Some of the most wonderful stories and greatest recipes come from our readers, and we print them in the Sugar and Spice column—our letters page. I’m always on the hunt for family recipes that we can use—it’s to the point where at parties, my standard conversation starter is, “Do you cook?” Some reader recipes we know will be good right off the bat, but some weird-looking ones end up surprising us. Occasionally, we’ll discover that a recipe came from the back of a box—it only takes one generation to turn it into a family recipe, with everyone forgetting where it originally came from.
Between my solicitations, reader letters, and online submissions, we usually have a stack of recipes to work through at any given moment. But you can’t just start cooking from them; since they’re from people who know them very well and have cooked them a million times, there are often steps omitted or odd-sounding measurements. I always begin by giving the person a call to check everything out. It has happened that the letter-writer has died by the time I get in touch—I remember one phone call when both I and the woman I reached were crying by the time we hung up, as I vowed to get her late husband’s recipe into print.
One similar case was a submission from a friend of a friend, Billy Woerner. His grandfather, Angelo “Squatty” Conschignano, a well-loved restaurateur from Long Island, had just passed away, and I wanted to try his recipe for meatballs. I called Billy (who coincidentally works just a few blocks away from our offices in midtown Manhattan) to ask some questions about the ingredients. “I’m making the meatballs tonight!” he said. “Let me bring you some tomorrow.”
I told him that this wouldn’t be necessary, but he insisted, and the next day a quart of meatballs and a quart of sauce arrived at my office. Originally, the plan was to only run the recipe for the meatballs—there was only so much room on the Sugar and Spice page—but everyone in the test kitchen was crazy for the sauce, too, rustic and chunky with tomatoes, bacon, and lots of basil. April is our Italian issue, and so Squatty’s recipes were perfect for the occasion. Though we say that you can use your favorite tomato sauce with the meatballs, I highly recommend trying them with Squatty’s sauce—it’s how Squatty would have wanted it.
Celebrate Squatty’s memory by making his hearty meatballs and slow-cooked sauce.
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