Mud Season Meals - Number Two - Twenty Meatballs

Mud Season Meals

Number Two

Twenty Meatballs

            “Mud Season

            Is not a time to be witty

            You know”.

            I know

            “Mud Season;

            May be a little bit glum.

            It’s the weather you know”.

            I know

            “So don’t over do it; whatever it is you are doing;

            Even if it is simply planting your pepper (plant) seeds

            At the kitchen table; by the sunny window.  You know”.

            I know

            “Go on about your business and don’t  be foolish;

            Do something foolish.

            Like counting your meatballs

            And rationing them out:

            ‘ONE for you... and

            ONE for you’ and

            ‘WAIT:  One meatball is

            MISSING!’.

            “Who would take a second MEATBALL

            In mud season?

            Not I.

            You know”.

            I know.

            IF you make twenty meatballs (3 ½ pounds of ‘a dollar off second day’ stickered box store grocery ‘ground beef’) and buy a two pound box of box store grocery brand ‘regular’ (thickness) spaghetti... “I ah”... ‘think the job gets done’ (and is ‘Maine Gourmet’; ‘Maine Fashion’).  IF it is four meatballs eaten a meal that’s five meals with ALL the pasta eaten and... don’t forget (to grate from the one pound block) the ‘cheese’ (so titled in Maine).  That... should not be ‘cheese’.  It should be Reggiano Parmesan... ‘cheese’.  One can get that in Maine now.

            “DIDN’T USED TO BE ABLE TO GET THAT”

            “IN MAINE”.

            “YOU KNOW”.

            I know.

            Can you remember when Maine was like that.

            I do.

            I wore my “BEAN BOOTS” across the yard this morning; I could walk on top of the mud.  It’s been so cold.  They changed the time (Daylight Savings Time) so it's dark again in my morning.  I don’t like that; ‘don’t NEED it’.  I’m tired of ‘swamping’ in the dark; Mud Season in the dark.  We was just getting a little light.  Made it manageable.  Out there on top of the stiff (frozen) mud.  “Yep.” to that.

            I didn’t want to start the truck yet; it’s still too dark.  “Something’s at the birdfeeder” I was told.  “Porcupine” I explained.  Big fat old Porcupine... lives under the shed.  Been climbing all the cedars down off the wet corner of the back pasture.  To get something to eat.

            He’s not getting my meat balls. 

            The meatballs are made of a “light” version of “her meatloaf mix” (add breadcrumbs, onions, garlic, parsley, salt pepper and ‘any old spices’ those being ‘bottled (Worchester Sauce) or dry”.  NOT anything or amount that’s foolish.  Ball ‘em up by hand and set them on a tray (to show them off).  Four rows of five; twenty... meatballs.  Then the fun begins:

            “Fitting them in” the stove top tub of homemade sauce (the ‘canned’ tomatoes are “OURS” from “LAST YEAR”.  “Still HAVE onions down cell-ah”.  Etcetera.  Put the meatballs into the sauce.   Keep putting them in until it gets tight and then fit them in and... start bellowing that they “won’t fit”.  Keep going.  Keep bellowing but don’t do anything stupid.  It is Mud Season.  “LAST TIME THERE WERE ONLY EIGHTEEN (meatballs).”

            “They fit.  These will too.”

            “LAST TIME...”

            “THIS IS THIS TIME.  There are twenty meatballs.

            THEY... WILL... FIT.”

            “Oh...

            Well...:

They

DO fit,

Don’t they,

You know.”

            “I know”.