Tomato Sauce Johannes Brahms {dedicated to my Solstis School mates}

{Brahms probably would have wanted meatballs but I haven’t eaten a meatball in over forty years}

{This has been modified to correct tomato paste amount which is 4 oz., not 20 oz. or more!}

one medium sized eggplant

½ cup olive oil

¾ cup dry sherry

1 tsp sea salt

1 tsp freshly ground pepper

1 modest handful of dried thyme – gently rubbed off of the stems without powdering too much

6 medium sized cloves of garlic

4 oz. of sun dried tomato paste

Remove eggplant’s purple exterior and dice into small cubes.

In a large deep pan, sautee the vegetable in olive oil at medium to high heat.

Chop and press garlic cloves, deposit into the hot oil and vegetable mixture.

While stirring add sherry, salt, pepper and thyme.

Still stirring, add sun dried tomato paste.

Here is where you have the option of using a regular sized jar of good quality Marinara sauce or adhering to a more stoic path by introducing your own prepared base made from freshly cut and stewed Roma tomatoes. Either way, stir in a good amount of tomatoes in order to expand the mixture into what will now become a sauce. Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally.

Music is always helpful while cooking. You probably know what to use in order to bring joy to your heart and through you into the food while it cooks. While putting this together I listened to Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem Op. 45 which I’ve been grooving on a lot just lately. (Double parental passage has finally given me visceral context for requiems in general). As the sauce neared completion I found myself playing the gentle seventh movement over and over again: blessed are the dead.

http://imslp.org/wiki/Ein_deutsches_Requiem,_Op.45_(Brahms,_Johannes)

But you’re alive, so serve this sauce over pasta which has been cooked just long enough.

It’s also really very nice with grated parmesan cheese over the top of it.

Again, maybe you’ll want and need to incorporate music that is richly meaningful to you as an individual. And you can use red wine instead of sherry. Your call.

arwulf arwulf /theodore grenier/august 2012