Saturday Morning Sauce

I'm still in bed, trying to fight the urge to wake up. The bed is so very warm and it's that time of morning when I could easily slip back to sleep. The rain is beating against the roof here on the second floor of my house.

Then I hear the kitchen cabinets closing, and pots clanking. My Dad was never one for quiet mornings.

I'm still scrunched under the covers in my bed. The pot clanking noise dies down. I can steal a few more minutes of sleep right?

But then there's that familiar smell of olive oil, crumbled sausage and onion. The smell is the waking Siren for my nose. I know what the smell is, and I must wake up and get downstairs so I can lose my head in that glorious pot of perfume.

Dad is making sauce. It is Saturday. It is tradition.

The smell dissipates when he adds the tomatoes, and the sauce bubbles and talks to everyone while it simmers all day on the stove top. There is a loaf of bread on the counter, right next to the range. The family rips of pieces of bread and dunks the bread into the pot of sauce whenever the temptation is too great.

It is so good.

That night we will have spaghetti, or baked ziti, or perhaps chicken parmesan. I miss Saturday Morning Sauce, but I am so thankful for the memory.