Spaghetti and Meatballs, A Pre-Grill Placeholder.

     On Friday, the sun was out and shining strong.   My English class had our lesson outside, and us distance runners on the Track team ran shirtless, even though it wasn't to hot, to celebrate the sunshine.  The rest of the weekend, was not so grand.  Yesterday saw Cyrus marching with the Sellwood Band in a St. Patrick's day parade, the whole time there was a light drizzle.  Today, the sky has been all clouds.  Which we assume is not what the people at the estate sale we visited were hoping for.  It was a little house across the street from Cy's school, and there wasn't much in the house that interested us except for a few old newspapers.  We got two, an Oregonian from May 1, 1945, headlining the Soviet capture of the reichstag, and Mussolini hanging by his ankles, as well as an Oregon Courier-Journal from April 14, 1945, headlining FDR's untimely demise.  The sun just wouldn't come out, and while I wanted to start grilling season very early this year, fate was not on my side.  Luckily I had meatballs as a backup plan.
     The kitchen has been filled with wonderful garlic and onion smells all afternoon, as well as plenty of grandes cajones de carne jokes (though meatballs are actually albóndigas).  Right now, the stove has all four burners going, one for the sauce, one for the pasta and two (for the meat)balls.  The cooking itself is now almost over, between the sauce and the meatballs I was involved for the whole time.  The meatballs have lots of meat, parsley and fennel seeds and mushrooms, the sauce is mostly just tomatoes and onions.

The kale salad recipe.

     The food was good, though not great.  The meatballs were inclined to fall apart on your fork, and they had the same texture as the spaghetti, so while they tasted good, they were hard to eat, and hard to know you were eating.  Mom's kale salad was good, though admittedly I'm not a very big fan.  Mimi absolutely loved it though.  A good meal overall, though not worth it's continuous two hours of prep.