Sauce

The day can get away from you in the way an oyster can slip off your plate, the toothpaste cap can disappear and, forgetting you're not supposed to do it, you send to know for whom the bell tolls.  There it goes, and it's gone in the sense that it's 12 noon and it's not morning anymore, and you can't say why or what has transpired.  Of course, there are things.  Life demands that obligations get met, certain occurrences occur, and damned if you don't have a list of them.  At least two items.  

First, call the guy about the new wheelchair.  You do this.  He, the wheelchair guy, has a website and, in fact, is even part of a national chain.  A store chain, the supply chain, a food chain.  He also has an automated phone system that invites you to, if you know it, enter the party's four digit extension, now.  And if you don't know it, key in the first three letters of his/her surname.  All you want to do is talk to a sales person about an object that retails for, oh, round about $12,000.  Maybe 14K on a bad day, or a good one, depending on your perspective.  I am almost livid by the time I am at the end of this silly telephone interaction.  Oh, this is fine if you are a wholesale supplier of anhydrous ammonia.  Then you probably know your party's three digit extension.  In fact you and your party have probably had a party, agribusiness dollars overflowing the punch bowls, parking valets running every which way.  

But, to return to the point, if you are selling wheelchairs, one at a time, to persons like me....  Of course, you're not.  That is the whole point.  Welcome to California 2009.  What once might have been described as a wheelchair market no longer exists.  The State of California, once a major purchaser of wheelchairs for the many disabled people who are not as lucky as I am to have good insurance, is out of the business of doing much of anything.  Private insurers have been out of the game for years.  And when a new wheelchair costs more than a new small car, there aren't that many Californians in tough times who will shell out their own money for some (small) indoor wheels.  And so a wheelchair company in Santa Clara County, California, may only be in business to the extent that someone occasionally checks the answering machine for messages.

Thus, the first item on the day's agenda.  The next?  Tomatoes, of course.  They keep appearing, which under normal circumstances gladdens the heart.  For the earth is fructifying, there is increase, the land has been touched and coaxed and excited into bloom.  Under normal circumstances.  Which these are not.  Uncharacteristically, I forget about the garden for days at a time.  My landlord waters it, thank God.  And the tomatoes?  Whenever I think about it, and wander out to the raised beds for a look, what I see as stupefying.  Colored globes hanging off of vines.  As though the tomato concept had just been developed, recently proposed and was still in its trial run.

But it's beyond the concept phase, the tomato is, and the vines are beyond description in this globally-warmed Menlo Park summer.  What do I do with the fruit of the vine?  There seems to be only one answer.  I've discounted the others, it seems.  Giving them away.  Throwing them at bad performers.  So I do what any mensch would do.  I make tomato sauce.

How do you make tomato sauce?  A recipe would provide an overview and general systematic approach.  But the sad and soul-wearying truth is that I don't want tomato sauce.  I don't want the substance.  I don't want the process.  I want it all to go away.  But it won't, for I have already included Lorna in this mad plot.  She has picked the tomatoes, pulled up the onions.  And now all the constituent home grown vegetables are cored and sliced and waiting to become sauce.  Really, there isn't much else to say about the process.  You know the drill.  Basil.  Garlic.  Oregano.  Etc.  Cook the stuff, salt and pepper it.  Not much else to say.  Except that I don't even want to do these things.  Adding ingredients, stirring, tasting.  This is where I am.  I do not care.  Which means that the slow-cooker is on for a full 24 hours.  Things cook, then the cool, then they cook again.  And at various points along the way, I give things a stir, add an ingredient here and there.  Generally, my approach is the laziest.  Tomato skins?  They are really easy to fish out of the slow-cooker.  But not easy enough.  I throw everything into the Cuisinart and grind away.  The skins become skin molecules, turning the spaghetti sauce into a strange colloidal suspension.  Seasoning?  This is why God invented the shaker bottle.  I pour in large doses of Italian seasoning.  I let the stuff bubble and bubble, and truly it is all toil and trouble.

In the course of the day, I have lunch with the president of my Jewish congregation.  I am invited to give the Yom Kippur drash, or sermon, to the gathered.  This seems preposterous.  For I'm not in the mood.  Or am I?  What mood is required for a day of reflection and atonement?  Maybe my mood will do.  In any case, this is an honor.  And even if it wasn't an honor, it's a pat on the back, an arm on the shoulder.  So I say yes.  The day pivots on this moment.  Not everyday has such a moment.  Most days just have spaghetti sauce.  I'm glad I have taken this challenge.  I'm even glad I've taken the tomatoes.