. She didn’t have the right this, maybe it wasn’t the right that, I’m really not sure. I do remember becoming her confidant that day. She told me a secret. She had augmented her normal recipe. She said, “I had to cheat. I hope the girls aren’t upset. I didn’t have time to make my own sauce. I used Prego. Don’t tell them, they will be so upset.” I promised to help her keep her secret.
She ended up serving us the fake spaghetti. I kept mostly quiet during the meal. The girls went overboard. I mean overboard, the whole time about how awesome Mom’s spaghetti was tonight. Their favorite ever!
Now for family dinners she is famous for breakfast quiche, spinach dip, and she always heads the clean up crew.
