Long ago, I made a pact with myself, swearing that there was no item important enough in my parents’ house worth fighting over with my siblings. This pact was brought to mind last weekend, when Sibling No. 3 laid claim to Mom’s giant metal roasting pan. I’ll let him have it, but only after a little sighing, because as my brother-in-law says, “Good things come out of that pan.”
This fabled roaster is an heirloom from my maternal grandmother and has been the source of countless delicious roasts, soups, stews, and sauces. My mom jokes that its secret is that it’s made of frowned-upon aluminum, but even if she’s right, we’ll still eat anything that comes out of there. In my opinion, the best meal to emerge from this storied pan is spaghetti and meatballs, of which it must now have seen thousands of iterations. Distant relations and dear friends alike ask for Mom’s recipe, and this past weekend, so did I.
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