Seven Years of Bad Meatballs

Let me start out by saying Joe, I'm sorry for poaching your title. But you gotta admit that 1) it's a great title for just about anything; and 2) I actually have accompanying pictures of meatballs, so it's not entirely out of left field. The title comes from some Mad Libs that the kids did this summer; the concept is one that we all seem to be able to identify with.

So, these meatballs are part of the dinner I made for our Thursday night class (Special Halloween Edition); the recipe is Spaghetti with Eyeballs from the "Secret Life of Food" cookbook. Speaking of Joe, I should say this as well: When I make something like this, it generally looks like a well-intentioned craft project, whereas when Joe makes something like this it looks like something you'd actually pay money for. I guess that's why he makes the big bucks.

But I should give this project a little bit of context. Was it made with my full concentration in a spotless, stainless steel professional kitchen? Neee-o, as Luke would say. Here's how it unfolded:

11 am: Shop for groceries, unpack them; stop to nurse the baby. 1 pm: Prepare the salad and the fruit dishes, assemble and pack the paper goods and utensils, eat lunch; stop to nurse the baby. 3 pm: Pick up Luke from school. Supervise Luke and maintain ongoing distractions for Zach while simultaneously preparing three pounds of olive-eyed meatballs and four pounds of spaghetti. Endure whining, fussing, complaining, gnawing of baby who is ready to eat again. 5:15 pm: Finally: Three large pots of water are boiling; three large pans of meatballs are cooking in the oven; but the panic is setting in. We are at T-minus-45 minutes until we are expected on the other side of town with dinner in hand, and Dave is still not home. He has been traveling for two days and his plane was supposed to land more than an hour ago. 5:20 pm: Prop up Zach on the floor while helping Luke get into his policeman costume. 5:25 pm: Dave bursts in, sees us sitting on the floor with the Halloween costumes, and says, "Nice to see you all so relaxed!"

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!

5:50 pm: Dave and I shift into crisis mode when the dinner is all laid out and I decide that we really need another pound of spaghetti. So Dave supervises the spaghetti while I feed Zach, wandering in and out of the room and barking out orders with a baby dangling from my arms, and Luke flops around in his police-man costume whining "When are we going?" 6:25 pm: We finally stumble into class, sweating profusely, with less-than-photogenic meatballs in hand. But you know what? We had a lot of fun, and everyone seemed to appreciate the dinner.

At bedtime, Luke and I always play My Favorite Part of the Day: He tells me his favorite and I tell him mine. When I thought about it tonight, I had to say my favorite part was when we were sticking the olives into the meatballs and getting that giddy little thrill watching them change from lumps of meat into little creatures with personality and character.

And the good thing is that now Dave is home too. No one likes when Dave is away - and this time was especially unfair because he was up in Berkeley breathing cool, clean air while we were all stifling in the heat and hacking and coughing the thick grey air while soot fell on our heads. But here's the thing: When Dave is gone, and Luke and Zach wake up in the morning, we don't have to tiptoe around Dave - we just have the whole bed to roll around and snuggle up in. I love those moments. Next time, however, he is totally taking us with him, especially if we have to contend with natural disasters or googly-eyed meatballs.