Italy In A Pot

"I NEVER MAKE pasta sauce," my sister was saying. She was in Seattle for my birthday, and as usual, our topic of conversation had settled on food.

"I never make pasta sauce, either," I thought, but for entirely different reasons.

My sister is a lawyer in the heart of Washington, D.C. She works long hours. And, for the most part, she stays out of the kitchen. She has plenty of restaurants to choose from whenever she gets hungry.

I, on the other hand, seem to be in the kitchen all the time. We eat a lot of pasta. Sometimes with brown butter and fresh sage. Sometimes with olive oil and grape tomatoes. But what we eat most is a thick, rich, meat sauce — a true Bolognese ragu, though I never make it. Sandro does.

Sandro grew up in Modena, Italy, the home of Ferrari and balsamico (both of which will add zip to your day). My husband and I met Sandro and his wife, Terry, our back-alley neighbors, when they moved in seven years ago. While proximity alone isn't enough to create a good friendship, a good friendship together with proximity can produce a special bond.

It began with a chat in the alley. Then Terry brought over a bowl of cherries from the tree in their backyard. We dropped off a basket of local strawberries. They invited us over for pasta; we asked them back for seafood. Over the years we've celebrated birthdays and shared holidays with good food and flowing conversation.

When Sandro and Terry's son was born, they began to make regular forays back to Modena to see family and friends. Then, two summers ago they moved to Modena for the year. Sandro came back periodically to manage this end of the family business and, we liked to believe, stock our freezer with his specialty, ragu.

When we were too tired to even think about dinner, we'd pull out Sandro's homemade sauce and eat like real Italians. Concerned that we might run out of sauce before his next trip back to Seattle, I asked Sandro to show me how to make it myself. He had given the recipe to me earlier, but after one attempt it was clear I needed to watch exactly how the dish was prepared in order to duplicate it. "This is not like Sandro's ragu," my husband and I had both agreed.

Sandro doesn't use recipes. He simply knows what to do with a cut of beef, a hunk of cheese or pile of tomatoes. How he knows is of no real concern to us, as long as we have the opportunity to sample his creations often.

To be fair, Sandro isn't the only cook in the house. It's Terry who prepares our favorite appetizer, bruschetta. Terry's classic bruschetta of lightly grilled bread brushed with garlic and topped with tomato and basil is simply the best, even better than the many varieties we've had all over Tuscany. My 6-year-old daughter, who won't eat tomatoes any other way, gobbles it up.

The bruschetta also happens to be the perfect starter for Sandro's famed ragu, which he serves over farfalle along with a good sprinkling of freshly grated Parmesan.

While the bruschetta is great, it was the ragu that drew me to Sandro's kitchen for a demonstration. I arrived late, and he had begun to finely chop the vegetables: celery, carrots and onions. He added them to a pot that was slowly heating a mix of olive oil and butter.

Once the vegetables softened, he added the ground beef and pork, stirring the meat and vegetables together quickly, before the meat began to brown. He poured in white wine and continued to mix. The wine loosened the meat, he explained, so the vegetables and meats combined easily.

Next, Sandro added salt and pepper, and only then let the meat begin to cook. After it had browned, he added crushed and pureed tomatoes. The ragu began to simmer. He added a bay leaf, paprika and red pepper flakes. But no oregano.

"People who put oregano in a sauce don't know what they are doing," he said. "It has too strong a flavor. Oregano with pizza, yes, but not in a pasta sauce."

The sauce continued to simmer. After another hour, the kitchen was filled with a heady aroma, and I had a huge pot of thick, rich ragu, which I took home and froze in five containers.

"I don't have to make pasta sauce," I thought, "at least not for a few more weeks."

Tracy Schneider lives and writes in West Seattle. John Lok is a Seattle Times staff photographer.